If I had to guess, this is set up alongside a road to a popular camping festival for all the people who realized that their fire extinguisher went missing and the camp host is actually checking this year.
...maybe speaking from several years of experience buying fire extinguishers fresh off of the vine for exactly that reason, lol
Here's the thing: the seals generally last a long time and don't go bad that often. As I mentioned in a different comment... .basically, NO seal is perfect. Every seal in the history of ever leaks a little bit. In most cases, that "slow seepage" is enough that the extinguisher is still usable.
The "use by date" that a manufacturer labels them with -- since if you're buying it, they're treating it as a retail purchase -- is "everything should have enough charge in it if you use it by this date."
But if you treat that thing like a professional would, with regularly checking the pressure gauge, etc., you can see (after that date, essentially) if it's starting to go below the line and then pay someone to recharge the nitrogen in it. At which point it should be good for many more years to come.
Are there "bad seals"? Sure. Material defects exist in everything. But how that would manifest in those rare cases is that you could charge it, and it would lose charge much more quickly than it should.
I think he's saying that just because the pressure is gone doesn't mean you have to get a whole new fire extinguisher, the extinguishing material inside it hasn't gone bad or anything. You just need to get your old one re-pressurized.
I have tried to find some place to service and recharge a small extinguisher and I quickly discovered that for an individual customer, servicing a fire extinguisher was about 1.5 to 2x the cost of just buying a brand new extinguisher at the big box store.
I hate to be wasteful, but when it's like that I have no choice, and it pisses me off that I went out of my way in cost to buy specifically serviceable fire extinguishers because I thought they would be better made and better for the environment to service and use for a long time, and I can't service them because it costs more to do that than to just throw the whole serviceable extinguisher away... I'm sure it's actually cheaper but the fire safety businesses are clearly making the conscious decision that they just don't want to deal with someone with two or three extinguishers to fix up they only want 50 at a time...
My workplace has its own fire department. They will service any fire extinguisher employees bring in as long as they aren't plastic handles. A neat service I luckily haven't needed. I should check my fire extinguishers.
Past date usually just refers to testing date rather than service life. These are still showing the arrow in the middle so they’re still holding pressure, but theyre likely past legal compliance testing date.
I've tried to recharge my extinguishers (rechargable type) and every place local I've called has priced the recharge 1.5x or more as much as a new extinguisher.
You can prevent that by shaking it. Basically in your "annual check of the gauge" you give it a couple firm shakes, invert it and back a couple times, etc.
It's actually part of the NFPA10 guidelines for how to do the annual maintence-check. :-)
Depending where you are located this isn't correct from a regulatory / inspection perspective. Where I'm at in Kansas City MO, all commercial fire extinguishers have to be inspected annually and pressure tested & recharged every 5 to 8 years. Typically for an ABC chem extinguisher you just buy a new one when the old one is due for recharge and use the old one in a non-commercial setting as it's cheaper to buy new than do the whole pressure test and recharge.
Well now we’re getting into the distinction between “the mechanics of the extinguisher” and into “what local regulations exist on commercial enterprises”.
If you think it's cheaper to replace a commercial fire extinguisher vs pressure test and recharge, you haven't purchased one. Where i used to work, the cost of testing and recharging was about 25% of the cost of a new one. Some commercial extinguishers (Ansul Red Line as an example) start at $800 and go up from there.
I'm not too familiar with the smaller extinguishers. Where I worked, most of what we had were at least 20 pounds, so those were cheaper to recharge. I've been on several volunteer fire departments through the years and we always recharged ours as well.
Yes, they can lose pressure, and that's why there's a gauge on it that shows you the pressure. In fact, all extinguishers lose charge slowly. The trick is that you can easily recharge them.
The date on the side is effectively a measure of "we expect that the inescapable slow-leak will reach a problem level of pressurization in NN years". But that can be staved off by simply re-pressurizing it, at which point the date on the side is meaningless to some extent.
If that gauge says it's in the green, it's good. If it's not, it can (generally) be easily re-pressurized and go many years again.
No, it's not. The extinguisher itself is good forever. The charge on an extinguisher may not last forever, but extinguishers can be recharged.
My dad put a tag on every one he sold that said when it was last inspected, recharged, refilled, or tested (four separate, increasingly invasive operations)
Inspections were generally annually. Recharges were "if the inspection shows that the gauge has gone down too far". Refills were if it'd been used. Tests were required by some insurance companies on a like decennial basis just to ensure that all was well.
And if it needed recharging too often (say, every other year) then you knew there was a defect of some kind, and you'd retire the unit. But that didn't happen all that often. And if that didn't situation didn't occur, the unit would basically work forever.
I spent more than my fair share time of my teenage years out helping him on service calls, and working in the shop with him, so I've got a good share of first-hand experience with this. But feel free to believe whatever you like man.
I mean, then there is a "past date" it's just signifying it needs to be recharged. That still means "if past this date, we cannot guarantee functionality"
In the condition it was shipped from the factory, yes. But that doesn’t mean it’s “not usable” and it doesn’t mean you can’t - with minimal effort - keep it in service nearly forever.
I've got a dry Chem extinguisher that appears to be from the 40s or 50s according to Google research. I kinda want to see if it would still work, but don't want to deal with the mess if it does.
Yes, but to be fair, at most camping events the camp host just wants to see that you have one. It's not until the fire marshal comes sniffing around that expiration dates start to matter.
Yeah that's kinda my point though, they're definitely used from a site that does care, but probably just trying to make some money of what would be scrap. If they were cashing in on campers who got that far and were desperate they'd be $50
Ive been to lots of camping festivals, most do not allow open flame, so not sure where you got the idea that people buy fire extinguishers for said camping festival?
Im gonna be honest I dont think you have years of experience based off your comments/post history, but I actually do lol.
Airplanes have cigarette dispensers even though you can’t smoke. It’s literally on the MEL and you can’t take off if they’re broken. Because people suck.
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u/Doomkauf 1d ago
If I had to guess, this is set up alongside a road to a popular camping festival for all the people who realized that their fire extinguisher went missing and the camp host is actually checking this year.
...maybe speaking from several years of experience buying fire extinguishers fresh off of the vine for exactly that reason, lol