NEAFC 32nd Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

[NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF FIRE CHIEFS
CHIEF TETREAULT: Is it also an anesthetic?
MR. JOHNSON: No; verylittle, if any, effect, is. had by breathing a normal
amount, as long as you get suiticient oxygen with it. There is. a hydrocarbon
gas, cyclopropane, and I think that it is an anesthetic.
MR. IRWIN: Cyclopropane is also a highly inflammable, gas, but it is not
used for any other purpose than anesthesia.
MI~. JOHNSON: It is related; it is a distant cousin, only they put it together
a little differently.
CHIEF TETREAULT: Is it toxic?
MR. JOHNSON: It is not toxic. City gases are toxic.
CHIEF WELLS: I should like to relate to you this that this non-toxic stuff
doesn’t bear out, because I had two fatals last year, and I also had two severe
burns as the result of other fire chiefs.’ installations, and equipment.
What is the attitude of your industry with respect to selling over the
counter equipment in a city? What is the attitude o; the company, for selling
over the counter, Sears-Roebuck, Montgomery-Ward, and having the people
bring those things home themselves and installing them?
You might require a permit ;or every installation. But, how are we going
to know whether or not they bring them down from the city and put them
in themselves?
We had this case, where two men bought a furnace; they had bottled gas,
and they had a stove, and they put in a hot water heater, and a floor furnace.
They had finished the hot water heater, and they were sitting there that night,
reading and having some talk, and the next morning, they were discovered, both
dead. They were found by the coroner, or whoever examined them, to have
died of carbon monoxide poi, soning.
Now, I would assume that this was incomplete combustion, from lack
o; ventilation.
MR. JOHNSON: _And you are correct.
-CHIEF WELLS: Now, you say that propane is not toxic, and that it is
quite fair not to say that carbon monoxide will not result from incomplete
combustion, when that is, to me, the cause?
I wondered if you folks would encourage their getting in appliances
in these stores? Do you have that attitude?
MR. JOHNSON,: Yes., we do. Further, let me say that it is the attitude
of our industry, the good people in our industry, and every industry has good
and. bad, not to sell over the counter and to do our own piping and installations.
You are also correct in stating that carbon monoxide can be produced
by the incomplete combustion of propane. However, that is not exclusive
with. propane, because carbon monoxide can be produced by any fuel containing
carbon. It is attendant’, for instance, with the operation of a coal furnace.
It is attendant with the operation o; your automobile, ’ and it is attendant with
any form of real-combustion, involving any fuel.
It is. true that it also can be produced with our gas. When I say "nontoxic"
I refer to the fuel gas in its unburned state. City gases, of course, varying
in quantity and quality, contains raw carbon monoxide.
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