Fire bottle certification

[Hardingfv32]

At annual tech I ran into a new wrinkle. They were checking the fire bottle's certification. The rule states you must follow the manufacture's recommendations. Something like every 4 years for FireBottle. They won't do a tank that is too old. My bottle was 16 years old so I am buying a new bottle.

Brian

[Bob Clark]

They have to be serviced every two years for SFI and FIA to maintain the certification.

[Hardingfv32]

With the added cost of hazmat shipping both ways this is getting to be an expensive maintenance issue.

Brian

[Jamesbe]

Getting ridiculous imo. 16 years, ya maybe a new bottle is in order.

But 2? I know the recert is cheaper than a bottle, but it seems to me worse than the belt money grab.

$100+ a year for a new sticker on your bottle.

Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

[Teuobk]

Just went through this process with a Novec 1230 bottle on one of my cars. As mentioned above, the recert is required every two years, and after six years the bottle can no longer be recertified.

Meanwhile, over in the vintage world, they don't seem to be as concerned with such things. I know people running 20+ year old real-deal halon bottles. Nobody bats an eye as long as the pressure gauge reads charged.

If you have to ship your fire bottle for recertification, I recommend UPS ground. Assuming it's under the volume limit for the "limited quantity exception", you don't need a special certification to ship with UPS. Just package it properly, put an LQE diamond on the box, write the UN number applicable to your fire extinguisher on it (usually UN 1044), and ship it ground.

Or, if you're in the Bay Area and you have a Safecraft bottle, you could drive over to them and drop it off.

For my Safecraft bottle recert, including shipping to them, shipping back, and the recert itself, the damage was about $130.

Jeff