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Behmor Fire - Eeeek!

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  • Dragunov21
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    .
    If an incident such as this occurred in an industrial setting all units would be immediately withdrawn and not put back into service until they had been made safe, if they could not be rectified an alternative would be found..
    The machine is not faulty; it's designed to cope with fires when dealt with correctly (power off, don't open door). It's not an automatic machine, nor is a blowtorch or deep-fryer for instance, both of which will start fires if used contrary to instruction.

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  • MrJack
    replied
    Originally posted by taco View Post
    Given that we've had two commercial coffee roaster fires this year in Canberra, accidents happen.
    You can't feasibly make everything completely fool proof, and I wouldn't want to live in a world for designed for fools.
    The ALARP principle is often applied in engineering. It requires that risk be reduced to a point where any further reduction would incur an expense grossly disproportionate to the benefit. (That is not to say that the residual risk is always tolerable either).

    Is it reasonable to suggest additional risk mitigation could be cost effectively acheived in the design, given the number of units sold? I guess it depends on your measure of the risk

    Does having a person watch the unit whilst in use actually prevent a fire, or just ensure it's detection?

    Not suggesting the product is unsafe, just presenting one perspective.

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  • Yelta
    replied
    I've expressed an informed opinion guys, thought it may have been of some value, take it for what it's worth, reject it or if Andy so desires delete the post, I really don't mind.

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  • taco
    replied
    Originally posted by Yelta View Post
    If an incident such as this occurred in an industrial setting all units would be immediately withdrawn and not put back into service until they had been made safe, if they could not be rectified an alternative would be found.
    Given that we've had two commercial coffee roaster fires this year in Canberra, accidents happen.
    You can't feasibly make everything completely fool proof, and I wouldn't want to live in a world for designed for fools.

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  • PLMS
    replied
    I'm not blaming anybody but myself for this. I reckon the Behmor is a wonderful machine and does a fantastic job at a realistic price. Stuff like this can happen with other devices - a stuck piece of bread in a toaster, a cake that runs over in the oven, etc, etc. And we all live with that. I just got unlucky - I was looking last night and I can't even see how the drum could operate with a gap big enough for the beans to fall out. But it did. In the end it wouldn't matter if the machine turned into a ball of flame anyway - I roast outside where there's minimal chance of creating a serious fire.

    They've sold a gazillion of these things now, so I'd expect that if it was a big problem then people all over the world would be firing up. He he...

    I did a couple of roasts last night and she's roasting better than ever now that I've cleaned the window for the light properly! All good.

    PL

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  • bennett
    replied
    I have a Behmor from mid 2012 and I love it. Recently I bought one for my brother for Christmas - latest build - he also loves his. It has the 'new' style basket which has a different type of clasp for closing the basket. He hasn't had any problems with his roaster at all, however the new style basket does concern me a bit as the mechanism for closing it doesn't appear very secure compared to the old one. I wonder if this was part of the problem with PLMS's beans falling out of the basket?

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  • Andy
    replied
    they wouldn't rest until blame had been laid squarely at someones feet.
    Pretty obvious whose feet.

    Originally posted by Andy View Post
    Never leave the roaster unattended when in use
    ...is also printed on the top of every roaster!
    PLMS certainly knew where the problem was and didn't try to point the blame anywhere else (kudos to you PLMS!).
    Had he been watching the roast would have hit stop or cool and per the manual left the door closed.

    There are 10's of thousands of these roasters all over the world and mostly they never see "bean ignition" and I doubt there is ever a drastic problem if the instruction manual is followed.

    Bench-top chip fryers and unattended pots on the stove are far more dangerous, have far fewer safety features and many many more fire brigade callouts.

    Use as directed and noone gets hurt!

    I look forward to making some more smoke tonight. Just a bit this time. No fire. Only smoke. Fire baaaad!
    Enjoy the journey to better and safer roasting.
    I'm glad you shared this experience here and I'm sure you have saved someone else the grief of a cleanup or worse.

    Leave a comment:


  • Yelta
    replied
    Must admit this incident and others like it concern me greatly.
    The Behmor is obviously a popular and very good little roaster , however given the large number of often inexperienced people using them it's just a matter of time before the inevitable happens and a major fire occurs.
    Surely safety devices can be incorporated to make it impossible to operate the machine until such time as all doors etc have been secured.
    If an incident such as this occurred in an industrial setting all units would be immediately withdrawn and not put back into service until they had been made safe, if they could not be rectified an alternative would be found.
    If a fire was attributed to one of these machines I can imagine the insurance investigation that would ensue, they wouldn't rest until blame had been laid squarely at someones feet.
    Food for thought.

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  • PLMS
    replied
    It was actually quite silent. I'm sure I could have made some fun noises if I wanted. But I chose not to. I was on a mission to get the roaster back into action!!

    My latest shipment from Andy arrived yesterday (MM Gold - Mmmmm...). Thanks Andy.

    I look forward to making some more smoke tonight. Just a bit this time. No fire. Only smoke. Fire baaaad!

    PL

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  • Bazooka
    replied
    Scraping glass with flat blade = nail on blackboard, I hate the thought of the noise it made (shudder)

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  • PLMS
    replied
    Good news everybody! Behmor has been dissasembled and cleaned up properly. All good. Did a dry burn and she's humming away happily again.

    Hardest part to clean was actually the glass over the light. I haven't cleaned this properly before and I suspect given it's position at the top of the chamber it'd be in the hottest place. The blackness was well burnt on and nothing I could find would shift it. But it's just a flat piece of glass so I scraped it clean with a flat blade. Just like new now. Suddenly the interior is well lit again! If you've been running a Behmor for a while and never really checked the glass it might be worth a look some time. Chances are you're not going blind - you're just not getting as much light on your beans as you once did!

    I took the opportunity to get to know the machine a little better while I was in there. Gotta say I'm impressed by the complexity of these machines. You surely get value for money. All too often I pull something apart and go "Is that all it is?!". Not this time. They've really gone to some effort to make them work as well as they do. I'm not sure how much is the toaster oven that it's based on and how much was added to make it into a coffee roaster but there's certainly some effort been put into it.

    Anyway, I'll certainly be a lot more careful closing the drum from now on!

    PL

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  • MrJack
    replied
    An engineer would tell you that an intrinsically safer design (say by enclosing the elements in mesh smaller than the beans), is usually better than relying on an operator; especially when a single failure (to close the drum) will frequently result in such an event.



    Damage doesn't look too bad though.

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  • Andy
    replied
    Never leave the roaster unattended when in use
    ...is also printed on the top of every roaster!

    The owner of the company would point out to you that what you had was
    "an unattended bean ignition"
    The roaster didn't catch fire, the beans did!

    You are right about the next steps, give it a clean and then try a dry burn. I think you might be lucky judging from the pictures.

    You might also want to remove the 5 screws in the exhaust cover and have a look inside to see if the fans look ok too.

    Hopefully others will learn from my mistakes. Close your roasting drum properly!


    Good tip!

    Good luck and if you get stuck drop me an email and we'll see if we can help get you roasting again.

    Leave a comment:


  • Javaphile
    replied
    Originally posted by emmatt99 View Post
    I was expecting a blackened mess.
    As was I Matt. From the first post I was expecting a lot worse. Hopefully it will clean up and burn in (Sorry I couldn't resist!) and you'll be back to happy roasting.


    Java "Luck to ya!" phile

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  • PLMS
    replied
    It's pretty blackened and messy but I hope it'll scrub up OK.

    PL

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