Sawdust and fire risk?

[theartfulbodger]

Number 1 in a series of "How dangerous would this be?" questions brought to you by Bodger 8)

I create sawdust in a garage attached to the house, which is great for popping out for a short time now and then, however the Man Cave also houses a tumble drier and a gas boiler.

The tumble drier knocks the edge off the cold during the less warm months, as does the boiler..the jury's out on whether the humidity is raised or collected by the drier.

Realistically what are my chances of causing a flash bang whoosh type of insurance claim?
Anyone got any horror stories or advice to share?

I've yet to plumb in the dust/chip collector with all my new shiny ducting pipe, and while I'm creating more chips these days than fine dust I figure that I should be more worried about the smaller particles.

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[RobinBHM]

Fine dust from say a belt sander will go up in a flash. I once emptied a vacuum extractor onto a smouldering fire (grass clippings no naked flames), it went up in fireball, luckily no damage other than a very bald arm!

If you are mostly creating sawdust from planing, routing or sawing I would think the risk low of an explosion. Cleaning up settled dust regularly will minimise a fire risk.

Im not sure about a boiler, I expect other people could advise. I suppose if its balanced flue there isnt any risk if dust getting in the intake. You would want to avoid dust getting inside the boiler cabinet where the circuits boards are. I dont think dust settling on top of the boiler would be good.

 

[theartfulbodger]

Thanks for the reply. You're right about powdery things flashing

I might take the front off the boiler tomorrow and have a look, just to scare/reassure myself.
Years ago I replaced a thermostat in a tumble drier and was very surprised by how much lint was inside it - not just in the filters and heat exchanger but within the whole body of the machine.

I've been reminded of this thread from a while ago, I still admire Mark A's invention =D>

 

[Claymore]

a few years ago I once visited a guy who woodturning in his spare downstairs room, I'm not kidding when i say he had approx 1cm of very fine sawdust all over the room covering all tools etc.
He offered to show me how he turned a bowl and switched a anglepoise lamp on and you could smell the dust burning on the light fitting! I warned him it was a fire hazard and just replied "Tis fine" and carried on with the demonstration. 6 years later after i had moved away from Yorkshire i went on their local newspaper website and in the archive 1 year earlier there was a story about a house fire that killed a neighbour and sure enough it was the woodturners house went up and smoke killed the pensioner next door! suppose its a rare thing to happen but just shows how careful we should be working with things that can and will go bang if not cleared up.

 

[theartfulbodger]

That's a sad tale




I forgot the link from my previous post
static-when-sanding-t49306.html

 

[Mark A]

 

[theartfulbodger]

Sorry, Mark!
You should see some of the bodges I've made in the past (and continue to make #-o )

 

[Mark A]

Risk of explosion aside, that thing I cobbled together worked pretty well.

I promise my bodges have improved since then!