You've probably never heard of spontaneous combustion in dryers. Good. It's rare - but does happen. Speed Queen dryers are built to last and designed to minimise the risk of fire, but there are 3 simple steps commercial on-premise laundries can do to further reduce risks.
Spontaneous combustion
Spontaneous combustion occurs when garments or linens are not properly cleaned so combustible chemicals remain. These are then put in a dryer, which has resulted in spontaneous combustion. This is almost always a process rather than a product problem.
As an example, a towel that was used to clean up an oil spill was not properly washed so some oil remained on it. It was then placed into a dryer where it and several other towels were dried and heated before being left overnight. The towels continued to warm until the residual oil ignited and destroyed the dryer.
Most Speed Queen dryers have systems in place to mitigate the risk of spontaneous combustion. The 'cooldown cycle' involves the machine periodically tumbling to lower the temperature of the garments inside, reducing the risk of combustion. Additionally, most Speed Queen dryers are designed to act as a fireplace if something ignites inside of them by venting the heat, thereby limiting the amount of damage that they can cause.
The human element
Most of the time, spontaneous combustion occurs due to human error. For example, when a new employee uses "formula 4" instead of "formula 5", leaving the garments with residual grease when they were placed into the dryer. It could be that an employee stopped the dryer during the cooldown cycle so they could 'speed up' their laundry process.
Regardless, the way to reduce risk is simple. Education.
1. Identify potential fire sources such as oils that commonly run through your machines.
2. Select the appropriate cleaning chemicals for use in your machines.
3. Educate staff to ensure that they understand the proper process for cleaning garments and linens.
By doing these 3 simple steps, the risk of spontaneous combustion will be minimal and you can rest easy knowing that your machines will be running safely and efficiently!
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