Water Fire Extinguishers - Inexpensive and Multipurpose

The traditional and well known water fire extinguisher is a common sight these days for a number of good reasons.

There are a couple of kinds of water fire extinguisher however they pretty much all extinguish fires by removing the same aspect of the fire triangle, heat.

The high specific heat capacity of water will make it a great agent for extracting or transferring heat.

That’s the primary reason it is utilised in numerous cooling and heating systems, in organizations, equipment, households and cars or trucks.

This excellent quality also causes it to be an excellent option for the removal of heat from a fire so that you can extinguish it rapidly.

Air Pressurized Water Units

As the name signifies, air pressurized water (APW) units make use of pressurized air to drive the extinguishing agent (water in this instance) to the fire.

APW units are comparatively low cost and after the fire has become extinguished water is comparatively simple to clean up.

In many cases almost all of the water has possibly dried out already making the tidy up effort a whole lot easier.

Water fire extinguishers are almost always coloured solid red as this is the colour code for water.

Water Misting Units

Another variation on the water fire extinguisher uses a fine spray as opposed to a jet of water.

They normally use a fine mister nozzle to break down the flow of water to make certain that it’s no longer able to conducting electricity to the operator.

The de-ionized water is quite safe and doesn’t contaminate it’s environment. This will make it ideal for utilization in hospital wards.

This type of water fire extinguisher is also colored red in the European Union but in America they are frequently white-colored.

Additives Found in Water Units

Wetting agents are often utilized in water extinguishers. Most are detergent based and tend to be employed to separate the surface tension on the water.

This assists water to penetrate the organic substance (paper, timber or cloth for instance) which is on fire.

Antifreeze is typically added to the water. This is certainly valuable when you use water based extinguishers in really cold conditions.

Antifreeze will bring down the freezing point of the water to allow it to be useful for a longer time in frigid parts of the world.

Using the antifreeze will not have detectable adverse effects on the extinguishing abilities either.

Water units are most efficient on Class A fires.

We need to keep in mind that water units of any variety should not be applied to live electric powered apparatus simply because this can be extremely dangerous.

If you're searching for fire extinguisher servicing, refilling, products or simply more free advice, please visit: Water Fire Extinguishers