Hidden danger…..

     Now there is a title that could be considered “click bait “ if ever I read one (or scribed one in this case), but it is relatively apt for this particular post of mine. 

    It was last year that I took my first tentative steps into changing my work model by staring to use my previous role as a factory engineer to tread into the world of servicing and the repair of garden machinery. The ultimate aim being to reduce the more physical gardening work that I undertake and replace it with another viable source of income. 

    Unfortunately I overlooked a major shortcoming of my workshop (yes one of many) and that is its thermal insulation properties or, truth to say, lack of any thermal insulation properties in the slightest. Over the winter I ended up feeling the greatest empathy with a brass monkey living in Antarctica without the means to reattach his external and now free rolling spherical items. So this year I determined that I would take steps to insulate the fridge workshop to prevent further frostbite to fingers and other extremities, I didn’t.

    That was until the last week or so when the temperature began to drop and my other brain cell (not the one I retain for movement) hazily recalled last year’s ‘blue period’. With time now against me to insulate the workshop, or tidy it, or organise it, or sort the electrics, or install a decent rock friendly music system or any of the other myriad of jobs on the bleedin’ to do list, I came up with a solution. After some serious and in depth research (watched a couple of You Tube videos) I have purchased myself one of those relatively cheap (though not in the slightest cheerful) Chinese diesel heaters that keep flashing up on my feeds at this time of year.

    Now I have had some experience with Chinese manufacturing over time, especially regarding the expansion into garden machinery that is now happening. This expansion is not just in the cheap brands that no one recognises but on top of the range brands such as Sthil and others. My own experiences have led me to avoid Chinese products as I would avoid a bubonic plague carrier who also had a limp, of course this is only my opinion. But all the myriad of videos (three, maybe four tops) that my in depth research comprised of swayed me to the idea of purchasing said heater. Cost, including running costs, being probably the main, ease of setup (I needed a heater quickly) and simplicity of the device being the factors that stood out.

    So the limping plague carrier arrived in a timely fashion and well packaged to boot. A young associate whom shall henceforth be known as “Dan the man” popped along for the afternoon’s entertainment of installing the heater and we quickly had the thing up and running. Tis noisier than anticipated but not too bad that it’ll disturb the ambiance of the workshop. There are a couple of modifications I would like to achieve with it, sturdier fuel pipe, better fuel filter and the ability to run it on used cooking oil. But these can wait until after I have trailed it for the winter and the temperature is such that I don’t require its services. 

    Now to the post title, the heater was indeed easier to install than anticipated with the most difficult part being exiting the exhaust pipe through the workshop wall. Not that difficult as I got Dan the man to make the wall more religious (holy? Oh never mind). After the initial fuel priming the heater started up with no fuss and churned out enough heat on its lower setting so happy days, or not. We hung around for some time chewing the cud whilst I finished off some miner machine jobs and that was it, job done. Next morning I felt rough, dizzy and decidedly “off”*. A thought kept nagging at my non movement dedicated brain cell so I popped into to workshop and investigated the heater with a little more caution than the gay abandon installation consisted of on the previous day. Sure enough I discovered a potentially fatal floor in the assembly of the heater, specifically the exhaust pipe connection to the machine. The exhaust pipe is a flimsy item and is secured to the exhaust outlet via a single jubilee clip, being flimsy the pipe had distorted a tad under connection but enough to allow some exhaust gases to escape into the workshop and not be completely expelled to the wild blue (well grey and overcast) yonder. In hindsight , and with my experience, I should have checked this on assembly but the connection point is a bloody pain in the arse to get to and also in the excitement of  imminent  heat I had put aside my usual caution and doubt about the manufacturing source of the heater.

    The issue was quickly resolved with the purchase of respected exhaust paste sealant and also that of a carbon monoxide monitor to be the safe side. 

    I can now report that the workshop is a tad warmer and fume free apart from engine start ups and testing. The real test for the heater will be when the temperature drops to brass monkey worrying levels but that’s for the future. I only write this post as a warning to folk, not about Chinese products, but rather there are certain things that should only be attempted by trained or skilled people. I consider myself as such a person but complacency could have resulted in much more harm than just feeling “off”. Carbon monoxide is a silent killer and care must taken when installing or using items that produce it, the same can be said for most of the machinery that I use or repair although I would not call a chainsaw a silent killer, more of a screaming “oh god, oh god its hurts and where’s all that blood coming from” type of killer.

Take care folks,

John

* Off… a feeling of illness that defies logical description (especially with a limited vocabulary such as mine)