, Remember, there is a standing pilot flame in that water heater, so any gasoline fumes near it, and........

, That`s what I do, too.

The gas hot water heater is the big white thing setting up in the alcove.

 

Okay, now you put your bike, truck, house AND family at risk of an explosion of terrorist proportions! The bike is inches away from a standing pilot flame (and i mean inches!). Building code dictates that a gas water heater be set at least 18" higher than the floor plane for a very good reason. Gasoline, petroleum distillates and natural gas all share the characteristic of being only slightly heavier than air. So, any accumulation of these would first be at floor plane, and would most likely be dissipated when the garage door is opened. Even the inside the house door to the garage would tend to draw these fumes toward it instead of the heater, and the occupants would most likely smell them and do something about them. You need to either move the bike outside, or the truck outside. If you elect to keep only the bike inside, I would suggest that it be moved to the farthest point feasible away from the water heater.

 

Well the florida sun is killer on vehicles, along with the sandy breezes I get quite frequently around my house. I have quite a bit invested in the truck as well, so getting inside was a must. Not to mention, morning due all over my windows in the morning drives me bat sh*t crazy haha.

I fail to see the issue with the water heater though. Perhaps someone can explain that one to me. I'm not going to start the bike up ever where it is. It's going to be rolled back and out of the way, which will of course be after the truck has been backed out which of course requires the garage door to be open. Sooo... Issue? I fail to see one.

If it does explode with terrorist proportions, it'll just be me though, no family to worry about. Maybe the stray cat or two outside will get singed but I don't think anyone will mind too much :P

 

I think they're referring to the vapours from your tank building up enough to explode...which in my opinion is very unlikely. It's not a confined space so anything that gets outside the tank will dissipate quick enough and inside the tank doesn't have enough oxygen to support combustion. Now I wouldn't leave the gas cap off and park it there or fill it with gas while in front of the water heater so just some common sense and you will probably be fine.
Besides don't most water heaters have flame arrestors to help prevent this type of thing?

 

Your bike is EFI? It is equipped with emission control equipment that eliminates most if not all gas vapors while engine is off. I would not worry about the water heater. Hell, your truck probably vents more vapors than the bike.

And, you have belt drive, so no cleaning the chain with gasoline inside the garage to worry about.

John

 

Oh wow didn't knkw that about efi bikes. Learned something new today!

 

:Glad the OP figured it out before your idea helped him tip his bike over on the garage floor. Think about it, the jack works because it is directly under the bike. A forklift works by having a very large amount of counter weight.

 

I'll try to explain it...

You have 4.5 gallons of gasoline inches away from a continuous pilot light, and at times, a much larger flame when the burner is on.

• 1 gallon of gasoline contains 1.3 x 10^8 Joules of energy. (130000000 J)
• 4.5 gallons contains 5.85 x 10^8 Joules. (585000000 J)
• 1 kg of TNT exploding releases 1 x 10^6 Joules. (1000000 J)

If that gas tank were to explode, it would do so with the equivalent energy of 585 kg (1290 lb) of TNT.

Hence the explosion of terrorist proportions mentioned earlier. This won't be 'honey, get the fire extingusher!' - It will level your house and maybe one or more of your neighbors' houses, depending on how big the lots in your subdivision are.

BTW - I'm an engineer; many of my designs include pressure vessels, stored energy and varying explosion risk - I work with math and physics like this all the time.

 

I wouldn't argue with your calculations but I would argue that your scenario is only if all the gas were in vapour form and mixed with the proper amount of air.
The most likely scenario would be a raging fire rather than an explosion...

 

You are correct. In cases like mitigating/managing explosion risk, worst case scenarios are what are reported, and what systems are designed to withstand. Managers don't listen if we say there may be a fire.

The NASA engineers grounded what turned out to be Challenger's last flight - they were overridden by managers who were more concerned with the TV crews filming the first civilian, also a school teacher, going into space. The managers later blamed the engineers for not scrubbing the launch. 24 engineers quit their NASA gigs over it.

Depending on how an incident could occur, for example, the fuel tank vent tube igniting and that flame flashing to the tank, the vaporization could occur in seconds. Especially with the help of the extreme pressure that would be created inside the tank, which would blow the tank wide open. There would be more risk of explosion the less full the tank is, actually. Any scenario would likely produce a large fireball.