Do You Have a Fire Extinguisher in Your Home and is it Still Pressurized?

Piggybacking on this PSA to remind everyone;

Attack the base of the fire, where the fuel source is. You need to break the fire triangle to stop the reaction, and drowning out oxygen is the easiest way.
Each rated pound of fire extinguisher yields approximately one second of use. They go quickly when you’re fighting any fire, and even small fires fight back. 5lb is the minimum imo, look at any commercial setting where OSHA applies and it’s big 10-20lb tanks generally.
Trainers advise to blow the whole extinguisher even if flames aren’t visible to prevent auto-ignition.
You really, really want a hose on any extinguisher. Invert the extinguisher to get under a car/cabinet/low obstacle and the extinguisher is useless as the pressurized gas escapes, leaving behind the powder/foam/water that actually stops fire.

I have one in my car, I check it every 6 months. I was trained to do full inspections and repairs at my last job. I only have a fire blanket in the house though.

One 2.5 in each bedroom, a 5 in the kitchen and a 5 in the rest of the downstairs, a 10 and a 20 in the garage, and then a 20 CO2 for my servers.

Nope, don't even have a fire alarm.

I have one and pressure is OK (at least if the gauge isn't stuck). Is there anything else that you can check yourself instead of having it professionally inspected once a year? Does anyone know what they inspect?

Fire related: If you have smoke detectors there should be a button on it to check the battery.
Not fire related: You can check if your home first aid kit needs to be restocked. Sometimes you might take out some bandages and forget to replace them.

As a gift to my friends who were going to be first time parents, I bought them a pack and play, a first aid kit, and a fire extinguisher. They laughed at my fire extinguisher gift and told their other friends who also laughed.

Awh, that's kind of crappy. I'm hoping they just took it as a gag gift; be prepared for anything, a bit like Jack Jack in The Incredibles.
I hope theynever have to use it, but I hope they do learn how important it is.
Same for cleaning dryer lint; before I was born the entire family who lived across the road from my mum perished in a house fire from dryer lint catching.
Also add Carbon monoxide detectors to that list of devices you never want to need, but should never be without
- Dryer lint fires are so strange to me. Cleaning out the lint trap takes less than 5 seconds, and I do it with every load. I pulled the dryer hose off last weekend to clean it, and it was spotless, presumably because I clean the lint from the trap.

I have 3. 2 are still pressurized. One was used last night.

A note to everyone...do your welding before you paint and undercoat, or at least wait for it to dry fully first.

Maybe I am just projecting here, but I believe the average Lemmy user to be too much of a nerd to be welding in their free time. Is it possible to be both Bonehead?
- You're projecting. I weld because I'm a nerd. This job is just helping out a buddy, but before that I was welding a new mount for my trailer hitch snow plow that I built a few years ago. And this summer I want to build a remote control lawnmower which is going to involve a lot of welding, plus some code to reprogram the hoverboards that I bought for that project. The real challenge there will be adding basic intelligence with a Raspberry Pi so that it will mow the lawn itself. But that's a few years away, since I still need to build it first. And that starts with welding the frame.
  It's not really possible to be both, since one is merely a tool that satisfies the needs of the other. Nerd always takes precedence...
Hope it all turned out ok! You’re posting so clearly you survived
- Everything is fine. I was welding in the outer rocker when it ignited. It was a brief flash and then it went out. I only used the fire extinguisher because I saw smoke coming from the seatbelt hole near the top of the door. I figured better safe than sorry. Of course now the inside of the rocker that I can't get to anymore is covered in white powder, but at least it's kinda fireproof now.

Absolutely it is one of these products that you probably never need. But when you do you are so happy you had it standing around.

I do routine inspections once a year when I do my fire alarm testing so every time I switch to daylight saving time.

Yup. We had one but after we had a smouldering fire in our outdoor trash can we got several for different points in the house. We also have escape ladders in the bedrooms.

After being directly adjacent to three separate apartment fires, we also have several fire extinguishers and escape ladders stashed around the apartment.

Not really, my family looked at me like i was mad when i suggested it. Got an out of date powder extinguisher from Volvo tho. Seems to be intact

I don’t use permanently pressurized fire extinguishers anymore, as they are hard to maintain and rarely reach a life span of 20 years.

Make sure to check at least once every 3 years if the pressure is still in the green. If not, replace it immediately.

Can they be repressurized at all with a regular pump? Or is it something more in depth than that

Yes I fire extinquisher in my home all the time

Yeah, 4. Bought when we bought the house. Kitchen, bedroom, garage, and living roon where the wood stove is. Little one-time use ones in basement and kitchen again.

Yes; yes.