Fire in UK apartment building supposedly caused by oldrefrigerator that exploded

[Yansi]

Wow.. that really is eerie.

//the quote begins more precisely at 45:26

[cdev]

This is the problem with so called "procurement reform". Everything is built to either be the cheapest possible, or to waste the absolute most amount of money.

Now imagine how difficult it is going to be to get ANY accountability when the firm who built your whatever (your engineering firm) or hospital or university administration is on the other side of the world!

Welcome to global pillage.

[stj]

This is the problem with so called "procurement reform". Everything is built to either be the cheapest possible, or to waste the absolute most amount of money.

actually it's both, the difference going to connected middlemen.
a good example was the so-called "Boris bus" (not english? use a search engine!)
they spent 2.5million on a god-damned 1:1 scale model made of wood!!!
a custom-shop or coach-builder could have made half a dozen real ones for that!!

[cdev]

The idea behind procurement deals like the GPA and trade in services deals like the GATS is that qualified corporations from all around the world get a right to bid and perform the work, if they win. Lowering wages and spreading the profits around so that huge multinational firms get access to markets that previously were done by local business or governments with local firms.

Thats the main benefit of the agreements. On services that basically means an incremental but nonobvious process leading to the end of domestic schemes that act as a monopoly on things like healthcare, education, housing etc. and a return of market based forces, without the jobs that existed then, (like cottage industry, etc) although some services may remain subsidized until the market can work itself out, and during that period, people may need to travel for some services to afford them.

Its intent is in no small part to push wages down to global norms. (only subsidized services are subject to these rules.)  For an idea of what the ideals ("best practices" are by industry check out the OECD's Services Trade Restrictiveness Index.; (STRI)

 Completely free services not delivered in competition with any private entity in any way, are exempt. Water is deemed a commercial service as long as its sold. Air might not be, unless its sold.  The main idea is that governments shouldn't be competing with corporations, devaluing the prices of essentials (which are deemed naturally high if the services are life saving, low if not important) stealing the food off their plates, as it were.

More money always has to buy more, and less less, as thats deemed the natural state of things. Otherwise, what would be the point of being rich! Think of the changes as a global alliance between the haves to make sure that have-ing remains the exclusive club its become, forever.

Democracy is still okay in areas that don't involve anything of economic value.

The hierarchies of global economic governance institutions is graphed out here:

http://www.levyinstitute.org/conferences/minsky2011/presentations/Wallach.pdf

Note that this only applies to things which are paid money for, and all laws affecting trade in goods or services. Areas like cultural issues, (natnl. holidays, battles between various flavors of oligarchy, electoral politics, (although dont expect politicians to ever tell the truth on the power they have given away)  "gay marriage" firearms, abortions, etc. military and national security, etc, are generally exempted from these rules and people and elected leaders still govern them in the old way. Often pretending to disagree to make it seem less bizarre that they never accomplish anything positive)

High value services and their provision and all government "measures" (any law, policy, rule, act or non-act, or endijng of action of entities down to the local level as well as those of quasi governmental bodies - a great many areas)  "affecting" trade in services are heavily impacted. Financial services are the most impacted.

Thats where the biggest changes are happening.The corporations basically control the world now, and not figuratively, I mean actually control.

[Avacee]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40632705
http://www.itv.com/goodmorningbritain/news/top-five-headlines-youre-going-home-to-18-july   (Item 3)
http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/threads/2013-grenfell-power-surge.122026/

For info: Media reports are emerging about power surges in Grenfell Tower back in 2013 and naturally the media are trying to create a link by getting an expert to say "Power Surges can start fires in refrigerators."

[Monkeh]

Power surges can start fires in anything. Whether they did or not is another issue entirely.

[Gyro]

It looks like another muddying of the waters. Just guessing, but I would have thought that there would have to be an internal leak of the flammable refrigerant to make a fridge actually explode (Edit: assuming that's what it really did).

[Zero999]

It looks like another muddying of the waters. Just guessing, but I would have thought that there would actually have to be an internal leak of the flamable refrigerant to make a fridge actually explode.

Refrigerants are designed to have a very low flammability. The most flammable refrigerant commonly used is HFO-1234yf and that requires a lot of heat to get it to burn. I don't believe it's common in domestic fridges though: it's more common in newer cars, as it doesn't deplete the ozone layer or have a great affect on climate change as the older refrigerants.

[Monkeh]

It looks like another muddying of the waters. Just guessing, but I would have thought that there would actually have to be an internal leak of the flamable refrigerant to make a fridge actually explode.

Refrigerants are designed to have a very low flammability. The most flammable refrigerant commonly used is HFO-1234yf and that requires a lot of heat to get it to burn. I don't believe it's common in domestic fridges though: it's more common in newer cars, as it doesn't deplete the ozone layer or have a great affect on climate change as the older refrigerants.

Common in domestic fridges is R-600a. Also known as isobutane. I'll let you figure out the flammability..

[Zero999]

It looks like another muddying of the waters. Just guessing, but I would have thought that there would actually have to be an internal leak of the flamable refrigerant to make a fridge actually explode.

Refrigerants are designed to have a very low flammability. The most flammable refrigerant commonly used is HFO-1234yf and that requires a lot of heat to get it to burn. I don't believe it's common in domestic fridges though: it's more common in newer cars, as it doesn't deplete the ozone layer or have a great affect on climate change as the older refrigerants.

Common in domestic fridges is R-600a. Also known as isobutane. I'll let you figure out the flammability..

I didn't know that. It's retarded to use something that flammable! It should be banned!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobutane#Refrigerant_use

[stj]

should have stuck with freon,
instead of demonising it to cover the fact that the u.s. satanic dickhead government had blown a hole in the ozone layer with high-altitude nuke "testing"
i put that in quotes, because how many have to go bang before you decide it works? personally 3 out of 3 would do me, not hundreds!!

[cdev]

The firemen thought they had successfully put out the apartment fire due to the refrigerator but the refrigerator had been near a window and (this is what I read weeks ago) something re-ignited. Probably because the fumes from the melted superheated plastic were flammable.

[stj]

that sounds like BS to me.

[Zero999]

It's not BS. The fire fighters extinguished the initial fire, in the first apartment, but unknown to them, the cladding on the outside of the building had already ignited and spread the fire round the corner of the block where they couldn't see.

[Avacee]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40645205

Tests show the cladding was 14 times over the combustibility limit (ie released 14 times more heat than allowed) and contained the equivalent energy of 51 tons of pinewood.
With the airgap between the building and cladding its no wonder the cladding burnt so well.

According to data released by French authorities, and seen by the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme, the cladding would have released 43.2 MJ/kg of heat.
The European A2 standard for "limited combustibility" is three MJ/kg.

An estimated 18 tonnes of insulation foam and eight tonnes of cladding panels were attached to the tower, analysis of planning documents by the University of Leeds suggests.
The energy released when all these combustible materials burned would have been equivalent to around 51 tonnes of pinewood wrapped around the building in two thin 12mm sheets, separated by a 50mm gap with holes cut out for windows, it says.

[langwadt]

It looks like another muddying of the waters. Just guessing, but I would have thought that there would actually have to be an internal leak of the flamable refrigerant to make a fridge actually explode.

Refrigerants are designed to have a very low flammability. The most flammable refrigerant commonly used is HFO-1234yf and that requires a lot of heat to get it to burn. I don't believe it's common in domestic fridges though: it's more common in newer cars, as it doesn't deplete the ozone layer or have a great affect on climate change as the older refrigerants.

Common in domestic fridges is R-600a. Also known as isobutane. I'll let you figure out the flammability..

I didn't know that. It's retarded to use something that flammable! It should be banned!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isobutane#Refrigerant_use

There's not much gas in a refrigerator, probably no more than can of gas for  refilling lighters etc.

[Yansi]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

[Cerebus]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

Just looked at the manual for my 345 litre (12 and a bit cubic feet) capacity fridge/freezer, which comes in two versions according to market. For the version that uses R600a (isobutane) it has a charge of 65g, for the version that uses R134a (Tetrafluoroethane) it uses 155g. I have a can of "Clipper" butane for refilling lighters, its content is 170g (that's 300ml by volume).

So, it's not "way more than a single can", it's less than 1/2 a can.

[Zero999]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

Just looked at the manual for my 345 litre (12 and a bit cubic feet) capacity fridge/freezer, which comes in two versions according to market. For the version that uses R600a (isobutane) it has a charge of 65g, for the version that uses R134a (Tetrafluoroethane) it uses 155g. I have a can of "Clipper" butane for refilling lighters, its content is 170g (that's 300ml by volume).

So, it's not "way more than a single can", it's less than 1/2 a can.

But your can of lighter fluid isn't supposed to be used around electrical switches and relays, where there will be arcing. If you read the can you'll probably find it advises keeping in a cool place, away from sources of ignition and only use it in a well ventilated area.

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

[BradC]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

Refrigerant limits are designed to ensure the lower flammability limits (LFL) are not reached in any practical room size in the event of a catastrophic discharge.

You will find the implementation of hydrocarbon refrigerants have had two effects.

A) The insistence on charge sizes small enough to ensure a discharge is below explosive levels has triggered a mass of research into more efficient evaporators and condensers which manage a lower refrigerant mass to prevent a refrigerant fueled explosion.

B) The resulting efficiency increase in both HC and HFC refrigeration units.

The charge level in your average fridge is *way* below what is required to provide an explosive (and even mostly flammable) environment in your average kitchen space.

HC appliances also have strict regulation around switches and arcing, so you can strike that off your hysteria list while you're there.

[BradC]

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

No, there really aren't. If there were, they'd be in use. Have you actually looked at the combustion byproducts of *any* of the "mildly" flammable flourinated refrigerants?

[timb]

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

There really aren't, though! R600a is a *really* good refrigerant! You know, I actually considered converting my last car from R134a to propane to help boost the output of the AC. (In the end, I didn't. Though it's pretty easy to do and is becoming popular in with some car models that have undersized AC systems.)

[Zero999]

The charge level in your average fridge is *way* below what is required to provide an explosive (and even mostly flammable) environment in your average kitchen space.

But explosions due to isobutane domestic fridges have happened before.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/howaboutthat/6120297/Exploding-fridges-ozone-friendly-gas-theory-for-mystery-blasts.html

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

No, there really aren't. If there were, they'd be in use. Have you actually looked at the combustion byproducts of *any* of the "mildly" flammable flourinated refrigerants?

Yes, the combustion by-products of all halogenated refrigerants are highly toxic but they don't readily burn and by the time they do, there are far worse things to worry about.

[Cerebus]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

Just looked at the manual for my 345 litre (12 and a bit cubic feet) capacity fridge/freezer, which comes in two versions according to market. For the version that uses R600a (isobutane) it has a charge of 65g, for the version that uses R134a (Tetrafluoroethane) it uses 155g. I have a can of "Clipper" butane for refilling lighters, its content is 170g (that's 300ml by volume).

So, it's not "way more than a single can", it's less than 1/2 a can.

But your can of lighter fluid isn't supposed to be used around electrical switches and relays, where there will be arcing. If you read the can you'll probably find it advises keeping in a cool place, away from sources of ignition and only use it in a well ventilated area.

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

And what's that got to do with me clarifying how much refrigerant is actually used? 

[Cerebus]

There will be way more than a single can. Look at the name plate of the fridge. Should be right there. Refrigerant type including charge weight.

There are plenty of perfectly good non-flammable refrigerants which don't deplete the ozone layer, so it makes sense to use them over a dangerous flammable gas.

There really aren't, though! R600a is a *really* good refrigerant! So good that I seriously considered converting my last car from R134a to R600a (isobutane) to help boost the output of the AC. (In the end, I didn't. Though it's pretty easy to do and is becoming popular in with some car models that have undersized AC systems.)

You've got your quotes really FSCK'd up there Tim.

Someone will be along in a minute to tell you that using R600a will turn your car into a bomb (nicely ignoring the 100 litres or so of refined rock blood that you'll be carrying around anyway).