Fire Extinguishers

Managing Health & Safety Requirements with Fire Extinguishing Systems

Health and safety is paramount in business, not only in the sense of legal requirements to protect your people but also to protect your investment.

Why It’s Important to Manage Risk Around Thermal Fluid

Thermal fluid is used above its flash points in thermal fluid systems and is combustible. When there is a leak inside a thermal fluid heater, for example in the coil, the thermal fluid could catch fire. When thermal fluid has ignited it will continue to burn even when the fuel burner is off, as long as there is enough oxygen and the heater temperature is high.

Argon fire extinguishing systems provide additional safety for thermal fluid heaters.

Thermal Fluid and Water Hot and burning thermal fluid should not come into contact with water. The water would evaporate and spray the oil in a fine mist, intensifying or starting a fire.

Instead of water, inert gases should be used:

  • Nitrogen
  • Carbon dioxide
  • Argon

Nitrogen is lighter than air and carbon dioxide may freeze the pressure reduction valve. Argon is the best choice being heavier than air and readily available in pressurised bottles.

Argon Fire Extinguishers & Thermal Fluid When filling a burning thermal fluid heater with argon, the oxygen is removed from the fire zone and the fire is smothered.

  • In addition to the manual release of argon, automatic triggering is important
  • When invoked, the fire extinguishing system stops the burner and the heater opens the argon supply
  • When the heater does not require emergency thermal fluid circulation all pumps are stopped in order to reduce the oil pressure
  • The automatic argon release logic uses the safety temperature limiter in the flue gas as the primary trigger
  • Other triggers such as:
    • fire detection after the burner shut down minimum oil level switch or; sudden pressure drop may be used depending on the type and nature of the system
    • Fail safe wiring is used and is independent of auxiliary power
    • Emergency power or pressurised air is not needed

The argon fire extinguisher systems are available as a retrofit to most thermal fluidheaters.


Contact us to find out how you can avoid urgent call outs with our Maintenance Plans

Need expert thermal fluid Health and Safety management advice?

We provide Argon Fire Extinguisher systems.

Call us on +44 (0)1785 760555 for more information