Halon Replacements???

[tritonofnor]

A thank you...

to the kind person who just disposed of a Halon automatic extinguisher in our marina skip. It has a year to run on the date and looks just right in my engine room! I previously had just a hole in the wheelhouse sole to squirt dry powder from one of the four extinguishers I carry down, but now feel safer. If it has to go off I'll argue about the legality later! BTW if you mount dry powder extinguishers in the horizontal plane they hold pressure and don't compact the powder any where near as quickly as they do when mounted vertically. LIDL quite often have good deals on 1kg dry powder which always maintain pressure on the guage when mounted in this way right up to the expiry date.

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[Medskipper]

Yes, I have to admit I don't check dates that often, but on my dry powder extinguishers I have guages which show a needle in red or green and I often check to see if they are still in the green area!

Not sure how good the guages are? maybe someone here will know the answer or has experience of how reliable these guages can be?

My engine room Halon ones don't have a guage, just a glass tube at the top with liquid in them.

Barry


<hr width=100% size=1>I just want to retire with my boat to the Med!

 

[gonfishing]

Fire safety / Practice

Hi Barry
I applaud the fact that you admit to not having used an extinguisher in anger but have tried one "just to see"I have been in the past an instructor at a fire fighting school and it was frightening to see how many Adults panicked and dropped / threw the extinguisher away when triggered, because of the noise/ force of discharge,When I bought my current boat it had several out of date extinguishers on board 1 of which I gave to the young crew to "play " with to get used to pulling the pin and hearing the WHOOOOOOsh sound when triggerd, then I set up a small fire and they used the remaining extinguishers to practice, putting the fire out, strictly supervisedof course with all due care to safety taken, it is something I thoroughly recommend all owners with young children do.Hopefully it will be an exercise that will not be enacted in real life.

Julian

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[DaiB]

I work on large crude oil tankers. The engine room on the ship I am on at present has a fixed halon system which is ok for the ships life or until its used, all four tons of it. Seems like common sense to me to keep it until its used but don't produce any more of it. As normal different rules for different people with the pleasure boaties getting shafted.

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[Robin]

British Registered Vessels

Under Part 1 registration are supposed are they not to have the same rights as those of the QM2 aren't they? Therefore as a British Registered Vessel I shall keep my engine room (!) extinguisher unil it is used or the 'ship' is retired!

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[BrendanS]

Re: British Registered Vessels

part 1 does not affect maritime laws and legislation and regulations. Many regs are completely different for different types and sizes of vessel. After all, there are no regulations which say how many lookouts you need on a yacht, whilst there are on commercial vessels

<hr width=100% size=1>There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family."

 

[Robin]

Shame that

Please pretend you didn't tell me!

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[BrendanS]

Re: Shame that

Tell you what? If I told you anything, I've already forgotten! /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>There is no such thing as "fun for the whole family."

 

[Medskipper]

Four tons of the stuff! what are we worrying about then with our puny little Halon extinguishers! Perhaps if they let that lot off we might get warmer weather!!

Thanks for that, I think there are a lot of boat owners here that feel they will just keep the old stuff for a while longer!!

Barry


<hr width=100% size=1>I just want to retire with my boat to the Med!

 

[Bejasus]

Dunno about yours, but ours had to change their engine room Halon in December, prior to Jan 1st. They went to CO2 which I don't agree with on 2 counts.
1. They had to build a special room to house the CO2 as 3 times the volume of Halon required.
2. CO2 does not support life, so you do not want to be in the engine room when it fires off.
FM200 on the other hand, only requires 2 times the volume of Halon, and it supports life.

Halon continues in use in aircraft and military applications, possibly some others.
Thing that puzzles me is, how many time do you fire off a Halon extinguisher anyhow?

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[Gludy]

FM200 requires 50% more of itself than Halon andis non-toxic - it does support life as you put it - its actually used by asthmatics to inhale.



<hr width=100% size=1>Paul

 

[Scubadoo]

I've just replaced my Halon and quite amazed with some of the guys attiude in not taking any action because of the price and feel they will be covered by their insurance! To me that is taking a risk especially when some you have boats probably more than £100,000 - if the insurance company don't pay, your gonna feel pretty stupid worrying about a few hundred quid or slightly me.

I phone GJW and expalined about the Halon situation and they told me that it must be replaced and they recommend to companies. It would seem some of you got different advice - so can you really afford to take risk.

It was really down to FM200 or FirePro, in the end FirePro was the best solution for me. It is lighter than my orginal Halon, so instead of going for FM200 and adding another 2KG, I went for 0.9KG (Firepro). Also Firepro is 100% safe for you engine, 100% for humans and has a fuse wire that detect fire sooner i.e. rather than waiting for the fire to reach the bulb. I have a fuse wire that runs the width of my engine, and the unit is the size of a Tin can and it has a 15year gurantee.

If your interested have a look at http://www.marinefiresafety.co.uk/ - not the best web site but they are very helpful. They are also very busy installing many of these units in boats!

Hope that helps.

RM.





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[DaiB]

Re: British Registered Vessels

Ships I am on are either Pamama or Liberia, don't know what Brit register is doing about Halon, same as rest I would guess. Seems to me its a bit like the situation with TBT antifoulings, big ships have to stop using it this year, seems like light years ago they stopped us using it.

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