4 ms·

I'm surprised no one is talking about how scary it is that you are basically making a high powered bomb at your house any time you have one of these. Anyone th

I'm surprised no one is talking about how scary it is that you are basically making a high powered bomb at your house any time you have one of these. Anyone that has watched Mystbusters understands the incredible destructive power stored in compressed air. I'll stick with batteries, thanks.

beat 8y ago
You probably keep multiple gallons of gasoline nearby, tho.
- evan_ 8y ago
  Not to mention the giant propane tanks that many houses in rural areas already have
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    Not the same? Shoot a propane tank, it leaks. No oxygen in the tank. There is very little outside compressed gas that can explode disastrously without oxygen. A tank of compressed gas is probably high up on the 'bomb in the house' category. Just under the water heater I suppose.
  - IkmoIkmo 8y ago
    Or the LPG tanks hundreds of millions of people have in their homes outside the developed world. e.g. India, Brazil, much of North Africa etc. They're considered quite safe, though.
- JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
  Gasoline has to be mixed in a perfect ratio with air to be dangerous and explode. A simple leak from that enormous amount of air storage could be catastrophic. A leak of your gas tank and it just piddles out on the ground.
- bdamm 8y ago
  Air is far more explosive than gasoline. Gasoline is practically docile compared to the equivalent energy stored as compressed air. When a vessel of compressed air ruptures, it almost instantaneously decimates everything around it with a powerful shockwave. Think of a popping balloon, but scaled up 10000x. You think a hot water heater is bad? Just imagine the entire house being demolished in a second. Gasoline, on the other hands, just burns in a hot concentrated fire. It takes entire minutes to kill that which is nearby.
dsfyu404ed 8y ago
Physics is physics matter how you cut it. A compressed air tank is arguably less of a bomb than the battery under your feet in a Tesla and the cleanup is much better. Compressed air tank failures do not result in instant fire. Most failures take the form of leaks. Catastrophic failures of properly designed pressure vessels operating at their intended pressure are basically nonexistent because a damaged pressure vessel will usually fail by leaking at the point of damage.
- gargravarr 8y ago
  Lithium batteries in a Tesla (and just about everything else consumer-grade) are designed to burn rather than explode - they can produce an impressive jet of flame, but this is contained and safely vented from the battery vessel. Just like gasoline-powered cars, they catch fire, but don't (usually) go boom. They are also capable of failing in a controlled manner - lithium-polymer cells are contained in sealed pouches which expand during failure as the gas pressure rises. So long as the pouch is not breached, the battery is a very low fire risk, and is akin to a leak in an air-powered system - a low-energy release that does not harm people around it. Compressed air, however, does explode out of any weakness in its fittings, often with no warning. Catastrophic failure of a weak joint, coupled with a pressure difference of several atmospheres, can turn any ejected fittings into artillery shells. There's plenty of videos of air compressor explosions on YouTube. Yes, this is considerably rarer than a lithium battery fire, but don't forget that lithium batteries are relatively new to the scene. Compressed air has been in use for hundreds of years and the dangers, despite being understood, are still present. A lot of them stem from human overconfidence, and the attitude of 'eh, one more bar can't hurt, can it?' Even a small workshop compressor operating at less than 10 bars can cause life-changing injuries to anyone present should it fail. I'd argue cleanup from these types of failures are much, much messier than lithium fires. The comparison to lithium batteries is pretty accurate because unlike gasoline, a spark is not necessary to start the fire. However, a lithium battery fire can generally be spotted by temperature rises before it becomes dangerous. Failure of a pressure vessel is much harder to predict. Just a tiny manufacturing defect in a square-centimetre of a pressure vessel can create a weak spot that'll be the first place to fail as it comes under operating pressure, or cycled repeatedly. Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in off-the-grid living and had not considered compressed air as a power source until reading this, but I do feel the article skips over the safety aspect of compressed air. There's a reason many of the fittings are only sold to industries - used improperly by amateurs, the pressures they're discussing could be fatal if something goes wrong. My advice to anyone reading this article is to fully understand the dangers of compressed air before building something like this.
djrogers 8y ago
There are literally tens of millions of compressed air tanks in use every day in this country, and many of hem are kept full for long periods of time. That part is a solved problem and has been for ages...
jonknee 8y ago
Propane tanks seem like great bombs too, but they are really great for backyard grills. Solid engineering can make these things safe.

beat 8y ago

You probably keep multiple gallons of gasoline nearby, tho.

evan_ 8y ago
Not to mention the giant propane tanks that many houses in rural areas already have
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  Not the same? Shoot a propane tank, it leaks. No oxygen in the tank. There is very little outside compressed gas that can explode disastrously without oxygen. A tank of compressed gas is probably high up on the 'bomb in the house' category. Just under the water heater I suppose.
- IkmoIkmo 8y ago
  Or the LPG tanks hundreds of millions of people have in their homes outside the developed world. e.g. India, Brazil, much of North Africa etc. They're considered quite safe, though.
JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
Gasoline has to be mixed in a perfect ratio with air to be dangerous and explode. A simple leak from that enormous amount of air storage could be catastrophic. A leak of your gas tank and it just piddles out on the ground.
bdamm 8y ago
Air is far more explosive than gasoline. Gasoline is practically docile compared to the equivalent energy stored as compressed air. When a vessel of compressed air ruptures, it almost instantaneously decimates everything around it with a powerful shockwave. Think of a popping balloon, but scaled up 10000x. You think a hot water heater is bad? Just imagine the entire house being demolished in a second. Gasoline, on the other hands, just burns in a hot concentrated fire. It takes entire minutes to kill that which is nearby.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

Physics is physics matter how you cut it. A compressed air tank is arguably less of a bomb than the battery under your feet in a Tesla and the cleanup is much better. Compressed air tank failures do not result in instant fire. Most failures take the form of leaks. Catastrophic failures of properly designed pressure vessels operating at their intended pressure are basically nonexistent because a damaged pressure vessel will usually fail by leaking at the point of damage.

gargravarr 8y ago
Lithium batteries in a Tesla (and just about everything else consumer-grade) are designed to burn rather than explode - they can produce an impressive jet of flame, but this is contained and safely vented from the battery vessel. Just like gasoline-powered cars, they catch fire, but don't (usually) go boom. They are also capable of failing in a controlled manner - lithium-polymer cells are contained in sealed pouches which expand during failure as the gas pressure rises. So long as the pouch is not breached, the battery is a very low fire risk, and is akin to a leak in an air-powered system - a low-energy release that does not harm people around it. Compressed air, however, does explode out of any weakness in its fittings, often with no warning. Catastrophic failure of a weak joint, coupled with a pressure difference of several atmospheres, can turn any ejected fittings into artillery shells. There's plenty of videos of air compressor explosions on YouTube. Yes, this is considerably rarer than a lithium battery fire, but don't forget that lithium batteries are relatively new to the scene. Compressed air has been in use for hundreds of years and the dangers, despite being understood, are still present. A lot of them stem from human overconfidence, and the attitude of 'eh, one more bar can't hurt, can it?' Even a small workshop compressor operating at less than 10 bars can cause life-changing injuries to anyone present should it fail. I'd argue cleanup from these types of failures are much, much messier than lithium fires. The comparison to lithium batteries is pretty accurate because unlike gasoline, a spark is not necessary to start the fire. However, a lithium battery fire can generally be spotted by temperature rises before it becomes dangerous. Failure of a pressure vessel is much harder to predict. Just a tiny manufacturing defect in a square-centimetre of a pressure vessel can create a weak spot that'll be the first place to fail as it comes under operating pressure, or cycled repeatedly. Don't get me wrong, I'm interested in off-the-grid living and had not considered compressed air as a power source until reading this, but I do feel the article skips over the safety aspect of compressed air. There's a reason many of the fittings are only sold to industries - used improperly by amateurs, the pressures they're discussing could be fatal if something goes wrong. My advice to anyone reading this article is to fully understand the dangers of compressed air before building something like this.

djrogers 8y ago

There are literally tens of millions of compressed air tanks in use every day in this country, and many of hem are kept full for long periods of time. That part is a solved problem and has been for ages...

jonknee 8y ago

Propane tanks seem like great bombs too, but they are really great for backyard grills. Solid engineering can make these things safe.