http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/08/safer.heater.ap/index.html
Didn’t know they were doing this. And I didn’t realize so many fires were caused by water heaters – 800 a year, according to CNN.
Anybody ever had this happen to you?
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Replies
I've never had the bad luck of this happening, but the stories of explosion from flamable vapors igniting at the WH pilot are numerous. I guess they're more prevalent with WH ignition because of its proximity to the ground and the tendency of vapor to creep along the floor.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
Quittin' Time
except. maybe when we lived in an apt, we've always had gas HW heaters. even as a kid wheb i had to light the heater when i took a shower/bath.
never had a fire.
fire is one of the most terrible ways to go in my mind
time to catch "it"
wonder what it will cost the consumer in total each year?
"The technology prevents the dangerous flashback fires that can result from spilled paint thinner, gasoline or other flammable liquids left near a gas water heater. "
"Nearly 800 residential fires a year are caused by gas water heater ignition of flammable vapors -- resulting in about five deaths and 130 injuries, according to the commission. "
if given a choice i would buy it, but i think i should be given a choice of being reponsible or buying "insurance"
bobl Volo Non Voleo
if given a choice i would buy it, but i think i should be given a choice of being reponsible or buying "insurance"
I would agree with that IF:
1. You can personally guarantee that nobody, now or in the future, could possibly be careless around your water heater.
2. You can somehow isolate your house so that if #1 doesn't work the fire cannot spread to other properties, or endanger any firefighters who might be called.
I hope that doesn't come across as antagonistic, but my point is that these type of safety measures affect not just the individual purchasing the WH, but society as a whole.
knew somebody would jump on me
"You can personally guarantee that nobody, now or in the future..."
how many things can you personally guarantee (used in this context, i take to mean will never happen) in this life?
my guess none, unless you are going to guarentee everyone will die.
according to the article referenced, 5 people die, 130 injured per year if i remeber correctly.
why did it happen? carelessness, stupidity, irresponsibility?
i'm being asked to pay for the actions of a small number of people's irresponsibility etc.
i can be run over by a car today or my car hit by someone else. what is being done to be sure that driver is a safe, responsible driver, vehicle owner?
basicly nothing. I received my drivers liscense in 1963 and have been retested 0 times. my state has even gone to testing eye sight to once every ten years. how many times have you been retested? so to help save lives and injuries let's retest drivers with a real road teat every year. include blood tests for drugs and alcohol. charge say, $20 apiece. also do a complete vehicle going over every year, about $100 apiece. that should save a bunch of lives and injuries every year.
let's now go on to furnaces. do they have similar devices?
should oil tanks be in cellers? (east coast thing?) or next to a house? 250 gallons of flammable fluid. it doesn't give off a spectacular explosion, but how many have died or injuried because this amount of fuel burned? I don't know, bet no one does because it is not spectacular. think a 250 gallons of oil burning won't spread? any fire can spread.
my point. i don't like having to pay for the stupidity of a small number of people.
while it is important for things to be built properly etc, you can't regulate or control stupidity and irresponsibiity. some of these things just give warm fuzzies to people, but i guess that's what poeple wnat. hey, look i don't haver to think! don't have to be responsible, someone else will do that for me.
bobl Volo Non Voleo
"You can personally guarantee that nobody, now or in the future..."
how many things can you personally guarantee (used in this context, i take to mean will never happen) in this life?
In case you didn't realize it, I was being facetious in asking you to guarantee it. Obviously you can't, and that was my point. You wanted to be allowed the choice of whether or not to get a safety device on a new water heater, and my reply was meant to demonstrate that it is not just you that is put at risk. I agree that there are risks associated with living, but I also believe that when those risks can be minimized or eliminated we should do so.
according to the article referenced, 5 people die, 130 injured per year if i remeber correctly.
Yes, but there were 800 fires, which places firemen as well as other individuals at risk. That is 800 fires that potentially could be prevented.
How about building codes? Should you be able to decide for yourself whether or not to follow the codes and assume the responsibility yourself? If so, what happens when you sell the house?
while it is important for things to be built properly etc, you can't regulate or control stupidity and irresponsibiity.
No, but often times you can engineer a safety feature that protects people from the stupidity or irresponsibility on the part of others. Childproof caps on medications were mandated to protect against poisonings, and were extremely successful. Should we have said that people should be smart enough not to allow children access to the medications?
Have to go back to work. Let me know what you think.
everything has a price.
safety can only be taken so far
people must learn to be responsible for themselves.
how many old people didn't take their medication because they couldn't get the caps off? how many may have died or were sicker longer? oh, you can ask for non tamper caps? how about you ask for tamper proof caps?
a five year old child died in an fenced aprtment complex pool last nite. no life guard. where was the mother? guess we'll have to compell all pools to have lifeguards 24/7 and 8 ft fences. or remove all the pools.
yes, things should be done to keep things safe. but at the same time people should be held responsible for their own actions.
how about we outlaw flammable material? that way we can eliminate all fires? oops, can't do that. too much of nature is flammable.
because you can afford to spend money on anything you want to, doesn't mean everyone can. everything that may be mandated for some small probability adds up to someone taking greater risks elseware, in having to choose where their money is spent.
you can't protect against everything and you need to pick the places with the greatest payoffs. including holding people responsible for their own decisions and not expecting big brother to keep them safe. that only gives them a false sense of security.
regarding building codes. there are places in this country that don't have them. at least that's the way i read some of the posts in this forum. but houses are built and sold in those parts of the country (US)bobl Volo Non Voleo
No directly related, but it is interest relately risks.
" 4 If you bought a ticket today for next Saturday's National Lottery there would be less chance of you winning (13.9 million to one) than of your being dead by the time of the draw."
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,6903,992216,00.html
just for refeerence
i believe that things need to be well engineered and built. should be built with saftety in mind and reasonably idiot proof, emphsis on reasonably.bobl Volo Non Voleo
Plumbing code around here requires gas HWH be installed 18' above the floor located in an attached garage or area that may be used for storage purposes. Still doesn't idiot proof them. Manufactures are just taking this one step futher with the flame arrestor concept.
I happen to agree with you.
Now lets get to the developemen't of "fat arrestors" for the fast food industry. There is a concept the insurance companies will fund, and the lawyers will hate.
Dave
i believe that things need to be well engineered and built. should be built with saftety in mind and reasonably idiot proof, emphsis on reasonably.
So whose definition of reasonably do we use? I personally think the modification we are talking about is reasonable, and apparently so does the WH industry since if I remember the article correctly, this is a voluntary standard that they have agreed to. I realize that there was no discussion of cost, which would certainly affect whether it is reasonable or not.
My problem with this whole discussion is that when you talk about persons taking responsibility for themselves, often they are not the ones to suffer. If a grandparent didn't choose a childproof cap for a deadly medicine they are the ones who are irresponsible, but the toddler is the one who is dead. By the same token, if I live next to you, and you choose to store paint thinner by your water heater, you are the irresponsible party. But that same fire could spread to my house and kill my family. I don't think that people are not responsible for their actions, but I also know that there are a lot of people who don't think about the consequences of their actions, and I don't want myself or others to suffer when there are ways to avoid it. By the way, child proof caps are one of the true success stories. Yes, they are not 100% effective, and yes, there may be rare instances of them preventing someone from getting their medicine but taken as a whole they have been very successful in saving lives. We don't see near as many poisonings as we used to.
"If a grandparent didn't choose a childproof cap for a deadly medicine they are the ones who are irresponsible, but the toddler is the one who is dead."
so is it a safe interpretation that it is better for the grandparent to die, unable to get their medicine?
where are the parents? didn't they know what their kid is doing?
won't argue that tamper proof caps have helped reduce poisonings. but why are they the default?
guess one thing we will never agree on is that I don't believe society is responsible for careless, stupid, or irresponsible people. you apparently do. while there are things i can easily accept, that concept is not one of them.
bobl Volo Non Voleo
where are the parents? didn't they know what their kid is doing?
I'll try once more, and then we'll just have to agree to disagree. By your statement, the parents are being irresponsible in this circumstance, which could be true or not. But the point is, the toddler is still the innocent, and is the one who suffers. We don't put childproof caps on bottles to protect the adults, we put them on to protect the children.
"so is it a safe interpretation that it is better for the grandparent to die, unable to get their medicine?"
i think you're correct. we will have to disagree.bobl Volo Non Voleo
i vote for the safety device. Its probably a cheap screen wire thingy that cost the manufacturer next to nothing. Like the screen wire flame arrestor on an inboard boat engine carb.
Just a bit of trivia: from 1985 to 1995 a person in the US was at least four times more likely to be killed by a pop machine than by a shark...
The average for that shark deaths was 0.6 per year where as that for people being killed with pop machines was 2.4 per year (the term "at least" was used because pop machine deaths were probably under reported whereas shark deaths are pretty exact.) Yet how many people are totally freaked out about sharks but have no fear of pop machines...
guess one thing we will never agree on is that I don't believe society is responsible for careless, stupid, or irresponsible people. you apparently do. while there are things i can easily accept, that concept is not one of them.
Sorry, but one last point. I'm not saying that society is responsible for careless ... people, but as a member of society I believe that I have the right and responsibility to use society to protect me and others from the stupid acts of others.
This particular issue seems to be pretty straight forward.
The reality is waterheaters already contain many safety features built in the gas control valve, T&P valves, or sensors to make sure the fan is running when the burner is on. These are built into the product. They are not understood by most users. Many homeowners or renters don't even know if their water heater is gas or electric. Some can't tell you where their water heater is. Many have no idea that storing paint thinner in the same room as the water heater is a bad idea. Despite the big warning labels on the heater itself, which almost nobody reads.
This is what is sometimes called a hidden danger. Kind of like a tablesaw: it's obvious that the spinning blade is dangerous. The danger of electrocution isn't as obvious, but it's still real. It's protected against by mostly hidden safety features (ground wire, circuit breaker, wire nuts, insulated motor, wire, ect.).
I think it's entirely reasonable to manufacture in safegaurds to protect against reasonable hidden dangers. Of course we can go overboard and require doubling the cost of a product to protect against something that has happened once or twice; or even worse to protect against theoretical hazards (well, this could happen); or worst of all to protect against hazards that only exist if the user deliberately defeats all safety equipment.
I think that at some point we won't use gas in residences at all, since it is inherently flammable and therefore dangerous. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote. Ben Franklin
I wonder how this danger compares to water heater explosions? Any idea how many per year?
Having seen enough people store paint ect. in the same closet with the water heater, seems like a really good idea to me. Just can't put my finger on the cost this would add. Be interesting to see how they do this. My take on how I'd approach the design: First you'd need a sealed combustion chamber. Then you add a 1 way explosion resistant valve. This lets air in, but not out. Bad vapors get in, and there's a small poof as they explode (probably extinguishing the pilot light), but not if the burner's on, so now you add a poof sensor, that senses the increased combustion chamber pressure and shuts off the gas just in case. But, you still need to access the chamber to light the pilot light, can't make this too difficult, or people will simply leave off the access cover which defeats all the new safety features. So you add something that keeps the heater from operating with the cover off (a stupid people switch).
Wonder if it wouldn't be nearly as effective to simply require all gas water heaters to be put on an 18" pedestal (instead of just those in the garage). Great for new construction, but expensive if the plumbing has to be reworked when replacing an existing water heater. Ah, the tradeoffs of design.<G>
Ok, now ignore my ramblings, and see how Bradford White did this.
"The agency said the new safety design applies to 30, 40 and 50 gallon heaters. "
guess these are the most common sizes. interesting it is not for all water heaters.bobl Volo Non Voleo
Now that I think about it, why couldn't they make the water heaters so the combustion air is drawn in 18"+ off the floor?
Seems like that would accomplish more or less the same thing.........Forty-two percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Well, it's code in garages, and would stop all but the most serious situations. If you've got enough gas fumes that they're collecting over 18" deep, you're likely to have one heck of an explosion. Still, someone who stores flammables in a small closet with the water heater, and knocks something off the shelf. . . . fumes could get that high pretty quick in a small space. This is obviously gonna be more effective then simply raising the height of the water heater.
I'm still curious what this adds to the heater cost. Though I'm sure it'll soon be required on all new water heaters, so I guess we'll all find out.
I found it interesting how they dealt with some of the design challenges I thought of. Piezo electric ignition with a viewing window, clever. I also never thought of using a spark arrestor, also clever and simpler then what I was thinking.
Facts & Figures*
http://www.nfpa.org/Research/NFPAFactSheets/HomeFire/HomeFire.asp
bobl Volo Non Voleo