Fire Codes Discussion Part 1

Rob Keeble

Member
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Location
GTA Ontario Canada
Well as part of my prep work for my case i decided what the heck i think I am competent enough to read and understand so why not read and understand the fire code.

I thought i would share my findings for all to see and discuss and think about.

My reasoning is past business experience taught me a serious life lesson, make sure you have read all the documents before you sign. And by all i mean everyone.

I also have come to realize nothing replaces fact and your own take on the facts.

That said i notice there are a variety of opinions on the matter of whether or not our shops fall into the category of requiring compliance with codes whether they be building codes or fire codes or any other code.

Now we all benefit from safety talk and all appreciate the posting of people who have had accidents and survived to tell the story and serve as a constant reminder of how dangerous our tools can be.

So i post here in pdf attachment a copy of the Objectives of our Fire code.View attachment Objectives of fire code.pdf

Yeah i know this varies from one part of the world to the other but the principle remains the same.

When i examine these objectives i find it hard to say " I aint gonna comply with that or i dont wanna comply with that" or any other negative rather than affirmative response.

Why would you want to?

The first 4 main topics in our codes objectives are

1) Safety
2) Fire Safety
3) Safety in Use
4) Health

When i examine the simple wording next to each heading and their sub headings it seems to me any normal sensible person would want to ensure compliance to these objectives regardless of whether you run a business or what ever the premises are.

I find it puzzling that in the case of our code, Farm Buildings are excluded.

If i lived on a farm, far away from all sorts of safety support, I would be wanting to be extra compliant for my own (and that of my family) health and safety not for gov regulatory purposes.

So as a starting point i ask you to consider, we spend money as woodworkers on all sorts, jigs, tools, consumables, books, courses, etc why is it so difficult for us to spend money on something that would ensure our health and safety.

In trying to answer this question myself i guess part of it goes to the heart of what we believe is sensible and practical and likely to happen rather than theoretical which is what tends to happen when we talk dust and the whole concept of dust explosions.

To that end only education will change our beliefs and that is my purpose here.

Consider the following

1) If a dust explosion were likely to take place in our hobby shops, you would most likely be the worst affected person since you would have to be inside it making the dust.
2) If our shops caught on fire as a result of smoldering dust bin igniting, we would most likely be the biggest looser.
3)Even i with a NN like i have would not like to be the cause of harm to my family or my neighbor would you like to cause others harm as a result of fire.


I can only conclude that being of independent mind we do not like rules being imposed upon us by other parties or bodies such as the fire dept.

Take seatbelts. There were seatbelts in cars for many years. Until we became aware of the pros and cons and saw facts related to their performance, we never used to wear them. Now we do it although reluctantly at times despite our knowledge of the odds.

Same could be said of table saw guards or push sticks. Except that in the case of these usually you will only injure yourself. Where as in the case of fire you could cause serious injury to others.

So in the interests of being better educated and informed i intend to work my way through the code and where i find myself of the opinion that it is out of date with more current facts challenge the relevant parties on the subject with the new facts.

Hey there is no harm in debate right.

I hope this provides you with some food for thought and spurs a little debate around the subject.
 
If I worried about every thing that could possibly go wrong, I doubt that I would ever accomplish anything.
I take care that I am doing things the safest way reasonably possible. Do I take risks ? sure who doesn't.
I don't worry that my RO sander is going to turn my basement into a fuel air bomb but i do have fire extinguishers around just in case.
 
Hi Rob,
"Prep work for your case"? Going after the NN?

I agree that the objectives are all good and worthy. But as they say, "the devil is in the details", so it will be interesting to see how they say these objectives should be satisfied. Often it seems that one set of regulations references another (and another) and pretty soon you have quite a stack of regulations to understand.

Charlie
 
I would agree that a general reading of the objectives, one would readily agree they all make sense. As forming a lawful document, they are ambiguous at the root of their intention - "to limit the probability". I would be very wary of what the acceptable limited probability is and whether that limit is set in stone, arbitrarily decided upon by the investigator, or a NN.
 
Rob, I would think that it would be hard to have an general discussion on this topic without running afoul of the CoC's. You will quickly be delving into the forbidden realm of politics. The right of the individual vs the right of the group is the heart of conflict as I see it and many disagree on how it should be interpreted. I think we need to be careful here. You know how feel about it in my PM's to you, but I think that is where it should stay.
 
I agree with Bill. Where I live, there are no fire codes. Even in cities there may not be any restrictions on what a person can do in their private garage or basement shop. To discuss whether that is right or wrong is a potential CoC bomb. :eek:
 
I agree that fire safety is a good thing and that it should be a goal for woodshop owners/users.

But in the last couple related threads, you've brought up the concept of a "dust explosion". It's my understanding that yes, under the right combination of circumstances and conditions, wood dust can and will explode. But meeting those circumstances and conditions is not an easy or likely thing. Has anyone actually seen documented proof of a wood dust explosion happening in a home woodshop?
 
Whoa there cowboys. Can we not discuss something here without getting into falling foul of the Coc.

I aint concerned here with the issues pertaining to rights. More the logic of what the code contained in the preamble.

For one i had never read a fire code before. When you approach it with a degree of calm rational logic rather than as a constitutional case surely if we read a book labeled "Good fire safety practices" as opposed to Fire Code you would think mmmmh this makes a lot of sense or not. :dunno:
 
I find that there is a lot of codes, not just fire that are dreamed up by a suite and tie., that have no real bearing in the real work/living conditions. Like a dust explosion possible yes but you have better chances of getting hit by lightning every Friday for a year than causing one in your shop. :thumb:
But as code writers they have to error on the side of caution.
 
Rob, I agree that codes and such can be discussed without straying into the political minefield.

But I just now read the Objectives you linked to earlier, and for the life of me, I'm not seeing anything of value there. It looks like it was sanctioned and developed by the Department of Redundancy Department, and yet it tells me nothing about fire safety. It's not even a meaningful table of contents for the code book. As a construction inspector in a past life, I've read my share of building and safety codes, and few of them are what I'd call fun or easy reading, but the Objectives document is about as information-free as any I've seen.

This is not a slight directed toward you by any means, just an observation about the document. ;)
 
Wait Vaughn maybe that is my error. I did not want to take up space and debate the whole code book or publish it here.

Just maybe i am so new to this i thought the table outlining the basic objectives had merit to be considered.

Hey maybe some of you have been so close to this stuff and had so many experiences with the enforcers that you have got used to it all.

I think we are all to quick to jump in without contemplating issues.

Take the nn for example. Dont get me wrong here i aint getting soft. But just think of a normal NN without issues. I never gave thought to the aspect of what would be the impact to them in the event of a serious fire in my shop. Dont mean to sound stupid or selfish. But the code objectives of safety made me think about it.

I know this is a touchy subject for you guys in USA cause of all the gov stuff. But consider this. I came here as an immigrant. Never had a deck before, aint something we did (build a deck). Now i aint stupid and could do my own but as a new comer i aint familiar with frost heck it was the thin layer of white stuff on the grass once a year as far as i was concerned.

So i found the guys at the local planning dept very helpful. I made sure to get permits and in my business like fashion I drew up a 10 page contract for my contractor to work to. I sure as heck was not out to get him and did not want the same in reverse. I paid top dollar did not shop him to death and expected a decent job.
I relied on the town inspectors to ensure the job was safe and would be there for a good length of time. They made him put a couple of additional sonotube posts in and when i inquired as to why they pointed out how the overhang i have would collapse in time were it not supported.
The contractor was happy with the input since he had a reputation he wanted to keep and he included the additional posts at his cost. That was part of my contract. Everyone was happy and the deck lives on.

Now there are two ways to approach the issue i have with NN. The one is yeah he is going to get his just deserves. Ok lets put that aside for now so we dont spoil this debate. Its not about him.

My point is about the concept of the code. Lets say there is no enforcing. You are free to do as you please.

The code gives you some practical common sense guidance to consider.

Take my post. I would not want to harm anyone with a hazard in my shop.

Yeah i agree with Chuck the aspect of dust explosions is a stretch at the very least. Probably impossible to achieve cause from what i have read you have to get the exact concentration of dust just right. Too much and it wont explode due to too little oxygen too little and you dont have enough surface area of dust. I reckon one would probably be dead from dust inhalation before you got the experiment to work if you tried it and that without any protection. So in our shops its a non entity.

But take the issue of a smoldering dust bin. That is a safety hazard. I chipped the edge off my jointer blades a while back helping a friend joint a piece of wood which we both thought had no steel in it. Say chip like that at the right heat goes through the ducts and lands in nice bed of dust and smolders. The looser is going to be us first.

Reading Bill Pentz site the bigger issue that concerned me and always has is the aspect of dust inhalation and there although the code gets to that as an objective its not the primary one for the fire code.
As a result in our code the dealing with the aspect of dust inhalation is not addressed. Yet that is the driver that got me to buy a 3hp dust collector and decent filter.

See to me its like having back problems and buying a cheap mattress (cost being put aside) and then expecting the back to be ok in the morning.

Of course when the aspect of enforcement and gov comes into things then liability enters the whole realm.

I am trying to debate the merit of the objectives all that aside.:)
 
"Of course when the aspect of enforcement and gov comes into things then liability enters the whole realm."

Here the code enforcers and the city can not be held liable for anything that goes on in your building or how it was built.
 
the problems with village codes,(if this post is political, delete it), is that most of them were written or updated 30-50 years ago.
My NN filed a complaint against me years ago and forced me to go to village court, where the court dismissed my case and they all knew it was nonsense.(apologized to me for ruining my evening)
Village codes. OUtdated, but to change them all the planets have to align perfectly.
 
...The code gives you some practical common sense guidance to consider...

No argument from me there...I'm sure it does. Much like a building code or electrical code offers common sense guidelines. But the referenced Objectives document offers no such guidelines, and doesn't do anything other than say "this code attempts to limit the probability of something bad happening". Then it lists several commonly-known bad things. There's no data regarding the prevention of these bad things...just that the code will attempt to address them.

I guess my point is that I don't understand what's to debate here. I think most of us agree with the idea of having and adhering to fire and safety codes to some extent or another. But without examples of specific codes, it's hard to get very far into the discussion. In your studying of the codes, have you seen any that were a revelation to you? Those would be good ones to share with the rest of us. Same thing with any codes you've seen that seem overboard. I think any specific codes along either of those lines would be great fodder for discussion. :)
 
It is certainly good practice to conform to codes when they seem practical. However, i have read that the dangers of dust explosions from hobby or small business woodworking is overstated if not almost non existent. I think Bill Pence's web site on dust collecting had a section on that. It has been a hot topic on several woodworking sites in the past.

I think the danger of wood dust lays primarily in the health concerns department.

I am aware of one dust explosion, technically that is what it was. It occurred in a friends sawdust burner 2 years ago. He had a burn back into his auger. When he opened the fire door and started poking at the burning sawdust the pile collapsed and with all the dust created and subsequent fireball, he received severs burns to his upper torso. Mainly to his face and arms. He spent time in the hospital burn unit, and it took the better part of a year for the burns to heal.

So it is possible but you have to consider that the sawdust was already burning. I think with a conventional dust collection system you would have to have a rather hot ignition source for anything bad to happen. I understand that the danger is real in industrial applications., but I don't know what the difference really is compared to us small time operators.

Most shop fires i know of were from improper disposal of rags soaked with BLO or some other finish.

It is certainly wise to keep a fire extingusher or 2 handy.

It is good practice to have your electrical service up to code.

It is a good idea to store your flameable liquids in a fire safe cabinet.
 
I've seen a demonstration similiar to this one. The only difference is the demonstrator had a silver dollar sized pile in his hand that he tossed at the candle. The explosion cloud was easily ten times the size of that in this video and the demonstrator was clearly shocked. He said it was by far the largest explosion he'd obtained.

I've not seen nor heard of an explosion being caused by a spark though. Open flames are definitely a concern of mine though.
 
I'm not sure that I understand all the points being taken here... I think common sense and paying attention to the issues you can encounter in your shop come into play more than codes...

I do know you can have a problem with embers dropping into the sawdust pile under a lathe... I was drilling a pepper mill blank and let my drill bit get too hot, I actually had an ember drop into the pile under the lathe... it began to smolder and smoke.... I could smell the smoke and started looking... I found it and poured a little water on a 3" diameter burn that was smoldering... I learned to watch the drill bit and cool it before I start a real fire.

I also burned a pen blank in half in my microwave.... I started the MW, then went about another task without watching... that one bothered me 'cuz I'd already forgotten that I had wood in the microwave and couldn't find the source of the smoke.

And living in the country here, several of my neighbors use wood fires as heat source, so sometimes there's the smell of smoke in the air anyway... but as a matter of practice, if I smell smoke, I locate the source...

My take on this is use common sense... pay attention to what you are doing for safety reasons and all will be well.
 
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