Food for thought...

[wynnum1]

Earth Leakage Circuit Breaker do work well and still get a electric shock that will liven up your day.Gas is dirty and there are fine particles that may not be good for long term health.Depending on where gas comes from it is possible to have other contaminates gas methane from landfills can have mercury that has to be removed the gas from in the ground could have similar.

[Shadily]

I use electric for 1 simple reason above all others, solar panels. Gas is expensive but during the day electricity is free! 8-)

[res]

I use electric for 1 simple reason above all others, solar panels. Gas is expensive but during the day electricity is free! 8-)

:text-+1: on the solar panels, they work a treat :handgestures-thumbupleft:

[templeton]

At the risk of bumping a long dead debate, risk and safety are two different animals. Risk is what insurance companies and bookmakers and punters talk about. .Safety is what coroners talk about.
If you are talking about risk, you are trying to calculate odds, often with insufficient information - I reckon i can make 1000 litres of cheap 95% before something goes wrong. Good odds, I'll risk it.
I you are talking about safety, you are trying to answer the coronor's (and your partner's) question when she asks "So what was the critically import outcome of producing 1000 litres of cheap 95% alcohol that it was worth your child dying?
think about it.
T

[templeton]

Risk is about money, costs and payouts, safety is about going to bed without crying yourself to sleep.

[Sam.]

Gee and here I thought that minimising risks would be making it safer......

There are people that get paid a lot of money crapping on about this shit in great detail when it isn't needed.

Distill safely, if you are having safety issues and almost burning your house down every run then you probably shouldn't be operating a still.

[templeton]

Fair point, sam. And it is a complex issue, complicated by commonsense versus technical definitions, where we often end disagreeing but actually talking about the same thing, probably agreeing in substance.
In my industry, risk is what the insurance company talks about - if we cover this event for $200K, sell250 policies at $1000, we've covered the risk. We've done nothing about safety, we only talk about that so we can lower the risk, and make more profit.
As a practitioner, I don' t give a rats arse about the profit of the insurance company, i worry about someone's kid not coming home - and that's about safety. A picky point,, but whenever i find myself talki ng about the risk of something, i start thinki g in probabilities, i dont want there to be any chance that an empty seat on thebus is due to me having made an error in calculation. If on the other hand all my thoughts are around safety, i might stuff up and make an error in judgement, but at least I'm not gambling on the likelyhood or not of an unusual event, which i could otherwise avoid, occuring.
It's an obsession of mine, as you might have picked up :)
t

[Zak Griffin]

You're talking about financial risk...

"Risk is the potential of losing something of value. Values (such as physical health, social status, emotional well being or financial wealth) can be gained or lost when taking risk resulting from a given action, activity and/or inaction, foreseen or unforeseen."

So by increasing the number of negative actions that we can foresee (talking about them here), we reduce the number of negative actions that we can't foresee. And by putting control measures in place to prevent or fix any negative actions that we can see, and being aware at all times of the ones that we can't, we reduce the risk.

I can use big words too.

We're not talking about insurance here mate, we're talking about safety. Safety comes from nullifying or reducing the impact of as many hazards as possible, and reducing chance of those hazards occurring. This is called risk assessment. All of the lads here that have anything to do with mining will know exactly what I mean - SSOW's, ATW's, JSEA/JHA/THA's, SWP's and Take 5/STOP/STAR etc etc etc's are done before each and every task.

[templeton]

yep,
in furious agreement with ya - terminology, only.
T

[engine giant]

I've set up all my gear on electric. Personal preference because of many reasons. Safety being one. Coming from a overly risk conscious construction/ gas background there are ways to mitigate the major hazards. Remember men weld in live gas plants daily and with little risk. There will always be a chance of something going wrong. It's how you control your situation to give you the best chance should something fail. I personally think a professionally set up electric system is the safer option but each to their own.

I think you touch on a very pertinent point in that example. Welders work in very many hazardous environments and live to tell the tale. But and this is a big but, when performing tasks in such environments, the risks are assessed and effective controls put in place before work commences. The problem with most home based tasks is that familiarity breeds contempt. Gas and electricity are two very common energy sources, both with serious, even life threatening potential, but due to their widespread use, we pay them little heed and are most amazed when they bite back.
There should be multiple levels of protection and redundancy built in to our stills, be they gas or electric fired, so as to make this the safest hobby.
For the truly "practically challenged", a quality proprietary electric system is probably best, while those with a more practical disposition should be able to assemble and maintain a safe gas system. Either heat source demands proper contingency planning and the provision of appropriate extinguishing media and regular safety checks and maintenance.