Totally off-topic - but seasonal

[Lorna Allison]

Hello All

A salutary tale:

Wanted to soften up the mm. thin remnants in 5 tealights so that I could stick down taller candles inside them. Put them on the cooker hob, turned on the plate and nipped into the hall “for a moment” – totally forgot about them.

Odd smell in house, opened kitchen door, full of thick smoke - dashed to cooker swiped tealights off heat, covered them with a pan, turned on fan, rushed to open window and realised I was choking and feeling none too great. Out of kitchen, closed door, hall now full of smoke, ran to open outside door. The smoke alarm that goes off every time I grill a rasher of bacon had remained silent throughout.

Hours later now and I’m sitting with a sore chest swearing I will never have another candle in the house. Question: What on earth do they put in tealights that are so lethal?

If my expected new grandchild had been in that kitchen it would not have survived.

Lorna

[AndrewP]

I don't have any candles in the house. Part of that is down to my last job which was in television manufacturing. My boss had to travel to the scenes of house fires in UK and various countries around Europe where the Fire Brigade had said that the television was the most likely source of ignition. As product safety was our department's remit we wanted to know if this was right or wrong, as well as find evidence so that the company was less likely to be sued or prosecuted. He was successful in finding another more likely source of ignition in every case. In a number of the cases, amongst the remnants of the television were the bases of tealight candles.

It looked like the people had stood the tealight candles directly onto the top of the television (plastic surround). When the candle burned down the metallic base of the tealight heated up and melted through the plastic allowing the candle to fall inside and set the television alight. It takes a fair heat to set the (flame retardant) plastic case of the TV alight, but when it does ignite, it does so dramatically, producing a lot of smoke and reducing the TV to a small pile of rubble.

We had to experiment with this. We took a sample TV out into the yard outside the factory and heated it with a gas blowtorch to speed up the process. It took time to ignite, but when it did, it did so quite dramatically.

So the lesson from that is, if you do use candles, don't put them directly on top of the television (or any other plastic-topped item) unless you are confident that the base of your candle holder will not get hot even when the candle burns down to its base.

All the best,

AndrewP

[Ann In the UK]

Battery operated tealights for you next year - John Lewis about £3 a pair (other well known retailers may also stock similar ) . We had them on the table this year - not ideal, but fine - and no burning foliage or fingers! And absolutely no toxic fumes!

Hope you're ok.
Ann

[Lorna Allison]

Thanks, I'm fine. Of course it was a monumentally silly thing to do, one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" things

What amazes me is the amount of noxious fumes generated by such a little "wax". Surprised that that is allowed in the present "oh so careful climate". As you both suggest either nothing or battery operated next year. I expect the expensive beeswax candles would be ok, from the fume point of view at least but I'm thinking perhaps better not to bother if I go around doing silly things with bare lights.

Regards

Lorna

[Russell]

Hi Lorna

Slightly off your original topic but it reminded me of a childhood incident. The family had an heirloom solid silver tea service with an ornate teapot. It was placed on the cooker to infuse when something happening outside took all the family into the garden. Someone had left the solid cooker ring on and when we came back in the teapot was just a puddle sitting on the ring. I remember it very clearly because I drilled a hole in the remnant lump and used it for years as a weight for my fishing line when we went on seaside holidays. Probably worth some money now and it is stuck in the sands off Silloth beach.

Russell

[paddyscar]

Hi Lorna:

I was reading recently online (not that I can find it now!) that many candles are still being made with large amounts of parafin, and especially in unregulated countries, are being made with additional unsavoury chemicals. There are still many manufacturers using lead wicks. One article I was reading referenced monks having high levels of lead in their blood despite not being outside monasteries where they would be exposed to pollution. It was believed it was prevelant due to burning joss sticks and candles containing high lead wicks.

http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/ ... ekey=23006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_poisoning
http://green-vaccine.com/green-home/non ... ea-lights/
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?h ... %3d%3d#db=

Glad you`re still with us!

Frances

[Susan]

Hi Lorna

Have to agree with Frances - a few months ago I was reading about candles online - I had bought some lovely beeswax candles at a local farm shop and looked up the company that made them online. I also looked up a few other websites about candles - and was quite surprised to read about the potential problems with some candles containing parafin and other chemicals, and lead wicks.

Whilst beeswax candles will be a bit more expensive, they burn for longer and do not smoke like some other candles. The wicks are made of thick cotton and burn with a beautiful bright flame.

If you do need to soften any candle wax it is best to use a hairdryer - then you can control quite easily just how soft you need to make the wax for what you want to do with it. It's also so much easier to stop if you are interupted - go deal with whatever needs doing - then you can come back to softening your candle wax.

Regards
Susan.

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings Lorna and Russell.

Your posts take me back to Young Farmers Clubs Balls and dances of the 70's. As an organizer of such, I became quite a dab hand turning my parent's caravan, two burner gas top, into a frosted candle holder factory, making table decorations for the girls. On one ring a large frying pan with a big block of wax was left slowly melting, on the other a very small saucepan on a slow heat.

Firstly the most distinctive spirit and bubbly bottles, we could find, were given a thin dipping with plain wax. Then a couple of ladles of melted wax, were pored into the small saucepan with a coloured crayon, The pan was withdrawn from the heat, and as it cooled, it was furiously beaten, the resulting frosted wax was then allowed to dribble, down the bottles, completely covering them and decorating them.

Successful frosting required only small amounts of wax to be worked at one time, as it cooled, so the trick was getting the same crayon [colour] mix each time, so the colour was similar around the whole bottle. As my bottles were proving to be rather rustic, colour match wise, I eventually made up coloured batches of wax, which I then ladled out and whipped.

I even made doweling pin boxes, for safely carrying the two dozen frosted candle holders, to events in the public halls and football pavilion. They proved such a hit I had numerous requests for more. Thankfully I did not burn down the caravan, but as Lorna and Russell rightly point out, it could have happened so easily. Nor did we set fire to the supper tables, with their overflowing fare.

Happy New Year.

Alan SHARP

PS. The other thing that we were aware of, but possibly not today, even the semi-cooled frosted wax contained enough heat to burn any exposed skin it touched.