66 reasons to secure your gas cylinders!

[Fintray]

Prosecution report from the HSE.....
http://www.hse.gov.uk/press/2013/rnn-se-rocketing-gas-cylinder.htm?ebul=hsegen&cr=6/9-july-13

 

[mike os]

nasty.... nice to see the fines somewhat in proportion to the offence tho

 

[Shox Dr]

Christ. That cannot be been a good day.

 

[starlet kp]

Why do these cylinders have no protection around valves?

 

[KemppiFrog]

Why do these cylinders have no protection around valves?

The key point was that they were left off and the cylinders stored loose.

 

[bullet]

bloody nora, see the cylinder up on the rafters!

 

[garethp]

Why do these cylinders have no protection around valves?

We had some in a place I used to work at, I think the bottles were supplied with a heavy cover screwed over the valve and the intention is that the bottles are secured to make sure they cant fall over before the covers are removed and the pipe work is attached.

In this case it looks like some bright spark removed some of the safety covers first...

We had one guy set off the argonite system once, his story was that he hit the manual release button by accident with his elbow, what actually happened was some random piece of kit was beeping and he started randomly pressing buttons - including the buttons on the fire suppression panel. He then legged it, quickly followed by everyone else in the department!

 

[waldershelf]

Years ago when the world was in black and white, I had hair and wore the green overalls of a craft apprentice, I attended a training session on the dangers of mishandling gas cylinders, the session included a short film presented in the finest Mr Chalmondly Warner style. A man in a white coat set up a nitrogen cylinder on sandbags in a large empty aircraft hangar like building. He then retreated behind a wall of yet more sandbags before releasing a suspended weight onto the valve of the cylinder. There was an almighty "woosh" and the cylinder set off like a rocket across the hangar and disappeared through the end wall, Mr Chalmondly Warner then gave a suitably pithy warning about the safe handling of gas cylinders.

Years later I disciplined a fitter for not taking heed of my advice and rolled a full Oxygen cylinder off the back of a Ford Transit pick up truck. He was not happy but no body got hurt.

 

[madkayaker]

I work on co2 fire systems and the bottles come with a heavy steel cover screwed on (and often stuck with paint) being an old system there is thick wooden forms that screw the bottles together and to to the wall always hate removing the safety pin on the way out incase they fire!

 

[Robotstar5]

I work on co2 fire systems and the bottles come with a heavy steel cover screwed on (and often stuck with paint) being an old system there is thick wooden forms that screw the bottles together and to to the wall always hate removing the safety pin on the way out incase they fire!

We had a similar system in the subs at Longbridge, an apprentice was normally tasked with doing the weekly meter readings and had been told/shown how to make the system safe with the mechanical lockouts.
He obviously forgot the proceedure but thought the button marked "disharge" would make it safe for him!

 

[madkayaker]

Not the brightest spark then? We needed to make some units safe for scrap men to remove so let them off was very good watching the wood 500yards away disappear in white cloud

 

[wyn]

A place i worked at had a few boys in on a weekend doing a bit of welding/cutting. They were putting stuff away at the end of the day which also included lowering the burning gear down about 60 foot on a winch.
The oxy bottle was held with one strap around the middle.....the inevitable happened and it slipped out landing right next to their van, valve down. Apparently it went off with a fair old bang and i think it might have split the cylinder as well. I think the damaged cylinder somehow got "lost" on their way home.

 

[Jim_gsxr1000]

On our fire and gas system on our gas turbines the co2 cylnders have heavy metal caps that screw over the valves, never seen anything like it for oxygen or argon tho

 

[Wedg1e]

On our fire and gas system on our gas turbines the co2 cylnders have heavy metal caps that screw over the valves, never seen anything like it for oxygen or argon tho

We have SF6 (Sulphur Hexafluoride) at work, they come with a big steel cap over the valve.

 

[madkayaker]

We have SF6 (Sulphur Hexafluoride) at work, they come with a big steel cap over the valve.

Now that's a fun gas to work with