How often should you check your fire extinguisher?

Why bother

Useless if it's empty when the pan catches. Standard upkeep. Dull and cheap, and a lot less dull than whatever it's quietly preventing.

What the job involves

1. Once a month, give it a proper look. Confirm it's where it should be, not buried behind the recycling, with the pin and the tamper seal still intact. An extinguisher you have to dig for is an extinguisher you don't have.
2. Read the pressure gauge. The needle wants to sit firmly in the green. If it's drifted into the red, recharge or overcharge, it needs a pro or replacing. A gauge that reads nothing is telling you the thing is bluffing.
3. Look the body over for dents, rust, corrosion, leaks, or a cracked hose, and check the nozzle for clogs, dirt, or an insect nest. Clear any muck with a soft cloth, never a metal tool. While you're there, give it a gentle shake so the dry chemical inside doesn't cake into a useless lump.
4. Find the manufacture date. A disposable unit gets replaced around 12 years, and a rechargeable one wants a professional inspection or recharge about every 6. Discharge it for any reason, even a quick burst, and it's done. There's no half-empty.

Do it yourself, or pay someone?

The monthly look is yours and costs nothing, which is the whole point of it. You only call a pro for the yearly maintenance check or to recharge a unit, about $15 to $50 to refill, a touch more with a test, and roughly $30 to $50 for a standalone inspection visit. On the small 2.5 lb home units, a new one runs about the same as a refill, so often it's cheaper to just bin the old one and buy another.

What skipping it costs

$10,000 to $50,000 to put a kitchen back together after a fire that got going, which is the gap between an extinguisher that worked and one that didn't. Cooking is the leading cause of home fires by a long way, near 168,000 residential cooking fires in a single recent year. An extinguisher is the one tool that knocks a small grease fire down in the seconds before it spreads, so a unit that fails when you reach for it, pressure bled off, nozzle clogged, charge long gone, turns a contained mess into a claim. The broader average home fire claim runs higher again, around $83,500. A monthly glance at the gauge is free.

Signs it's overdue

• The gauge needle is sat in the red instead of the green, or there's no reading at all. Either way it's lost its charge and may do nothing when it counts.
• The manufacture date is more than about 12 years back on a disposable unit, or a rechargeable one hasn't been serviced in 6 years or more, or the pin or tamper seal has gone missing.
• Visible rust, corrosion, dents, a cracked or hardened hose, or a nozzle blocked with grime, debris, or something that's nested in it.

When to start thinking about it

A few days' warning does it. Grumpty grumbles 3 days out, then leaves you alone. Mark it done and Grumpty sets the next one, every 12 months, so you can go back to forgetting it exists.

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