Freezing Preventives for Water Pails and Chemical Extinguishers
Fire protection engineers are frequently asked to recommend something that may be used in water pails and chemical extinguishers to present their contents from freezing. The following facts and tables concerning materials that will lower the freezing point of solutions may be of interest to such, and serve as suggestions, to be used according to the needs of the case in hand. Common salt has been much used to prevent freezing of water in pails, and so forth, but it does not lower the freezing point sufficiently to be of very great use in average cold weather. If the solution is too concentrated its disagreeable propensity to “creep" and crystallize all over the receptacle makes it extremely objectionable. It will always attack and rust metals with more or less rapidity. Common salt, or sodium chloride, is the only salt that has been recommended for use in chemical extinguishers, and this only by a few manufacturers. They advise the use of one quart of salt for a threegallon tank. This will lower the freezing point to about 15 degrees F. above zero, but will not withstand a continuous cold spell in northern climates. The following table gives the freezing points of salt solutions of different strengths.
Freezing Point of Salt Solutions
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