Man blows himself up in garage!

[Flamethrower_]

As heard on BBC radio 2 today! Man blows himself up in his garage trying to make Biodiesel (in Middleton Cheney)

Carefully does it.......

[MR GUS]

he'll have HM Duty round round as well I imagine!

[KenB]

List,

I have always said that methanol and lye are dangerous chemicals.

All it would take is an accident in a garage or a child with methanol poisoning to set the DIY biodiesel brigade back to square 1.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/northamptonshire/7527630.stm

Why take the unnecessary risk and cost of a biodiesel processor, when WVO is so much simpler and cheaper and safer.

Take Mohammed to the mountain, rather than the other way around.


Ken

[martin]

according to Radio 4 news, he was mixing it with an electric drill, and a spark ignited the mix.............
20% burns, poor sod!

[lightfoot]

I remember hearing a similar thing, when some chap thought it would be OK to blow out his fuel lines on his car, using the oxygen from his Oxy/DA welding bottles.

 


Lightfoot.

[mespilus]

he'll have HM Duty round round as well I imagine!

Why?

[MR GUS]

 Never ones to miss a party
 I imagine that whilst it's perfectly legal to make for yourself (to a limit) that as all the other services have been involved ie, fire, ambulance, police, that there'll be an investigation as to whether the permits for chemical use, safe storage H&S et al were all in place, therefore records of production & chitty's for receipt of waste oil etc & possible duty to compound his pain & misery! ..and a few Pee-d off neighbours I'd imagine.

 Regs, regs, regs, like anything in this country now (and the contravention of)

 

[lightfoot]

 Regs, regs, regs, like anything in this country now (and the contravention of)

It dose sometimes feel that the only thing we still manufacture in this country is red tape and hoops 

....although some people need a large injection of common sense 


Lightfoot.

[mespilus]

It is believed the poor sod, (who I hope fully recovers) was using a
drill-pump, so possibly using a 'biodiesel reactor'/ bomb from Fleabay.

HMRC not interested as long as you 'process' less than 2500L of uco per year.
He will of course have records of all the WTN's (Waste Transfer Notes) he has given to the food establishments he has collected uco from.

No special measure for household storage of methanol.

Methanol is not governed by The Petroleum Spirit (Motor Vehicles etc.) Regulations 1929 and the Petroleum Spirit (Plastic Containers) Regulations 1982 - enforced by Local Fire Authority, which limits DOMESTIC storage of petroleum spirits (including petrol but excluding diesel) is a max of either 2 x 10 litre suitable metal containers OR 2 x 5 litre plastic containers in a garage OR not within 6 metres of a dwelling (driveway - back garden etc).

You can currently transport up to 333L of methanol yourself.

Turning your garage/out building into a biodiesel production unit for personal use slips under nearly every threshhold set;-

EA have no bunding requirements.

Still this poor chaps explosion may well allow 'The Authorities' to look closer and close perceived loopholes.

Still do not understand why supermarkets sell gunpowder (fire works) to anyone, anytime.

[MR GUS]

 well theres alot not to understand about this country anymore (& anywhere else once you've been there a while)
 An explosion like that under those conditions will give rise to scrutiny from ALL angles because it potentially crosses so many govt thresh-holds, & having roused some press attention on a subject of green/fuel/ public interest/ slow news day ..he's going to get it in the neck if ANYTHING looks a degree to the south of perfect.
  as the papers like to say... a close aquaintance /source/ concerned neighbour who chose to remain anonymous said... It could run & run.
 Besides when I admittedly only browsed through a link from Navitron here, the chap who laid out all his paperwork, plans & applications (& inspection schematics) had a few hoops that it'd be easy to fall foul of if he failed to conduct himself anything less than perfectly on, Tax & revenue are probably the most hard-nosed of all departments to deal with especially now the laws have tightened in their favour & lessened in ours of late.
 Being found tax dodging seemingly has harsher penalties than a lot of granny bashing & other reprehensible "social" behaviour without needing cctv or dna as evidence.

 Wonder what the notification situation on house insurance is having  bio fuel gubbins in residence? Anyone?

[KenB]

List,

I think the main reason for the accident is that the man had no appreciation of risks regarding the flammability of the methanol, and the dangers of using a drill-pump with a sparking commutator in a vapour filled atmosphere.

Would you do this whilst transferring petrol?  Doubtful.

It was only a matter of time before this would happen.  No amount of H&S legislation will protect the general population from general ignorance.

However, it has made national news, so hopefully some will learn from his mistake.



Ken

[Ivan]

Making biodiesel can be as safe as filling your car at a petrol station....in fact safer, when you consider what happens to all those very flammable petrol fumes in your tank when you start displacing them with petrol from the pump. Just hope the mobile in your pocket doesn't ring at the wrong moment, and cause an induction spark on nearby metal!

As Mespilus said, lots of dodgy kit available on ebay..which yesterday was exonerated by high court, from any liability for the sale of counterfeits on its site, and presumably dangerous goods too on that basis. Oops, starting to rant.

Explosion hazard is one risk of handling methanol. Another is that it is highly toxic, by inhalation AND skin contact (most people assume you've got to drink it to be exposed), and it's NOT absorbed by carbon filters, so wearing a chemical mask isn't going to help at all. Someone on the biodiesel forum got hold of a meter to provide readings of methanol concentration in air, and was surprised to find his shed was well above the explosion limit for methanol at certain times during his process. Extractor fans were fitted after he'd noticed this. Of course, the fans might cause explosions unless they were either spark-free or kept concentrations below explosion limit at all times.

[MR GUS]

slightly off topic, it's no wonder ebay are losing 5% trade accounts per month, it's so up it's own Richard Harris!
 lots of inane rules & self interest, france & australia aren't taking it ..just us (as usual)
 making it very hard to trade now, we decided yesterday to hook up our own website & run it alongside.

 Amazingly enough the thing that swung it for me was a visit to the car boot sale where I found a new box of "Mr Site" takeaway website package for £2.00

..God I'm tight

[Ivan]

ebay keep harping on about 'improving buyer experience' and sod the seller, don't worry about copyright infringement, ignore complaints about infringement, seller can pay higher and higher fees etc.

What really gets me worked up is when I get an email saying 'seller fees reduced, hurray for ebay, we're so great' and actually they've reduced listing fees from say £2 to £1.75 and at the same time put their sales commission up from 5.25% to 7.5%. I've complained to Trading Standards and to Office of Fair Trading (both too scared to take on ebay) about a number of unfair/unethical/anti-competition ebay practices (eg forbiding to allow the use of google checkout (a proper credit card gateway) 'because it's unsafe' , and at the same time promote their extortionately expensive and very insecure paypal payment system). Selling something over £50 (or is it £100) now costs around £2 to list the item regardless of whether it sells, 7.25% commission if it sells and you are compelled to offer paypal at a further 4.3%. Oh, and you're not allowed to discount the price if the consumer isn't using paypal 'because it looks like you are penalising paypal users and this doesn't enhance the buying experience').

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

[martin]

howsabout "Ivanbay?", using Google checkout?