Westchester plumbing contractor Peter Grotto Jr. is launching a new sales business aimed at homeowners. Instead of fixing their leaky pipes, Grotto aims to serve customers with a product that douses fires in enclosed spaces with an explosive burst of nontoxic powder.
“Grotto”™s On Fire,” the Yonkers-based businessman has branded his trademarked product. Setting Christmas trees and tinder-fueled wood pallets ablaze in a large dumpster outside his company”™s Sleepy Hollow warehouse, he recently demonstrated its use for a small audience. A two-man crew from RDP Productions Inc., a multimedia services company in Nanuet, filmed the action, by turns fiery and smoke-enveloped, to include in a two-minute infomercial for the launch.
About the size of a candlepin bowling ball, Grotto”™s on Fire is a Styrofoam globe containing the same dry chemical powder used in fire extinguishers. At its core is black gun powder, which noisily explodes like a rude wake-up call for fire victims when the room temperature reaches 158 degrees Fahrenheit or as flames lick at the ball. The explosion scatters bits of Styrofoam and a dense, slow-settling mist of fire-snuffing powder. Grotto said the ball”™s contents will effectively extinguish startup fires within a range of 10 cubic feet.
Grotto, owner of Peter Grotto Plumbing and Heating Inc., is not his product”™s inventor; rather, he discovered it online while shopping for business ideas. The balls are manufactured in China. The entrepreneur said he has imported 1,000 units, which he plans to sell online and eventually in retail stores.
Priced at $39.95, the ball is designed for confined spaces where fire might break out, such as kitchen stoves, boiler rooms and crawl spaces. Homeowners might sleep more easily in the holiday season while Grotto”™s On Fire hangs on the Christmas tree with the ornaments and potentially hazardous lights. The portable ball, which comes with a hanging wire cradle, also can be used in autos, boats and recreational vehicles.
“We are the exclusive distributor for the Northern Hemisphere,” said Grotto. The balls already are sold under another trade name in Dubai, he noted. “But in Dubai, it”™s twice the price,” he said.
Grotto said he plans to add smoke detectors and other safety devices to his fire-prevention business.
