OldGray320i wrote: Teach your kids to use the FE too, and let them know where they're located... had the kids pop off on them, for the experience. Years later the boy was cooking something, grease fire in the pan, he doused it with the FE. May or may not have been overkill, but fire was out quick, and he had the kitchen cleaned up by the time we got home. Beats the hell out of alternatives, that's for sure.
Don't put your FE near the stove, though. Mount it at least 8' away. 
i lit the foam air cleaner of my cutlass on fire with alarming regularity, trying to start it in winter and having a backfire. A month later, repeat. Usually slamming the hood put the fire out but I had to empty mom's kitchen extinguisher into the engine bay once. And restarted and drove to school 10 minutes later.
The Alfa is what got me to keep an extinguisher in a car though. The cold start injector is always pressurized so when the base inevitably cracks with age, it spews a nice firm stream of fuel all over the firewall, underside of hood, and down onto the exhaust. Thankfully this let go on a day I decided to check the oil first, and started the car with the hood open. After that it occurred to me that I had a fine piece of Italian engineering with no comprehensive insurance so having a fire ext on hand was a good investment.
Apexcarver wrote: Yeah... who has the best deal on extinguishers these days?
Wallmart.com had the best deals when I stocked up for the 84FSP household.
zoro.com was the cheapest online source I found, $28 shipped for a 2.5lb, but I was specifically trying to find one with a metal nozzle and handle for durability when knocking around the car/garage. Walmart wins for absolute cheapest.
In addition to having and knowing how to use a fire extinguisher. I recommend taking a quick look out in the shop (or just staying there) a couple of hours after you've finished doing something that throws sparks. I've done that for years and while only caught a problem once that one time could have been really bad.
For a garage, I'd suggest having a couple of extinguishers. Either foam or purple K dry chem would be best for dousing fuel/oil/grease fires (and both are less corrosive than ABC dry chem). If you go purple K, I'd say 5lb minimum per extinguisher, 10 or 20 (ideally in the high flow variety) would be better.
Having one mounted somewhere in a vehicle is good too.
As a note, foam extinguishers can freeze, so for those in northern climates, they're not a good pick for an in-vehicle extinguisher (and no good for a garage that can get below freezing).
When I fired up the Mach 1.5 for the first time a week before the $2010 Challenge a leaking banjo bolt near the bottom of the engine bay and not far from the turbo, caught fire. The first 2 fire extinguishers I grabbed were dead, the third was the oldest and as I grabbed it I was thinking if it didn't work I was gonna have to push the car outside and watch it burn. Fortunately the third attempt was the charm. All the work I had to done to detail the engine bay was now scorched but the fire was out.
And for the love of god, DONT FORGET TO CHANGE THEM OUT! Fire extinguishers have a shelf life!!!
BrokenYugo wrote: In addition to the garage, keep a cheap auto/marine extinguisher in every car, two if it has a carburetor, three if it's an air cooled VW.
Four if it's a Fiero... :)
Do all the foam onboard systems freeze? Should they then be mounted in the engine compartment somewhere that will be warm then the vehicle is running?
Trackmouse wrote: And for the love of god, DONT FORGET TO CHANGE THEM OUT! Fire extinguishers have a shelf life!!!
I've got a couple that are reading "red" (which I thought meant the "charge" was gone), I better replace them now, not later...
Does the substance inside also go "bad" while/if holding a "charge"?
(sorry for wildly incorrect terminology...)
OldGray320i wrote: Teach your kids to use the FE too, and let them know where they're located... had the kids pop off on them, for the experience.
I'll have to do that once my kids are grown up enough that they won't demand to use the extinguishers every day. That could get expensive.
Trackmouse wrote: And for the love of god, DONT FORGET TO CHANGE THEM OUT! Fire extinguishers have a shelf life!!!
Good units can be checked and re-certified. This should definitely be done every few years.
Also, for any kind of dry chem unit, every month or 2, flip it upside-down and smack the bottom a few times with a mallet, then shake to make sure the powder moves freely. It can clump and pack down over time (especially with vibration in a car, etc.). And clumped-up powder doesn't discharge well.
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