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Can a load of clothes spontaneoulsly combust if they have been washed in water partially dried and then taken out of the drier? I just had a fire in a drier and the customer claims no oils were in her clothes but that she had partially dried them in a friend's drier then drove to our location,put them in our drier and 10 minutes later the load is smoking like crazy and then a fire. I replaced the thermostat in the drier about a month ago. The lint is cleaned weekly and the dryer is working fine. Has anyone had this problem before. I thought I had read an article in the Journal about the danger of spontaneous combustion in such a situation.
ndennis
05-10-2001, 07:34 AM
They sure can. There were a number of articles in the Journal several years ago that suggested that combustion can occur in clothes in a number of situations. The best article was in the Journal about March 1993 I think. I will post the actual date in the morning when I get to the shop. I have had copies made of the article and I hand them out to anyone who wants one. All my commercial contracts are given a copy with their first account particularly the restaraunts.
I hope that I have not infringed CLA copyright.
ndennis
05-10-2001, 09:25 PM
The article on spontaneous combustion appeared in The Journal in the March 1992.
petefritz
05-11-2001, 02:52 PM
This sort of thing has happened once. A local restraunt had washed a load of towels and put them in a dryer for 15. Then they left. When the dryer stopped, about 5 mins later the smoke started. Then it was on fire in the basket shortly after.
ndennis
05-13-2001, 08:35 AM
I could write a book (a very large one) about some of the incidents at my coin-op involving spontaneuos combustion over the last 20 years. Thank goodness that some of the end results did not happen in my shop. One involved a $250000 fire in a restaraunt across the road from me several years ago, in another a car caught on fire.
Yes yours truly got caught also ($15000). I had to attend a training session. I scattered warm tea towels around the floor of the back room. I left about 15 in a plastic basket a yes you guessed it they caught fire
It pays to be very vigilante especially with tea towels that are not properly washed.
jvass
05-21-2001, 08:24 PM
The Journal has tow articles on spontaneous combustion. One in the April issue of 2000 and one in the Nov. issue 2000. you can see these articles by going to www.coinlaundryinsurance.com and hit the loss control button. If you want to talk about this subject you can call John using the CLA Hotline. This is a very real problem and there are some things that you can do to reduce the risk.