August 1, 2012. ©2012 GreenEarth Cleaning LLC. All rights reserved. GreenEarth Technical Tip Fire Safety Jim Douglas, GreenEarth Technical Director

FIRE SAFETY IN YOUR DRY CLEANING PLANT

When tragedy strikes a fellow dry cleaner it often serves as a wakeup call for all cleaners. The unfortunate fire at Dependable Cleaners, in July of 2012, serves such a purpose. The following are a few safety checks to follow:

FIRE PROTECTION

Solvent spills: Spills should be covered quickly with material to prevent vapors from reaching high concentrations.

Open buckets: Buckets should always have a lid on them to prevent evaporation and to avoid high vapor concentrations.

Steam lines: Insulate all steam lines that are around the cleaning machine. The surface temperature of the steam line will exceed 300°F at 80 psi.

No smoking: Smoking in and around a dry cleaning operation should be avoided.

Fire extinguishers: Ensure that all fire extinguishers are up to date and in working order. Ask your local extinguisher company to provide instruction as to the proper way to use a fire extinguisher.

Good housekeeping: A scheduled cleaning of your dry cleaning machines should be maintained. The collection of lint on the cleaning machine (some areas are hot) should be avoided as this could lead to combustion.

Check pockets: Careful inspection of pockets to avoid metal

objects, especially lighters, from entering the cleaning machine.

August 1, 2012. ©2012 GreenEarth Cleaning LLC. All rights reserved. GreenEarth Technical Tip Fire Safety Jim Douglas, GreenEarth Technical Director

GreenEarth® silicone solvent: A Class III-A solvent is a solvent that

has a flash-point between 140 °F and 200 °F. The flash-point identifies the temperature at which a solvent vapor could support combustion. Hydrocarbon solvents have a flash-point between 142 °F and 147 °F. GreenEarth silicone solvent has a flash-point of 170 F. Thus there is a greater margin of safety in the use of GreenEarth silicone.