Good Afternoon, Just a quick question about highly and extremely flammable liquids, as a company we have always housed these products in a flamm / Coshh cabinet and displayed dummy cans for sale. As part of a winter promotion we have started stocking De-icer which is extremely flammable, the supplier is unable / unwilling to supply dummy cans. However I keep getting showered with the same question from shop staff at different depots asking how come the big nationals have can after can of the stuff on general sale stacked to the roof but I am making our staff work within a tight control regime. Also to be fair everytime I have been fire inspected their message has been the same i.e. ensure it is secured and controlled. Is there a loophole I am missing ??

Hi Fosterspanner, Welcome to my world, you have my heart felt sympathies. There is no end of confusion, misinformation and misunderstanding surrounding this and I'm still not satisfied I've got to the bottom of it myself. The clearest direction you will get will be from your insurers (never copy the big nationals blindly assuming they must be doing it correctly, they rarely are). Dummy cans were traditionally used to prevent people stealing product for abuse (glue/propelant sniffing etc) because the law surrounding this is worded slightly differently to the normal age banned sales. People then began to assume there was some connection with fire safety. If you sell straight from the shelf have you considered only putting out enough for one day's sales? Put it somewhere readily visible (this helps to deter arson and is generally considered a good idea with promotional stock) ;-)

WOW! Sounds like we are in a similar business. Are you sure somebody hadn't done something to upset the FSO? We stock too much expanding foam to even fit in our flam cabinets but we've never had that much grief? (for those about to comment, we treat the whole warehouse as an area of high fire risk)

how quickly could you clear the building?

Showroom / salesfloor or warehouse with trade counter?

Doesn't make any sense. Can't see why you'd get an IP for that alone.

Fosterspanner, I doubt you have any more sway with your buying department than I do with mine but Chris's point is a valid one and the non-aerosol de-icer is nearly always a more effective product as well (and doesn't loose pressure 'cause the cans gotten cold in the boot of the car over night).

Fosterspanner. Always treat the Shop area seperately from the warehouse /storage area. Enforcing authorities always get excited about storage. In the shop, yes think of Halfords, Decorator centres, B&Q, even Boots. Rows of flammables in cans, bottles, & aerosols. Trick here is to have only enough on display for sales purposes of the day or a few days. Keep rest away in storage. Only a problem when there is Loss of Containment (LOC). Have spill emergency kit & procedures. Control smoking and ignition sources and awareness training for staff on flammables. Then stock it on the shelves. I Asume you have a Fire RA & alarm. BW Peter