Are you looking for ideas to help add a little history and class to your living room? Well a great way to add a little class and originality to a room is to purchase an antique fire extinguisher as a centerpiece or make it the center point of your fire place. If you are looking for something both unique and antique then an antique fire extinguisher can be a beautiful room accent that will really add a little something to your room décor. However they can be a little hard to find but they are definitely worth the effort.

Early Antique Fire Extinguishers

The earliest types of antique fire extinguishers can be dated back as far as the early 1700’s. These antique fire extinguishers were of a primitive design and consisted of a cask filled with a fire retardant liquid. Incorporated in the internal construction of the cask was a gunpowder charge connected by a light-able fuse. This fuse would be lit which ignited the gunpowder which in turn exploded the cask releasing the liquid onto the fire. Essentially these early antique extinguishers were once little more than chemical-filled glass balls or ‘grenades’ which were thrown at a fire. If you manage to find one in great shape they can be quite beautiful and valuable and stunning to use to decorate a room.

Modern Antique Fire Extinguishers

The first modern types of antique extinguishers were patented in the early 1800’s. These extinguishers consisted of a mixture of compressed air and potassium carbonate in a copper or bronze cylinder. On operation the compressed air would expel the potassium carbonate at the base of the flames.

These antique fire extinguishers are much more common and easy to find because they were produced in large quantities and many of them have survived.

Then in France in 1866 a new design was introduced and patented which utilized the internal mixing of water, sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid to produce carbon dioxide gas. The carbon dioxide gas was directed at the seat of the fire to extinguish the flames

All over the world inventors were trying to design enhancements to these early types of antique extinguishers. An American man, Almon Granger developed an antique model which worked by mixing sodium bicarbonate with sulfuric acid producing carbon dioxide gas which pressurized and propelled water contained in the copper shell through a small direction hose to the seat of the blaze.

As technology improved in the early 1900’s a new form of extinguisher was introduced. This carbon tetrachloride fire extinguisher was manufactured by Pyrene. It was characterized by its chrome or brass holding cylinder and the hand pumped action. This extinguisher was extremely popular with the auto industry due to its suitability to be used on liquid and electrical fires.

As you can see there are a lot of antique fire extinguishers to choose from. If you manage to find an antique fire extinguisher it makes a great room addition. It adds a little nostalgia to the room you put it in.

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