Engine room fire extinguisher

What do you have for a "built in automatic fire extinguisher" in your engine room. My insurance requires me to have one. The current unit is halon. Curious what others have.

Ted

Kidde CO2.

Kiddie Fyrewatch. Uses one of the new 'environmentally sensitive' chemicals. Now if my engine room is on fire I won't pollute by extinguishing it.

I don't recall any requirement to replace Halon extinguishers. You just won't be able to get them refilled for any reasonable price. I thought they were accepted until used. I do have a halon extinguisher in my salon/galley/lower steering station/3rd stateroom and successive surveyors and the insurance co. have never mentioned it.

Curiously, an 'automatic' fire extinguisher was required in my engine room many years ago despite having two manual extinguishers right at the hatch. Next survey, they required a 'manual' release of the 'automatic' fire extinguisher.

I know, I know. It just seems asinine.

Aircraft extinguishers are all still halon. You could always lurk around an airport and find out who refills their bottles. I've got two of them in my engine room.

Halon refilled and serviced in the Dominican Republic

Halon. Checked (mostly) annually.


-Chris

Installed a Fireboy MA2 automatic/manual system in the engine room last year. Alarms at both upper and lower stations. Manual pull at lower station. Fireboy evidently uses HFC-227ea as a replacement for Halon. (MA2 Fire Extinguisher - Fireboy-Xintex),

Which reminds me, I need to have an annual check done on the tank contents.

Fireboy Halon - biggest one I could fit in place

The PO had fitted a halon Fireboy, and also had several halon handheld units on the boat. I had them serviced without any trouble (at a place north of Seattle, in Lynnwood I think).

But then I checked and discovered that import of halon into Australia was banned. Sure, commercial aircraft and military had exemptions. I could apply for an import permit, but only if my halon system was permanently mounted and 2 or 3 screws per unit wouldn't qualify! Besides, the import permit was in itself several thousand dollars. Priced so that it was cheaper to replace than try and import halon.

So I sold the halon units to various local folks and upgraded to the HFC -227 (or whatever) Fireboy automatic system. I added a helm shutoff control for known false alarms and incorporated auto engine and ER blower shutoffs if the Fireboy auto starts and there is a fire. No point in sucking the fire retardant out of the ER if it is needed there.

I have one of Insquent's old halon units.

I have a Halon Fireboy. Surveyor said to keep it as nothing else is as effective. He said you can't service them but you can weight them to see if they are still charged. I have a large CO2 extinguisher at the entrance to the engine room that also doubles as the galley extinguisher.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

Fireboy MA2 automatic/manual system. First serious upgrade I made to the boat. As well as the antique original Halon system. Upgraded due to the obsolescence of the Halon system - manufacturer long since out of business - disarmed the scary control system - if it works, it will be via the bi-metal link at the bottle head and be additive to the MA2.

I followed the Fireboy guidance for sizing the system, then doubled everything. I do not have WT compartments, so I assumed that much of the suppressant volume would be lost (dissipated) through the bilge. I suspect that many systems out there are undersized because people forget that most plastic boats, while having "engine rooms", don't have the ability to effectively isolate the space. Not sure my X2 approach is actually enough. Hope I don't ever have to find out.

Interestingly, I bought the system from a "Taiwan Trawler" parts outfit in SoCal at about 50% of the Fireboy-Xintex quote through its dealers. Guess they had an extra and I got lucky, but another case where serious research paid off.

BTW - it is/was a new system with 100% factory warrantee - verified through F-X before purchase.

JDCAVE said:

I have a Halon Fireboy. Surveyor said to keep it as nothing else is as effective. He said you can't service them but you can weight them to see if they are still charged. I have a large CO2 extinguisher at the entrance to the engine room that also doubles as the galley extinguisher.


Jim
Sent from my iPad using Trawler Forum

Click to expand...

Jim - you can get them serviced at Evergreen in Lynnwood, WA. Not all that far from you if you really do want yours serviced. They did my Fireboy and a number of halon handhelds. They have a small stock of halon to do it.

Can you give me the contact info for your fireboy system? I'm about to install one and really need to double up on the Cu.Ft. also, but need to get cost down...

Thanks,

Jim

My insurance company just sent me a self survey to be completed before next years insurance renewal.

They seem hot on installed extinguishers even though in the past, diesel boats were not usually reauired to have them.

So the fraternity may grow in coming years.

If you tend to think like I do that if some is good more is better, don't apply that thinking to Halon or it's replacements.

Until Halon came along CO2 was the standard flooding type extinguishant. It works great in an engine room. It even stops the engine for you. The problem is that if you are in the engine room when it goes off it will kill you. It will not just sufacate you, it will poison you.

Halon and it's replacements are better than CO2 because they are effective at concentrations that won't kill a human. That's why bigger is not better with Halon and the like. If you put too much in to a closed space it can kill you like CO2 does. Follow the sizing recommendations of the manufacturer. This ain't anchors your dealing with where everybody goes a size bigger.