Have you ever dealt with insurance claims? I've never come out ahead or even broke even with them.
Every year there are fires started here by headers (combines) reaping lentils, there was one started two weeks ago, but fortunately it was a mild morning and all the farmers here have very good firefighting equipment. The fires seem to start by static electricity in the very fine lentil dust. A few years ago a header lit a fire in three places, which then spread into quite a major fire, doing quite considerable damage. The header was OK and there was nothing found on the machine to lead to the cause of the fire. The problem is, for insurance purposes, the header manufacturers will not accept that static electicity causes fires, and the the insurance companies always look for someone or thing or try to prove negligence, so that they can make someone else pay. If the manufacturers did accept that static electricity lit fires, they then leave themselves wide open for back claims. Everyone here drags chains on their headers to try and reduce the problem. A couple of years ago a friend of mine was reaping lentils with a late model John Deere and a fire started and the only indication they could find where it started, was on the step of the machine. After the fire was out, one the local CFS chaps grabbed hold of the chain on the header axle and the shock that he received, nearly threw him backwards. Later that night, they went back reaping the lentils, with the fire unit travelling alongside the machine and my mate reckoned that there were sparks every where as the reel picked up the lentils. I can relate several instances where the only cause of header fires appears to be static electricity. My cousin went back to his machine one night, an older model New Holland and found a patch of dust smouldering on top of the rotor. Do you have similar problems in other areas, because here it seems to be a bit of a grey area, but there is just no other explanation.
Rn'R.