Acetylene explosion

[hurtinhvac]

Shoulda seen the jinx coming.

I was sitting at my PC at 7 am with a cup of coffee, dog had been out, fed and watered. I was scheduled off for lack of work, but often get called out as I'm mainly service. Got a request to assist on an install...huge 5 ton HP, 90% furnace, infinity stat, some metal work with the return etc.

No problem, I said...give me an hour. Turned out to be a poorly planned job and I spent almost the entire day outside in rapidly deteriorating weather. Not the first time, button up, hood on and no big deal.

But I hadn't touched my brazing rig in months and first noticed I was low on A. Switched the tank (mindful of this thread) and thought the Ox would last fine - but the damn thing just would not work right. Hard to keep lit, jumping all over the place, popping out. The wind chill was now around 17* and gusting 20-31, alternating light rain, sleet and snow. I finally gave up and borrowed another rig.

Everything fought me out there, unyielding bush in the way, frozen 6 gauge wire and whip. The weather alone made every simple step seem like an eternity.

Then a no heat call at five...it was a long damn day for starting out as "nothing scheduled." And I could not help but remember thinking to myself yesterday, as the other couple of folks above said they hadn't had to use their rigs for months, that I probably would not have to look at mine till late spring.

The Karmic HVAC Gator in all his glory...

[Cooked]

I irritated a senior installer once by closing my valve when I was done outside and carted the rig inside. I don't trust the torch knobs for any length of time and keep the valve wrench poised to be slapped off in an instant.

You should always turn the tank valve off when finished and then turn on the knobs on the torch handle to bleed the oxygen and acetylene pressure in the hoses and on the back side of the diaphragms in the regulators. Always.

Back in the day when I was a product engineer at Carrier I fired a line supervisor for repeatedly ignoring my instructions to turn the bottle off.

Acetylene, when mixed with even small amounts of oxygen is one of the most volatile substances on earth. It also is one of the hottest flames known at around 5500°F.

[hurtinhvac]

You should always turn the tank valve off when finished and then turn on the knobs on the torch handle to bleed the oxygen and acetylene pressure in the hoses and on the back side of the diaphragms in the regulators. Always.

Back in the day when I was a product engineer at Carrier I fired a line supervisor for repeatedly ignoring my instructions to turn the bottle off.

Acetylene, when mixed with even small amounts of oxygen is one of the most volatile substances on earth. It also is one of the hottest flames known at around 5500°F.

Yikes...I thought it was around 1900*. Anyway, I'll never forget getting dinged on my first semester final in school for not closing down the rig properly.