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Some of you know I am working on my new shop and I am at the point where I am looking at putting the ceiling up and am thinking about installing a sprinkler system. My shop is mostiy poured concrete, 3 walls, floor and a pre-stressed concrete ceiling so it is pretty fire proof already but I don't think you can be too careful. I already have 2 fire extinguishers that will be installed and a set of metal cabinets for combustibles.

I am looking at any ideas that you may be using for shop fire safety or ways to reduce the risk.

Thanks,
Bob

I've been thru one structure fire and don't recommend the experience too highly.
A sprinkler system in a wood shop is kind of a double edged sword. What the fire doesn't destroy, the water surely will. I asked my friend Dave the Cabinet maker once why he didn't have dust collection in his shop. "That's where the fires start." was his reply. I am aware that as a guitar repair guy that you don't use your shop the same way that a cabinet maker would. The idea behind that short story is he assessed the potential hazards and minimized them.
So, what do you have that creates enough heat to start a fire? Bending irons and or heat blankets, soldering irons and guns, clothes iron, heat lamps, glue pot, perhaps a branding iron. Combustibles? Sawdust, flammable chemicals, shop rags. Other than that, I can only think of faulty electrical wiring and careless smoking. I don't see anything on the list that common sense and good work habits can't take care of. Nothing that would cause me to go to the expense of a sprinkler system. My shop isn't under my house though. I myself would be comfortable in your situation what with the concrete walls and ceiling and the precautions you have in place.
As well as the good sense to be concerned.

Steve

Sprinkler systems are not cheap, nor do they protect your shop, equipment,supplies or projects on the go. They are meant to save lives. The insurance guys will tell you that the costs of sprinkler system damage(they do malfunction) is substantially higher than the cost of fire damage.
For my shop I do the following.
Control your dust
Clean up regularily
Ground your d/c
Any device that heats(bender, glue pot etc.) put it on a manual timer

I love putting a new shop together
Have fun

Brian

_________________
My memory is so good, sometimes I remember things that never happened.

Thanks for the reply Steve, I am a pretty careful guy when it comes to combustibles. Having spent 20 years painting cars in body shops I have seen more than my fair share of fires and all but one were pure accidents. The one that wasn't was because of a stupid body guy that smoked cigars. I was working in a shop where we did semi tractors and the spray booth was big enough to put 2 semi's (not the trailers) end to end. This moron kept coming into the booth and would flick his ashes directly into the exhaust... I warned him over and over and even went to the boss and complained... Guess what happened... The entire paint shop burned down along with a semi tractor... Of all the fires I have been around I can say I was never the cause of one but I still think you can't be too careful. I have a few other pretty scary body shop fire stories and a couple that still shake me up when I think of them. Most are from stupid people doing stupid things.. Like pouring a quart of lacquer thinner under a car and then throwing a firecracker under it thinking it would be funny...

I get what you are saying about putting a sprinkler system in and I guess that is one of the reasons I posed this question. Even with all the care in the world I know that things can happen and since I am building this shop from scratch I want to make sure I put in enough safety features now to safeguard against an unforeseeable accident.

I am planning on putting in a small spay booth which will house all of my flammables in a metal cabinet with self closing doors. I am very careful with painting materials and don't leave things open or unattended but even then you never know, that is why they call them accidents...

Bob

@Brian,

I guess I would rather have damaged equipment/shop/projects than a burned up house...

I have not decided completely on the sprinkler system for the reasons you state and again that is the reason for this post, I want to know what others think and do.

For the most part I am pretty clean and hate to work in a mess so I guess I have that going for me... I use to get razzed in the body shop because I swept and cleaned my stalls out every night and couldn't stand junk laying around. Same thing when I was finishing furniture. My shop was always clean.

Bob

What has been said here is pretty much spot on. Sprinkler systems are meant to save lives and possibly save structures. If that sprinkler goes off you can pretty much count on replacing everything anyway.
As was said: Keep your dust down and keep lots of extinguishers in the shop. Maybe you can devise and exit plan in the event of a fire (should you be trapped in the shop) and put extinguishers along that exit path.

If you have sprinklers in your house it would make sense to put them in the shop, since it is attached. Although many items in a shop could be ruined by water, most of the materials and machinery can be dried off and used. Having a non sprinklered storage closet might be a good idea for materials and instruments that can't get wet and are low risk for causing fires.

One way is to not light gunpowder in your shop (for toasting guitar tops for example)

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I have a sprinkler system in my shop. Once you know how it works, you will realize that only the sprinkler that gets touched by a flame will "go off", so only the area that was on fire will be soaked. The rest of the shop will be saved. That means that most likely your templates, notebooks, handmade gigs and other irreplaceable goods will be saved. Also, most all tools that art not on the floor will be saved. Compared to letting it all burn down?

No brainer.... Install the system!

Thanks for the reply Grumpy, I was starting to think I asked a really dumb question here...

I am glad I am not alone in taking fire safety seriously. Even if my new shop wasn't attached to my house I would be thinking about it. As I said earlier I have seen some pretty intense fires in my 20 or so years working in body shops. They happen faster than you can imagine and it is a very good idea to be proactive and prepared.

If some of you think it can't happen to you because you keep the dust down and clean your shop you really should give fire prevention some serious thought because it can (and does) happen all the time even in a clean shop.

Bob

I installed a couple of sprinkler heads in the shop I had about 12 years ago. I read an article on fire safety in the shop in Fine woodworking and decided to install the sprinkler heads. I went into a local fire safety place in town and the guy gave me two sprinkler heads for about 5 bucks a piece.

I got a sprinkler system put in the shop a few years ago, when we were doing some other plumbing anyway.

I'd had a chimney fire a year or so before that, although, fortunately, it didn't get away. I got some creosote buildup in the chimney when the stove's catalytic converter burned out, and that started to smolder. The idiot who'd put in the chimney had butted it right up against the plywood sheathing on the wall, and that started to smolder as well. I had had sheetrock put up when I converted the barn space into a shop, and that, and an air tight stove, kept the fire pretty well starved for oxygen until my wife smelled the smoke, the Fire department put it out with minimal damage. If that fire had gone on for another hour or so, and broken out, we'd have lost my father in law, sleeping in the guest room next door, and probably the whole shebang.

A building that I'd shared shop space in for a few years also burned (arson) a year or so after I moved out. Lucky me. A friend who ran a violin shop was not so lucky. It took him years to clean up all the smoke and water damage on the stuff that could be saved. The insurance company was not generous.

Yes, sprinklers do malfunction from time to time, and stuff could get wet. It's been pointed out that sprinklers don't put out a fire so much as keep it from spreading. I've also been told that nobody has ever died in a fire in a building that had installed sprinklers. As somebody who spent 3-1/2 years as a Damage Controlman on an aircraft carrier, I'm all for anything that cuts the risk.

I have my bending Iron and hot glue gun on a timer. If I forget to turn them off they will go off on their own. I have a buddy who burned down his business by leaving a hot glue gun on overnight.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

I don't leave my bending iron unsupervised. I sit and wait for it to warm up,use it,then shut it off immediately. Then wait for it to cool down before I return it to the box StewMac shipped it to me in. I use no flammable liquids. I have COPD so I don't use aerosol type products.


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