Quote:
Originally Posted by S-F
We have a propane powered fork lift at work for going things like loading/unloading pallets of cellulose and loading/unloading blowers from trucks. Today they unloaded a shipment of cellulose. It's over 1,000 bags. The new CO monitoring system is tied in with the fire alarm. Well the alarm started going off. The fire dept. came, evacuated every one and tested blood for CO poisoning. Then they wouldn't let anyone in for hours while they aired out the shop. I guess we had been slowly killing ourselves every time we used that thing. It's ironic that I experienced this incident right when this thread was ramping up and I'm developing all kinds of ideas about converting everything to run on propane.
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There are many factors that can play in this game.
1. Forklift propane system was not adjusted correctly.
2. You still have CO in exhaust but much less
(
Dangers of Carbon Monoxide and Incomplete Combustion in Propane Appliances)
3. The way you drive forklift. Some people like revving up engine. While engine is trying to keep up the throttle it burns too much fuel and its exhaust is full of CO. It is better to keep more or less constant engine speed.
4. You still have to ventilate the area like crazy. Somebody could forget to turn fan on or open the bay door or.....
I was using my drilling rig and water pump (15 hp+6hp converted to propane) for hours right next to me. We have absolutely no wind here. The next day I didn't even have a headache. The other day I used trash pump (4hp gasoline) for just 10-15 minutes. This thing just killed all air around. I had to stop and take a break for half an hour.
The bottom line is propane much cleaner and safer (CO poisoning) compare to gasoline but not 100% safe.