Technical Hot Rod, literally.

I'm off work today, but I seen the fire tones had dropped for a garage fire. Not long after, my fire chief, who is also a car guy, sent me this picture. Just a reminder guys, be mindful of the heat source in your garage with cold weather coming on.

 

Ouch! that sucks. About twenty years ago a guy a few blocks from me had his classic Caddy go up in flames because of electrical issues. If that wasn't bad enough he had an attached garage and the fire took the house with it.

 

@scotty t recently sent me pictures of one of his buddy's garage that burnt. Lost a couple of really nice cars. He sent me a text with the pictures, telling me to be careful when I'm working in the shop. It wouldn't take much to lose everything ya got in there.

 

Absolutely. And a good, adequate sized fire extinguisher is invaluable. I heat my shop with a pot belly stove. I use wood and lump coal. I always shut down my draft on the stove and wait around about a half hour before I lock up. I use the same practice when I weld. I always wait a while before I walk out. And gasoline cans go in the other building lol, guess I've worked way too many garage fires.

 

He said if he’d had another extinguisher he might’ve got it knocked down. During clean up we found another one…

 

Crazy as it sounds, when I build my new shop, it's getting sprinklers. Way too much time and money invested in this shit to see it gone in a second.

 

Another good time to remind everyone about proper care/disposal of oily, greasy, solvent soaked rags. Spontaneous combustion is real! A friend of mine had a fire related to linseed oil and teak oil soaked rags piled up. You really can’t be too careful.

 

Good advice, thanks.

 

And speaking of fires, what about all these Lithium batteries exploding/burning. Mine are in a metal filing cabinet but not sure that's good enough. Suggestions??????

 

Have a friend on a different hot rod board that lost his garage and two fairly rare classic cars because a power drill battery charger caught on fire. He put the battery on the charger around 8pm, then went into the house. We was woke up around 1am with the garage fully engulfed. Total loss.

How many of us put those batteries on the charger the night before if we want to use them 1st thing in the morning? Just don't do it!

 

That's so sad to see. I might have a different opinion if my house or shop would ever catch fire, but I've always felt I would want it to absolutely burn to the ground with just ashes and a concrete slab or foundation left. The thought of cleaning up after a mess like pictured seems horrible. After all, it's like looking at a corpse....the life is gone.

Lynn

 

There I great advice.

 

Biggest thing is check you home owners insurance policy. Most do not cover project vehicles so if the vehicle isn't insured on its own you get nothing for it I the event of a fire.

 

yup , hot permit . Welding , grinding , torches . A lot of my customers will require a “ fire watch “ while I’m doing any of the above a second person just to keep an eye out for anything . Been lucky only burnt a couple shirts and blew up a garbage can I sprayed brakecleen in to clean rotors before I torched something .

could of been way worse

Get rid of them !! Had a small 8” x 6 “ lithium battery pack short out in the shop out of a walkie and the thing blew up and off for about an hour like a pack of M80 fireworks !!!!! Stunk the shop to high hell emptied about 5 , 5lbs extinguishers into it and it went out for 20 minutes and then started up again.

read stuff online they say teslas and the like require 20x the water that a regular car fire requires .

they say a ABC extinguisher is “ ok”

they recommend a D extinguisher we have 4 in the shop as we sell a lot of lithium forklifts with big lithium batteries ( roughly 300 lbs of lithium )

and still the fire dept says really the only thing that works is a crap ton of water for a long time .

Environmentally friendly ????

anyways we deal with a lot of fire and flamible stuff in our hobby and take a lot of it for granted simply due to the fact we use it daily . Don’t be scared , but be cautious and responsible .

 

Sad to see.
Good thread as a reminder for all of us to take the precautions we all are aware of, but over time may become a little too relaxed/comfortable.

 

Similar to magnesium. I've never been on a tesla fire yet. But we have been trained the same thing. Clear the area, and cool with copious amounts of water. Could require up to 20,000 gallons of water! For a car fire! Fuck them cars! But magnesium wheels and parts inside of a garage on fire, make for a challenge. Dirt works really well.

 

I have a customer who runs a scrap aluminum foundry .

I was surprised to find out a lot of mower decks are made out of magnesium and are easily confused with aluminum.

so they get mower decks in and stack the magnesium ones in a spot then resell them to another foundry .

anyways someone made the mistake and picked up the pile of magnesium decks and dropped them in one of the furnaces !!!!!

the floor manager said it was glowing brighter then the sun …… shut the door and the gas on the furnace and let it burn itself out for 3 days !!!

let the furnace cool , repaired and re-bricked it and carried on .


The magnesium gets stored in a sepperate room since that incident

 

Having someone act as a "fire watch" if you're working in a confined space is a really good idea, also. I've worked in places that were so tight that I've set myself on fire and the other guy put it out before I could get out of the workspace.

 

I went out to do some “work” on Nochop yesterday. Went to open up the valve on my space heater, hmmm odd it’s still open…..hmm my almost full tank is empty….gawd, what a dumb ass

 

many moons ago my buddy was cutting something with a torch in a shop a few of us shared. lucky for us the shop was 25% for car stuff and 75% for partying. 3 or 4 beers later someone smells smoke and there was a box of junk on fire inside his car. this was 40 years ago, I don't think we even had a fire extinguisher.... we probably poured beer on it.
it was a building with like 10 units and late at night, I'm sure it would have burned the whole building to the ground had we left to party somewhere else. GOOD TIMES!!

 

Just got off the phone with the battalion chief that's on duty today, he said the woman was burning something outside, brush or leaves i assume, but it got in the grass and burnt to the shed that was built onto the side of the garage, then it just took off. This property lies way out in the county, about 15 minutes from the closest station, so there isn't much chance of saving anything at that point.

 

That’s why I only charge mine while I’m out there. I have forgot them a time or two and left them all night, but that’s the exception. My tool chest has outlets on the side, I put the charger on top of it so I will see it when I go to lock the boxes up before I go in the house.

 

Storage/placement of batteries is another one.
I was once working in a small boat yard bringing a long press blade used for folding Ali boat hull components, unbeknown to me the owner had batteries stored behind a pile of Ali offcuts and while grinding I showered sparks over the offcuts and the batteries exploded causing a chain reaction.
That was a real learning curve about batteries and sparks,not good!

 

Thanks for the reminder, Lloyd.

I'm getting ready to be busy in the garage this winter and I need to buy a new fire extinguisher. Or two. I emptied the last one on the leaking Ford Ranger gas tank that caught fire last summer.

That was fun. You guys should have seen me running back and forth from the burning truck in the yard to the water hose, back to the truck, uh-oh that ain't gonna work, back to the garage, where's the fkn fire extinguisher?!?, there it is, back to the truck, WAIT do I want to get close to a burning gas tank?, NO but here we go anyway...
Got the fire out.
I didn't blow up.
But after three heart attacks, that much exertion and stress...
S.O.B.

So if you guys see any activity on my build threads, you can ask me if I replaced my extinguisher yet or not.

 

I have a fire proof safe that I don't use any more. After reading this, and remembering a guy on Moparts who lost his garage to a charger fire, I think its going out to the shop. I'll make a little hole for a cord, and it will be the charging cabinet.

 

I have cameras that also monitor the heat and cold temps and alert me if they are in dangerous zones. I need one for the inside of my garage too.
Amazon Blink. Look them up.
Lithium batteries. I’ve been terrible about leaving them
Plugged in. I’m smarter than that.

 

A guy in the next town flips out over some woman and starts setting fires around the area. Got my friends garage when he wasn't home. 36 three window and 32 three window gone. What's a guy to do? They did catch him but no word on what's going to happen to him.

 

Also, check your insurance policy- as mentioned above cars stored in external garages tend to not be covered although the other contents generally are, under your house contents coverage.
Any outbuilding not connected to the house by a permanent structure other than a fence (think walkway etc) will only be covered to a small percentage of the total value of the property.
Outbuilding structure generally requires a separate policy.

Don't let your agent tell you otherwise either.

Ask me how I know.