Has anybody given any thought as to how to supress a fire in their solar shed/closet? I cant believe that normal fire sprinklers could be a good thing in a room filled with electronics?
Fire Supression
- Thread starter Craig
- Start date
Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
I just have a proper classed fire extinguisher by the entry door. But I do have a separate powerhouse building, so it won't risk my house. I'm not sure if there is a "packaged" small scale fire system that could be used. I used to work in large computer complexes and secured server & comms rooms and back in the day they had HALON which is now illegal (damned dangerous stuff if your on the wrong side of the door) and as far as I know nothing similar has come about. When they got replaced, a chemical system went into place (can't imagine what fun that would be, post fire cleanup wise).
Above having been said, I was a "Car Nut" and did many restorations, show cars and even custom race cars (1/4 milers). In two instances, built in fire control systems were added to the engine compartments. These systems are good for gas/oil/electrical fire and do work for their intended uses. I'm certain they could be adapted for use with a bit of creativity. Have a look and see if any of these could be applied to your use case.
https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/fire-suppression-systems I used Summit as my goto for many car things but I'm sure this type of gear can be located elsewhere and "maybe" for less, I don't know. BTW: When these do go off, it IS a major mess to clean up, ohh lordie ! (always leave the safety pin in place, shit happens)
Hope it helps.
Steve
Above having been said, I was a "Car Nut" and did many restorations, show cars and even custom race cars (1/4 milers). In two instances, built in fire control systems were added to the engine compartments. These systems are good for gas/oil/electrical fire and do work for their intended uses. I'm certain they could be adapted for use with a bit of creativity. Have a look and see if any of these could be applied to your use case.
https://www.summitracing.com/search/part-type/fire-suppression-systems I used Summit as my goto for many car things but I'm sure this type of gear can be located elsewhere and "maybe" for less, I don't know. BTW: When these do go off, it IS a major mess to clean up, ohh lordie ! (always leave the safety pin in place, shit happens)
Hope it helps.
Steve
Interestingly, pure water is a terrible conductor, it's the ions in water i.e. from dissolved minerals and gasses, that allow conduction. You could dip your laptop in pure (i.e. distilled/de-ionised) water and all that would happen is that it would run cooler! Same with oil, actually - I think GreatScott (YouTuber) tested running a Raspberry PI in oil and distilled water to see which one ran cooler; I think the oil won.
But aside from constructing a pure water sprinkler system, most people just use dry power or CO2 extinguishers!
Maast
Compulsive Tinkerer
I'm planning on one of these 10lb ceiling mount extinguisher, this example is from https://www.usaindustrialsupply.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=34036 but I've found others that are less expensive.
nosys70
Solar Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2020
- Messages
- 839
usually all extinguisher are efficient enough, but is usually you choose the one the leaves the less damage.
if you damp all your electronics, usually you can throw it in the waste basket the few weeks after.
acide smoke , water and copper doe not make a good mix.
even heavy smoke leaving residue on devices is considered like total damage.
if you damp all your electronics, usually you can throw it in the waste basket the few weeks after.
acide smoke , water and copper doe not make a good mix.
even heavy smoke leaving residue on devices is considered like total damage.
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Maast
Compulsive Tinkerer
For this you're going to need a "clean agent" gaseous fire extinguisher that uses FM-200™ (HFC-227) or F13 (?I think)
They put out the fire without additional damage to electronics. The example I gave above is actually a bad one - it's a dry chem and will make one hell of a mess.
They put out the fire without additional damage to electronics. The example I gave above is actually a bad one - it's a dry chem and will make one hell of a mess.
Heavy gauge metal boxes or cabinets placed away from combustibles as you would place a woodstove is practical. I like and have a co2 fire extinguisher which will work for most any materials onsite. We have abc chemical based for last resort..... for obvious reasons. Toxic and ruinous to everything.
If you deprive the fire of oxygen, is best and easier to do (repeatedly?) in a confined space. I dont know how much sand it would take for a house battery, but that would be a good measure. It could be housed in a gang tool box or jobsite box and packed in sand or refractory material with a dumpload of sand for an emergency cover.
If you deprive the fire of oxygen, is best and easier to do (repeatedly?) in a confined space. I dont know how much sand it would take for a house battery, but that would be a good measure. It could be housed in a gang tool box or jobsite box and packed in sand or refractory material with a dumpload of sand for an emergency cover.
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Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
LFP unlike NMC etc doe NOT catch fire, won't explode and are quite different in a fire situation than the others, including how to deal with them should there be a building / equipment fire. Generalising ALL Lithium * whatevers as the same is ridiculous. Be reasonable, be safe, be smart.
mrdavvv
Solar Enthusiast
- Joined
- Jan 14, 2020
- Messages
- 404
Also need to consider someway of knowing when your setup is burning.
I had some smoke sensors connected to the alarm system, wich can let us know by the siren or trough a phone APP, all conected by 3G in case the internet is burned first.
Also planning in introducing some Zigbee / zWave sensors connected to my homeassistant setup, so i have an additional layer of redundancy, in addition of the CCTV monitoring that could be usefull in case of false alarms.
I had some smoke sensors connected to the alarm system, wich can let us know by the siren or trough a phone APP, all conected by 3G in case the internet is burned first.
Also planning in introducing some Zigbee / zWave sensors connected to my homeassistant setup, so i have an additional layer of redundancy, in addition of the CCTV monitoring that could be usefull in case of false alarms.
I guess I got what I asked for. Fire extinguisher is a good Idea. My system is 1000 miles away from my home so I was thinking more on lines of an automatic system so if something goes wrong when I'm unit there I'm not burning Forrest down
JeepHammer
Solar Wizard
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2019
- Messages
- 1,149
My original battery disconnect was for low battery strings, but I added fire suppression after a near fire, rodent crossed terminals and cooked to jerky.
A big battery can outlive a fire extinguisher, so the idea was to disconnect the battery from everything but the fire supression, or use a lock open valve on the fire extinguisher once triggered.
Why I didn't think of the heat (thermal fuse) triggered extinguisher like @Masst showed, I don't know...
That's about perfect, no power required and it will dump contents once triggered.
*IF* it's an electrical fire, he battery is still connected and everything is powered up,
I went for the disconnect to shut down all loads (except fire supression) to stop the cause.
I started in a shipping container, so bugs got in, cooked on terminals and made smoke but no fire.
Soldering and whatever work would set off the smoke detector...
So I screwed a termistor (NO temp switch) to the side of a 9V smoke detector, and ran the signal (beeper) positive wire in series through the smoke alarm signal, the two have to agree there is a fire to trigger the battery disconnect.
If the two agree, the signal shuts down the battery and panel feeds, and trigger the fire supression.
The low battery beep dumped a Halon fire extinguisher, *IF* I'd had a temp switch in that circuit, I'd still have that big Halon fire extinguisher...
A big battery can outlive a fire extinguisher, so the idea was to disconnect the battery from everything but the fire supression, or use a lock open valve on the fire extinguisher once triggered.
Why I didn't think of the heat (thermal fuse) triggered extinguisher like @Masst showed, I don't know...
That's about perfect, no power required and it will dump contents once triggered.
*IF* it's an electrical fire, he battery is still connected and everything is powered up,
I went for the disconnect to shut down all loads (except fire supression) to stop the cause.
I started in a shipping container, so bugs got in, cooked on terminals and made smoke but no fire.
Soldering and whatever work would set off the smoke detector...
So I screwed a termistor (NO temp switch) to the side of a 9V smoke detector, and ran the signal (beeper) positive wire in series through the smoke alarm signal, the two have to agree there is a fire to trigger the battery disconnect.
If the two agree, the signal shuts down the battery and panel feeds, and trigger the fire supression.
The low battery beep dumped a Halon fire extinguisher, *IF* I'd had a temp switch in that circuit, I'd still have that big Halon fire extinguisher...
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