Fire Prevention

A nice piece of inexpensive equipment which may be helpful is TemperatureGuard made by Microtechnologies Inc. You can set it to let you know if the temperature goes outside a certain range. If it does, the device is hooked up to a phone line and it calls you.

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Originally Posted by PitOnTheProwl

Dont know IF you have ever had to use one before??
In a small room like most of our reptile rooms are, they will remove almost all of the oxygen out of the room. Also I dont know how safe the dry chemicals would be, I know they will irritate my skin (sadly I dont have any allergies either)

I know its a hard idea with me saying bad idea BUT you could save all of your hardware but might kill everything living.:confused:

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By no means am I an expert on fire extinguishers, but I did a few minutes of research before writing this response. The most common types of fire extinguishers fight fires by restricting access to oxygen by coating burning objects with a fire retardant foam or powder. When it breaks down at high enough temperatures, carbon dioxide is released which displaces the oxygen around a fire. These are non-toxic, but are often mildly corrosive and can irritate the skin.

Personally, I'd rather take the chance of causing mild irritation to my snakes than let them burn to death. Also, if you catch the fire quickly enough you may be able to prevent it from getting out of control and burning your house down.

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Originally Posted by AtlasStrike

Fire extinguishers do remove much of the oxygen, but reptiles have much lower metabolic rates than humans or other mammals. Snakes at least are capable of surviving with very little oxygen for quite a while, then they bounce back just fine. I can't vouch for the chemicals, but O2 content shouldn't be an issue, especially considering how much oxygen a FIRE removes from the air.

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I agree with you. Because of a snake's slow metabolism, I believe they could survive a limited amount of time without air while you're fighting a fire. I've seen a snake hold its breath in its water bowl for 5 minutes, and a friend told me he's seen one completely submerged for 30 minutes.

I'm only speaking from personal experience from what I have used and seen.
We had a fire in a 3 car garage, one of the guys was welding up a new cross member.
I saw it and was heading that way with a bucket of water but one of the guys beat me with a 25lb extinguisher. When he lit it off the whole shop turned white quick, it was rather funny.
It did put the fire out quick but my lungs were burning for a couple days after that and I wanst in there more than 45-60 seconds.
We spent weeks finding that stuff everywhere:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:
Even had to pay to detail a customers car that was on the other side of the shop.

Dave thanks!
I'm glad someone knew what that technology was called I've been looking for it for a bit now. The guy who I was taking to about it couldn't remember what it was called. Well be installing this in our new house when we get one for sure!


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

I have been on the end of a dry chemical extinguisher it isn't fun but I also have been in a space that sprinklers went off in and that isn't either. The best is not to need either and check for faults before fire starts. Inspection, fail safes, GFIs.

The other thing I though of is not to use lamp cord with flexwatt it simply is not made to take the loads that flexwatt can draw. I use heater cord it is easier to work with and has much higher ratings.

I have seen old tech info from Calorique that stated flexwatt should not be run for prolong periods at over 95ºF I don't know if that still applies or not. But I personally have always followed that and never set it higher.

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

The best is not to need either and check for faults before fire starts. Inspection, fail safes, GFIs.

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This is true............how many people are actually around when "the fire" started?? Usually none:confused:

I used to have a monitored fire alarm in my building but it was constantly false alarming. Had techs out multiple times and couldn't figure it out. They thought it might be getting dust in it from when I change out bedding (aspen dust goes everywhere) but not once when it false alarmed was it dusty at all. It was wireless and I thought the signal was somehow getting blocked but they said once it was detected, it should be fine from then on. We checked batteries, everything. I have a wireless burglar alarm on the door and that works fine but the fire alarm was constantly malfunctioning. Any ideas? I feel I need to do something to have it monitored but I could just not have this thing malfunctioning all the time. Sometimes it would go months and then just randomly go off.

I can't tell you anything about burglar alarms but the ecozone controller has provisions for email/text messaging for over and under temp alarms. Plus the most features on any of the proportional controllers (and costly)

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Originally Posted by AZmorphedballs

Actually sprinkler systems use a rather small amount of water usually 10-20 gpm's per sprinkler head, compared to 250 gpm's once the fire department arrives. But I do agree that adding a few holes lower in the tubs to prevent them from completely filling up definitely wouldn't hurt.

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10 to 20 gallons per min per head figure a small room 8 foot by 12 foot has at least 3 (my 8x12 office actually has 4) so 30-60 gallons in one minute seems like a lot of water to me. Unless my math is failing me in ten minutes that is almost 12 inches of water on my office floor if it stayed in there. :O

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

10 to 20 gallons per min per head figure a small room 8 foot by 12 foot has at least 3 (my 8x12 office actually has 4) so 30-60 gallons in one minute seems like a lot of water to me. Unless my math is failing me in ten minutes that is almost 12 inches of water on my office floor if it stayed in there. :O

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I don't want to start a huge arguement with regards to this but a small room
8x12, 10x10, 10x12 should only need a single springler head. Especially if we are talking residential such as if you were using a spare bedroom as your snake room.
Also the sprinkler head rating based on a light fire load is .1 gpm per square foot, So a 10x12 room would only need a 12 gpm sprinkler head.