Oak floor oiling fire

[tobydog]

Just finishing a productive weeks holiday and thought I would top it off by finally re-oiling our oak kitchen floor. Well overdue so I did lay the oil on fairly freely. I used Sadolin Floor Oil which was left over from when the extension was built. It's good stuff and it warns you on the tin, as with most oils, not to store or dispose of the oily cloths / towels until they are dry as they can self-combust. I knew this but briefly piled up several soaked kitchen towels on an oven tray on the hob until I could take them all outside shortly. What I didn't realise was how quickly they can self-combust. There was a horrible burning smell and when I picked up the baking tray the base was too hot to touch. At this point smoke started coming out of the pile and I threw the whole lot on the driveway. All the inner towels were badly scorched and on the point of bursting into flames.

Please learn from my mistake just how quickly this can happen. There I am worrying about whether my wood burner will set fire to the thatch and there I am making a fire in the kitchen.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

:shock:

Thanks for the reminder Toby - I used to doubt this (having tried experimentally with my own linseed rags :roll: ) - but having looked on Youtube, I'm now convinced.

 

[CliffordPope]

Yes, it's hard to believe, but obviously true. Thanks for the warning.

Similarly wet grass cuttings can self-combust.
I once strimmed an overgrown lawn, raked all the cuttings into a pile ready for wheelbarrowing away, and went in for lunch.
When I came out the pile had disappeared and there was just a smouldering black patch on the ground.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Period meteorite?

Oily rags combust because they oxidise rather than evaporate (I believe) and generate great heat in the process. Damp grass cuttings.... seems a bit unlikely in a short spce of time. Of couse as they compost the bacteria mnhcing away in them generate lots of heat - but that's a different timecale surely?

 

[FamilyWiggs]

On a related but non-period theme, my sister and a friend both had near misses with fires this week.

One had a dishwasher catch fire and one a washing machine, both were relatively new and modern appliances. Fortunately both were in at the time and noticed the smoke. But one is now living in rented accommodation and is acquianted with several burly firemen, the house having been badly damaged.

We used to put the dishwasher on before we went to bed, or the tumble dryer on as we were leaving the house.

We won't anymore. :shock:

 

[tobydog]

I should add that whilst the pile of kitchen towels were heavily laden with oil and packed quite tight together, I also had 4 cloths that I used just to buff the floor afterwards. They were lying very loosely together but were also getting warm! It doesn't take much.

 

[CliffordPope]

Damp grass cuttings.... seems a bit unlikely in a short spce of time. Of couse as they compost the bacteria mnhcing away in them generate lots of heat - but that's a different timecale surely?

It surprised me, but true.

http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/19/06/2012/133470/Wet-weather-prompts-hay-fire-warning.htm

 

[Feltwell]

We used to put the dishwasher on before we went to bed, or the tumble dryer on as we were leaving the house.

We won't anymore. :shock:

A work colleague was out of his house for 6 months and lost pretty much everything due to a fire that started in the compressor of a fridge/freezer - no way of guarding against that one.

We've got the washing machine, tumble dryer and a fridge freezer in a utility room with a smoke alarm that is radio-interlinked to the rest of the house. But, we've still got the dishwasher and a fridge in the kitchen, and we do run the dishwasher at night - a bad habit really I suppose. The kitchen has a heat alarm in it but as I understand it a fire has to be pretty well established for those to be activated.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Oh, scary - thanks for all the warnings. Oily rags I knew about, the others surprise me. Very glad no serious harm was done Toby.

Conversely, I've been trying for at least 6 months to set fire to a car- sized pile of branches and dried up garden waste. It isn't dried up enough, clearly, as I've had no luck

I wish the chicken waste would combust. It gets hot, but it never does.

 

[Flyfisher]

Many years ago a friend came back from a weekend away to a house full of smoke. It turned out that a storage heater had fallen away from the wall and had scorched the carpet and floorboards. Fortunately there was no actual fire but the smoke and soot damage was very extensive and they had to move out while specialist cleaners did their thing.

 

[MdB]

I've been trying for at least 6 months to set fire to a car

Careful now, you don't want to get into trouble....

 

[JohnB]

Conversely, I've been trying for at least 6 months to set fire to a car- sized pile of branches and dried up garden waste. It isn't dried up enough, clearly, as I've had no luck

Turn it into a garden
http://www.richsoil.com/hugelkultur/

 

[JoceAndChris]

Interesting! This pile is really in the wrong place though, it's right next to the haha and is blocking the view from the house. Good idea to use it as waste though, come autumn I think I'll spend a couple of days wheelbarrowing it to fill ruts in the track - that's pretty much where all the garden waste goes, a layer of rocks, a layer of leaves and trimmings and beech nuts. Over summer I've just about created a 15 m road!

 

[tobydog]

Joce - 25 sheets of Plenty soaked in floor oil will soon get your pile of garden waster going nicely . Best have the fire brigade on standby though!!

 

[biffvernon]

piled up several soaked kitchen towels on an oven tray on the hob

What d'you expect? You're not meant to put them on the hob.

 

[tobydog]

Don't worry. The first thing I checked was that I wasn't actually cooking them.