Flammable liquids are used in different fields of businesses and can range from paints, thinners, petrol, acetone, and other extremely volatile substances. Due to their high flammability, these volatile flammable liquids must be stored in a safe manner following your local safety standards. Failure to store flammable liquids in a safe manner can result in damage to your assets and potentially severe harm to people, property and the environment. If your business, that is based in Australia, uses any kind of flammable liquids indoors, the use of a flammable storage cabinet is a must and definitely a requirement if you want to comply with the Australian Standard AS1940.

Flammable liquids, are very volatile substances that can put people, property and the environment at risk. All flammable liquids identified in the Australian Dangerous Goods Code (ADG Code) have a very low flash point meaning that they can easily ignite and cause a lot of destruction in the workplace.

To protect the people, property, and environment, of your organisation from the risks associated with storing and handling flammable liquids, it’s extremely important to ensure that you store them in a safe and compliant manner. Flammable liquids can be safely stored indoors using a flammable storage cabinet. Flammable storage cabinets must be manufactured and used in accordance with strict specifications, to effectively protect your workplace from the risks associated with flammable liquids. These strict specifications are set out in AS1940-2017 – The storage and handling of flammable liquids. Section 4.9 of AS1940 specifies the requirements for the construction and use of flammable liquids storage cabinets. We will now discuss these requirements.

Features

Construction: Our Flammable Liquid Cabinets are made with a double wall construction with an integrated 40 mm thermal barrier. Our cabinet’s floor, walls, doors, and roof are made with double walled steel. The gaps in between the steel panels are filled with fire resistant insulations thus adding another level of protection from radiant heat from either internal or external fires that may occur.

The flammable material cabinet’s super structure (the parts that are critical to its structural integrity) is made of materials that will not melt in temperatures below 850 degrees Celsius. This does not include the cabinet’s seals and gaskets of course.

Our doors aside from being constructed from double walled steel and insulated, have a self-closing feature. This is to minimize the exposure of the contents from external elements and reducing the risk caused by the human negligence. The doors also include a three point self-latching system

Integrated to every one of our indoor flammable liquid cabinets are liquid-tight sump that is at least 150mm deep (more capacity for cabinets with larger capacities). The sump is designed to contain only liquid that is spilled inside the cabinet.

The walls of our storage cabinets include built in ventilation ports and integral flash arrestors on each side. The shelving of our cabinets are made of galvanized steel thus improving their structural integrity. Due to the innate strength of the material our shelving can handle the maximum load the cabinet is rated for, at all times. The shelves are also perforated to promote free airflow inside the cabinet, coupled with the venting ports and flash arrestors this helps prevent even more highly flammable fumes from accumulating inside the cabinet. The perforations in the shelving also have an additional function of draining any spilled liquid to the integrated sump located at the bottom of the cabinet.

Our cabinets all feature adjustable feet to ensure absolute stability and leveling even in moderately uneven surfaces.

To avoid any static or electrical discharging accident that might cause the contents of the cabinet to ignite a grounding connector was incorporated into the design of our cabinets. Located on the outside panel of the cabinet for ease of installation for earthing purposes.

The cabinet will then be sealed by a highly durable and very visible, glossy, lead-free epoxy / polyester powder coat finish. We chose powder coating over conventional paint because Powder coating leaves a more durable coating compared to paint. While the choice of using an epoxy based coat is arguably it has the best resistance against corrosion in comparison to other commercially available options. Powder coating also makes cleaning the cabinet easier while also keeping the superstructure of the cabinet safe from oxidation / rust, since the cabinet is primarily made of steel.

Safety and warning signage are also pre applied in the most visible locations of the cabinet to comply with Australian standards.

For businesses that handle any amount of flammable liquids, knowing what goes into a quality, regulation compliant, flammable storage cabinet is a matter of utmost importance. It can be considered as the first line of defense in case of any fire. Of course doing your research and following safety regulations and having proper firefighting tools and equipment is equally important for the safety of your business.

Brief Primer about Indoor Flammable storage

What are flammable liquids, firstly? Flammable liquids like the name implies are liquids that are very volatile that can ignite easily with a spark or ignition source. To be more specific, The Australian Dangerous Goods Code defines flammable liquids as:

“Flammable liquids are liquids, or mixtures of liquids, or liquids containing solids in solution or suspension (for example, paints, varnishes, lacquers, etc., but not including substances otherwise classified on account of their dangerous characteristics) which give off a flammable vapour at temperatures of not more than 60 °C, closed-cup test, or not more than 65.6 °C, open-cup test, normally referred to as the flash point. This class also includes:
(a) liquids offered for transport at temperatures at or above their flash point; and
(b) substances that are transported or offered for transport at elevated temperatures in a liquid state and which give off a flammable vapour at a temperature at or below the maximum transport temperature.”

Knowing what you are storing is the first stage of fire prevention. The second is complying with Australian Safety Standards. You can be at ease knowing that we have followed Australian Standards in the construction of our Indoor flammable storage products. You can expect our products to be of the highest quality without hurting your bottom line. Think of it as assets that can save you and your company from a lot of heartache and stress.