Looking for Help from Freepers on a Building Safety / Fire Protection Matter

Self | 9/28/13 | Alberta's Child

[Alberta's Child]

I'm looking for some input from knowledgeable folks here on FreeRepublic about an interesting matter a friend of mine is dealing with. He owns a commercial building with a wet sprinkler system, and a tenant is looking to install a lot of new electronic/IT equipment in one room. The building code requires the sprinklers, but there's an obvious risk to expensive electronic equipment (and maybe an elevated risk of electrocution for staff and firefighters) if the sprinklers are activated in a fire.

The obvious solution would be to remove the sprinkler heads in that particular room, but this is not something that would be permitted under the local fire code.

Has anyone here dealt with a situation where a sprinkler system like this was modified to the minimize risk of damage to sensitive electronic equipment, while at the same time meeting all of the fire safety requirements related to the sprinkler system?

[Alberta's Child]

Any input on this would be greatly appreciated. The local fire inspector is eventually going to be consulted on this, but I'm trying to help my friend come up with several options handy before that meeting takes place.

[Paladin2]

Build a tent in the room.

Or buy an expensive electrical fire suppression system.

[GSP.FAN]

Gas sprinkler system...

http://www.datacenterjournal.com/it/inert-gas-data-center-fire-protection-and-hard-disk-drive-damage/

[Gen.Blather]

http://www.facilitiesnet.com/firesafety/article/Effective-Fire-Suppression-in-Data-Centers-Requires-Careful-Planning-by-FMs—12580

[mdittmar]

Wouldn't the loss be covered by Insurance?

The fire code won't change,that's for sure.

[GeronL]

Can’t they install something besides water sprinklers?

[rabidralph]

I think it should be a Halon-type sprinkler for electronics or a Class C sprinkler system for electrical fires.

[Venturer]

There are other Fire suppression systems.

One of the problems is that some are dangerous to employees as they remove or substitute the oxygen in the room.

Look around he should be able to find something that would work. Perhaps he should call the Fire investigators and ask their advice.

[Squawk 8888]

Back in the 1980s the standard for data centres was halon.

[puppypusher]

You shouldn’t use a water sprinkler system in a building with electronic equipment. A Halon Fire suppression system is used more often for that.Just check with a local fire Suppression equipment company.

They’ll lead you in the right direction.

[Navy Patriot]

It is highly likely that your city code has approved halon individual room systems. They keep electronics damage to a minimum in case of fire. Check with city planning and permitting.

[FreedomPoster]

Halon isn’t used any more, FM-200 is the modern gas.

Halon was banned under the Montreal Accords as an ozone depleting material, just like some of the better (thermodynamically) Freons.

[Alberta's Child]

Very good input there, NP.

The individual room system idea isn't one we had thought about. There's no way the entire building is going to be retrofitted with an inert gas fire suppression system, but there's no reason why a single room couldn't be modified that way.

[Alberta's Child]

Thanks, guys. This basically involves an IT/server room, not a full data center. The cost of making a major modification for an entire building just to accommodate this one user isn’t likely, but doing something small for an individual room might be a possibility.

[alfa6]

Going from memory here so FWIW.

You have two options IIRC

1} If the sprinkler system in that area can be converted to a dry system that would only activate when two different sensors are tripped that MAY keep the local fire officials happy. You could also have an automatic electrical disconnect added so that if the system goes off the power to the units is cut off. Where I work at now we had something like this to protect our old control network servers.

2} Install some type of inert gas fire suppression system as mentioned above.

My best guess as I have been out of the fire protection biz for some time.

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[mylife]

Install ground fault breakers.

[Hardraade]

lol. Where I worked for a while, the halon system was rigged so sensitive that of you lifted the wrong tile in the cooling floor, it might trip the gas. Then it was run for your lives time to the control room, and an expensive refill...

[BushCountry]

Haa, haa, haven’t heard about the ozone layer in a while, not since they proved there was no depletion (I know some idiots still hang on to the belief).

[Alberta's Child]

Thanks. The problem is that I don't know of any building that doesn't have some kind of electronic equipment in it. LOL.

We're probably going to be looking at something for an individual room, rather than making a change for the entire building.

[andyk]

I went through this the last time I built a server room.

You can’t ditch the sprinklers. They’re required by code. What you can do is add a gas based system like halon (there are newer systems now) that is designed to extinguish any fire before the sprinklers activate.