|
I lived in Honolulu for a few years after I got out of the army in 1970. The first job I had there was inspecting fire extinguishers in high rises and commercial buildings for a fire protection equipment company. The testing procedure for a small dry chemical extinguisher like you have was to turn it upside down and hit it smartly a few times with a rubber mallet. Then you would tap the gauge to make sure the needle quivered, which indicated that it still had pressure. Since most of the equipment I inspected was leased from the company I worked for, it was worth our while to hydro test the tanks when it was time to do so. Whether it would make sense for an individual is a different matter. I could tell you how to recharge your extinguisher (or you could easily figure it out for yourself), but what would be the point? An appropriate fire extinguisher is an extremely valuable piece of safety equipment---more fires in commercial establishments are put out with fire extinguishers than any other way. Having a fire extinguisher that you couldn't be sure would work might be worse in some ways than not having one at all. By the way, by "appropriate" fire extinguisher, I mean one that is right for the type of fire you think is most likely. A CO2 extinguisher, for instance, is great for liquid combustibles and electrical fires, but a poor choice for solid combustibles---it has no quenching capability, and, contrary to what navy enlisted men always used to claim, it doesn't have much cooling capability, either. In the shop of that company I worked for in Honolulu, there were virtually unlimited CO2 extinguishers waiting to be hydro tested, and we had a beer party every Friday after work. We always fired off the CO2 to chill our beer, and it never chilled it very much. On a complete footnote, I was later a bartender at a bar that catered to locals, not tourists, and a lot of locals drank their beer at room temperature, and others drank beer with ice in it. They're different there. Stan
|
