Actually for real commercial grade extinguishers take a rubber mallet and give it a couple decent wacks to the bottom while holding at a 45deg angle, then shake. That's what our contracted extinguisher company did once a year. Not many people will shake once a month. I do it when I replace the smoke detector batteries.

 

So you wack the smoke detector or the batteries?

 

Also..."thump" the extinguisher firmly on hard ground or floor just before use.

 

This is apparently a myth.

http://www.amerex-fire.com/resources/common-myths/

Myth #1: Stored Pressure Extinguishers Compact the Dry Chemical
http://www.amerex-fire.com/upl/down...downloads/library/01-stored-pressure-extinguishers-compact-the-dry-chemical.pdf

Myth #33: You need to turn the extinguisher upside down and hit it with a rubber mallet to fluff the chemical during annual maintenance.
http://www.amerex-fire.com/upl/down...xtinguisher-upside-down-and-hit-it-with-a-rubber-mallet-to-fluff-the-chemic.pdf

 

Some manufactures say shake and some say its not necessary. I'm shaking

 

Can I test my fire extinguisher with just a little squirt?
Or will it latch open and run down to empty?

 

It won't simply latch open - you can definitely start and stop the bursts while you are fighting a fire, but I think that once the dry chemical has been discharged even a little, it is no longer a good seal and so might not be able to maintain pressure (but we're probably talking slow leak, not explosive). The dry chemical is mildly corrosive, so you don't want it to be hanging around "in the works" of the extinguisher for too long. You really should get the extinguisher serviced and refilled as soon as possible after any discharge, no matter how minor.

 

Kiddee has a huge recall. So while on the topic, check to see if yours is impacted. Most plastic trigger ones are.

 

Good reminder. I spent several hours last week looking for all of those numbers the kiddie website wanted for each extinguisher. Was a challenge to find the model #s on the drop down menu - finally used the * a lot in the search box to finally get my models to show, the real model #s on the extinguishers didn't show up until I used the wildcard *. I have 5 of them. Supposed to get a 'replace it yourself' part for each one in a month or so.

 

I moved recently, so asked a volunteer fireman what to do with older (15 years) fire extinguishers. I didn't know if they were still good, should be recharged, or what. He told me to discharge them, toss them, and get new ones. I had 4. When I discharged, two had nothing in them, another had maybe 3 seconds worth and the other about 5 seconds worth. Two of them said they were full. None of them would have been much good in a fire.

 

It also leaves some of the powder on the valve seat, which will cause a slow loss of pressure.

 

I shake the one I carry in my truck. I figure all the vibration and bouncing might cause the powder to compact. The ones at home or in the garage I just check the gauge.

While we're talking fire safety my state has gone to required 10 year sealed (disposable) smoke detectors. No more replacing batteries every year, if it's got a battery it now has to be a 10 year disposable type detector. Also hard wired smoke detectors can't be more than 10 years old.

 

While we're talking fire safety my state has gone to required 10 year sealed (disposable) smoke detectors. No more replacing batteries every year, if it's got a battery it now has to be a 10 year disposable type detector. Also hard wired smoke detectors can't be more than 10 years old.

I purchased about 8 of the optical First Alert smoke detectors for different areas and rooms of our house when we bought it in 2013. When winter came, I found that some of them were going off even with new batteries. It always seemed to happen at 2 or 3am, and really annoying because it's difficult to hear where the chirps are coming from, especially with multiple detectors sprinkled around the place. And the chirps would stop when the heat went on. I discovered that alkaline batteries can suffer from lower voltage when they get colder, which is apparently why smoke detectors always seem to chirp in the middle of the night - that's when the house is generally the coldest. So I changed over from regular Duracell 9v to Lithium (you can buy them in "contractor packs" on Amazon), since lithium batteries don't tend to be as affected by temperature. Since then, we have had zero low battery chirps from any of our detectors, and moreover it's been a few years now without having to replace any batteries. At this point I'm kind of curious how long they'll last... I think we're on year 4 now. I would have been happy with just a year or two without chirps, so at this point anything is gravy. I know they're working, because the little lights are blinking and the one in our kitchen goes off with regularity whenever we burn something.

 

The only time I ever heard of compacted FE's was in a boating safety class eons ago.
Supposedly the pounding of the waves against the hull would do it ..made sense at the time.

 

Mine are old school Halon so I guess I am safe.

 

If interested, a recent edition of NFPA 10, Standard for Portable Fire Extinguishers will answer most questions about extinguisher selection and maintenance.

 

It was easier to go to Kidde's website and punch in the serial number and dates. They'll tell you if that unit is bad when the computer runs the numbers. My two car extinguishers are bad, too bad the old-ass one in the garage was fine It would have been swell to get a new one for free.

 

Good for a Chinese Fire Drill. maybe
It's a shame how a once trusted name has become garbage due to the penny-pinchers. I wouldn't take a Kidde product today for FREE.
BTW this problem dated back to 2015, from what I read on google.