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How often do you actually use your fire extinguisher?
Hopefully
never. So how do you know it'll function in an
emergency? Oh,
sure, there's a pressure gauge—but are you really
willing to trust
your home and the lives of your children to some
cheap
imported piece of junk? Won't you feel
like a dope
when you go
to grab the extinguisher, and find that the contents
had leaked
slowly over the years, but a rusty valve spring had
prevented
the gauge from indicating that fact?
Really, the only way to be sure is to have a look
inside. We
could make the extinguisher transparent, but it
wouldn't be
obvious exactly what a full extinguisher was
supposed to look
like as opposed to an empty one. Instead, we make
the
extinguisher *translucent*, like an egg. And much
like the
process of “candling” an egg, we can shine a bright
light
through the extinguisher to check its contents.
At the base of the extinguisher is a built-in
lantern. When
switched on, the light shines through the
extinguisher. A
molded plastic reference window near the bottom
(designed to
have similar optical properties to a properly charged
extinguisher) indicates the color your extinguisher
should be. If
your extinguisher isn't the right color, throw it away
and buy a
new one.
It's better than letting your kids die in a fire caused
by some
idiot forgetting to put out a candle.
[link]
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Most fire extinguishers are designed to be re-charged after a
discharge. I would consider a leak to be a slow discharge. If you
discover that, then repairing the thing that leaked, and getting a full re-
charge, should be cheaper than buying a new one. |
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All very well, but it would probably be easier just to check the weight. |
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Ah, but this is self-contained. I don't have a single scale in
my house suitable for weighing a fire extinguisher to the
degree of accuracy necessary to determine whether it's full
or not. It's too heavy for my kitchen scale, and my
bathroom scale isn't accurate enough. The beauty of this
idea is that no scale is necessary. |
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+ This would be great for me. I have 2 fire
extinguishers, yet have never used one in my life.
Now that you've mentioned this, I think I should go
get some new ones. Thanks. |
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