Jim Mickowski, an engineer with PSJ Engineering, has more than 25 years of experience in the design and installation of fire suppression systems. His experience ranges from working on stadiums, museums and office buildings to high-security, high-risk areas in correctional facilities and nuclear facilities where there is “no access allowed.”

Can you tell us about your company?

PSJ Engineering is a mechanical engineering company specializing in the design of fire protection building systems as well as heating, ventilating, air conditioning and plumbing. We have been designing fire protection systems for 25 years. PSJ is headquartered in Milwaukee with an office in Madison, Wisconsin. We’ve been fortunate to have a wide gamut of projects from stadiums to office buildings. The company has completed work for Miller Park (home of the Milwaukee Brewers) and the Milwaukee Museum.

How do you define a no-access-allowed area?

We have designed fire protection systems for penal and nuclear reactor control rooms and would consider these areas high-security, no-access-allowed areas. You can also classify control rooms and areas that house computer infrastructure, where computers need to be protected from water and vandalism, as no-access-allowed areas.

What types of fire safety systems and products do you recommend for these types of projects?

We recommend single and double interlock pre-action systems, because they have many benefits. They provide early warning. They are relatively low cost, simple to install, easy to operate and maintain, and you don’t have to consider room construction or HVAC, as is the case when using a clean agent system. We’ve had a lot of problems activating clean agent systems and getting them to work correctly. The envelope that those systems require depends on the HVAC and building construction. It’s very difficult to keep the building construction tight enough. The air has to go somewhere, so the HVAC system has to complement a clean agent system. It gets a little complicated.

A single or double pre-action with trouble alarms before the water actually enters the piping gives maintenance or supervisory personnel an opportunity to investigate and then take appropriate action. The best way to minimize impact is to provide early warning so people can investigate and take action.

How do you design for an area that is to remain off-limits to most?

Typically, no-access areas are small areas in relationship to the whole project. Those areas should not affect the overall impact of construction cost. We design each area as a pod. In that pod, we design the system so there has to be a smoke or heat detector activated before the water even enters the piping. And then you still have the final safeguard: the sprinkler head. The water doesn’t discharge until the sprinkler heads open up. We are trying to prevent accidental discharge.

For instance, a penal control room is a very small area with numerous cells. The cells obviously are vandal resistant but are not really high security. A lot of times, a prisoner will knock off a sprinkler head and get a discharge of water. Sure, it’s a pain to fix, but it’s not causing any catastrophic damage. The penal control room, however, is the no-access area. If the computers or the security hardware are damaged, you are talking about infrastructure issues that could cost large amounts of money.

I think money and cost to repair go hand in hand when designing a project with no-access-allowed areas. That is what you are trying to eliminate. You are trying to take the maximum safeguards to protect that equipment. Can you imagine if chaos erupted due to fire, and someone got into a penal control room? They could release the cells and doors. You need to protect the electronics and control mechanisms. Treating each of those areas as pods helps secure that area and minimize cost in the event of a fire.

“Can you imagine if chaos erupted due to fire, and someone got into a penal control room? They could release the cells and doors. You need to protect the electronics and control mechanisms.”
— Jim Mickowski, Engineer, PSJ Engineering

So why wouldn’t you use an aspiration system in these areas instead?

It’s not that we wouldn’t use it. We just prefer wet suppression. Aspiration is also a simple system; but it is smoke detection, not fire suppression. It certainly has its place. Incipient fire detection, if a project can afford it, is one of the nicest luxuries any owner can afford. The false alarms caused by dust are a thing of the past.

What types of challenges do you have with no-access-allowed areas?

There is always the challenge to protect the computers. Computers should not be subject to water exposure. We opt to design water suppression systems in a computer room all the time – and we put sprinkler systems in computer rooms all the time. The key in the computer room is to turn the power off before water is discharged. Computers can withstand getting wet provided the power is not on. It’s when the computer power is on and the water shorts them out that you have a problem. We use a combination of water flow switches that are in the piping; when the water comes into the piping, it turns off all power to the computers. And don’t forget the battery backup.

What specifics must you consider when designing fire suppression systems for no-access-areas?

In today’s economy, you want to open it up for every qualified individual to be able to maintain the system you are designing. It only benefits the owner’s maintenance budget. If you have a highly specialized system that only the factory can maintain, it can drive up costs. We are firm believers in keeping it simple; wet suppression is a simple system. It’s important for the maintenance people to understand the system and the operation of it. Typically, the maintenance staff has not been trained on high-tech fire protection systems, so we try to make sure we design the simplest system that will perform in accordance with the user’s requirements.

“Incipient fire detection, if a project can afford it, is one of the nicest luxuries any owner can afford. The false alarms caused by dust are a thing of the past.”
— Jim Mickowski, Engineer, PSJ Engineering

What advice do you have for others in your field when designing a fire safety system for high-security/no-access-allowed projects?

The fire protection engineer must look at it from the perspective of the person who has to maintain it. A sophisticated system is not good if there is no one who knows how to maintain it. Meet the user to verify that he understands the system and see if he has any comments. It has been our experience that if the user supports the design, you have a happy client. Have a colleague look at the design with a fresh set of eyes and get his comments. The building manager should be able to contract any fire protection contractor to maintain the system if they cannot do the maintenance themselves. Keep these questions in mind:

• Will maintenance personnel understand the way it works?
• Is it simple enough?
• Is there something that I can do to help the maintenance person understand?
• Does your client want to subcontract the maintenance?
• Will all fire protection contractors have the ability to maintain the system?

Dan Ubelhor is the corporate engineering manager for Koorsen Fire & Security, headquartered in Indianapolis. He oversees design and engineering of fire protection for Koorsen, which has been in business since 1943. Dan implements design policies for the company and consults with branches around the country on their fire protection design and engineering projects.

How do you define an extreme condition?

Cold storage and large facilities with high ceilings are extreme conditions with many contributing factors that a fire protection designer needs to be aware of to determine the best solution. Another extreme condition may require a smoke detection system in an environment prone to external contaminant sources, such as a nearby highway where car exhaust can enter a building via fresh air intake ventilation systems. Such conditions may need an aspiration system to determine if it’s the contaminated environment or an incipient stage of a fire, which would be considered extreme.

An extreme condition goes beyond the environment. Because we also deal with fire suppression, we often design fire protection and suppression for industrial areas that house flammable liquids and various toxic chemicals. Hazardous chemicals require identifying, for instance, flash point or auto ignition temperature and other factors. Then we select the proper type of fire suppression system – whether a typical sprinkler system or a more specialized type of suppression system such as foam, dry powder, CO₂ or even a clean agent suppression system.

“When there may be a hazard upon a hazard, such as large drums of flammable inks…we place heat detectors above these areas and extend the piping network to these areas.”
— Dan Ubelhor, Corporate Engineering Manager, Koorsen Fire & Security

What do you consider when designing a system for an extreme environment?

Each environment has to be evaluated on its own merits to determine the best integrated solution. That being said, there are a lot of questions that I ask in the beginning of a project to determine the best application: Who is the local authority? What is the goal? Of course, it’s life safety, but I want to know the goal from the main players involved on the project. I work with the insurance companies to determine their requirements. Once that is defined, we find out what types of materials are involved. Is it prone to a highly flammable, fast-acting flame, or a slow, smoldering type of fire? What is the air movement? Air movement can be a challenge because it often affects placement and quantity of smoke detection systems. What are the temperatures in the environment? What are the extremes?

What is the normal condition of the environment? If it’s normally smoky, then that is where an aspirating system would come into effect. We can set it up in a smoky environment, just as long as we know what the normal smoky environment is going to be. If there is a fire, we know there is going to be more obscuration in that area. We can design around that. There are many different kinds of extreme environments; it doesn’t necessarily have to point to a hot or cold environment.

How do flammable liquids or equipment contribute to an extreme condition?

A printing press is a good example. We occasionally protect printing presses and the inks that are involved. Although many of today’s presses use much less flammable type and approved inks, on occasion, certain bearings on the printing press rollers overheat. We provide a fire protection system to detect and suppress any indication of fire. We also want to determine what could potentially spread a fire condition and shut them down: exhaust ventilation, conveyors and the press itself, for example.

What types of detection suit this type of extreme condition?

Oftentimes, on large printing presses, a piping network is designed to connect to a bulk, low-pressure CO₂ suppression system. The bulk storage unit – capacity can vary from 2 to 60 tons – stores the CO₂ fire extinguishing agent at a controlled low temperature of 0˚F. We design a discharge pipe system between the bulk tank and the press, and then split the pipe in many different directions, making its way to the outlet discharge nozzles. Discharge nozzles come in a variety of different shapes to provide various discharge spray patterns, depending on how the fire needs to be extinguished. Discharge nozzles are strategically placed in fire-prone areas. Flame and/or heat detectors are typical type fire detection devices designed into the system to sense fire.

When considering the building around the extreme hazard, a sprinkler system would come into play. You have to treat the building and the hazard inside the building separately. Where does aspiration come in? It depends on the situation and if the customer and insurance company want to detect smoke at the incipient stage.

“Each environment has to be evaluated on its own merits to determine the best integrated solution.”
— Dan Ubelhor, Corporate Engineering Manager, Koorsen Fire & Security

The same considerations would apply to any extreme environments with chemicals and flammables. Although there are many different means of detection, heat or flame detection often apply best to these environments. With heat detectors, there are a few choices: a fixed heat detector, a rate-of-rise heat detector, a rate compensation heat detector and linear cable heat detection. Rate-of-rise detectors sense heat; if the temperature rises more than 15 degrees in one minute, they will activate. Fixed heat detectors activate at their listed heat range. Sometimes we experience a thermal lag (depending on the fire capacity speed) with fixed heat detectors and opt to install a rate compensation heat detector.

We often use flame detectors on rapid-rate fire conditions. A flame detector responds to radiant energy visible to the human eye or outside the range of human vision. The detector senses the fire and signals a suppression control panel, which sends the command to sound the sirens, shut down equipment and discharge the CO₂ out of the bulk tank and through the piping network and discharge nozzles.

When there may be a hazard upon a hazard, such as large drums of flammable inks or ink pumping stations in the same building as the printing press, we place heat detectors above these areas and extend the piping network to these areas. On top of that, you may require sprinkler systems to protect the building structure. In any special application fire protection, we
must consider using a clean agent system first and only use CO₂ as a last resort due to the safety concerns. A clean agent system, as referenced and defined in NFPA 2001, is an electrically non-conducting, volatile, or gaseous fire extinguishant
that does not leave a residue upon evaporation. NFPA 2001 provides the standard we adhere to in assuring that safeguards are provided and safety to personnel is established.

Which codes address extreme environments?

It depends on the jurisdiction/municipality. Once we collect our data from the field, we check the codes. For example, for CO₂ applications, we follow NFPA 12. For other situations, it depends on the application and project location. You have to consider who the AHJ is, which may be the local fire department or insurance company. There may be more than one AHJ, so we adhere to both authorities’ rules. Then you might need to page through other adopted building codes, such as the International Building Codes, International Fire Codes, International Mechanical Codes, Life Safety 101 and all other adopted local codes, as well as NFPA standards.

What are your recommendations for engineers challenged with projects in extreme conditions?

Always remember that you play an important role in the safety of human lives. When you’re in an extreme environment hazard, go through as many scenarios as you can. Picture what would happen if a fire were to break out and then keep in mind these questions: How do I design a fire suppression system to put the fire out? Do I have adequate noisemakers to alert people in the area to evacuate the building? I use checklists all the time to help me remember what to look for. Once you have made your design, always have a second or third person review your work. Get to know the customer’s environment and don’t narrow your way of thinking that the extreme environment is relegated to a factory plant or steel mill. Extreme environments are everywhere. Collect data from the field, research, ask lots of questions, and pull from past experiences and case studies. Look at  every scenario to determine the best applications for the situation to provide safety and a safe evacuation.

Jonathan R. Hart, Associate Fire Protection Engineer with the National Fire Protection Association, is responsible for documents addressing information technology equipment, telecommunication facilities, wet and dry chemical extinguishing systems, explosion protection, commercial cooking systems, fire safety and emergency symbols, and water mist fire protection systems. Hart holds a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and is finishing work toward an M.S. degree in Fire Protection Engineering.

What fire and life safety codes relate to a mission-critical facility?

NFPA 75, Standard for the Protection of Information Technology (IT) Information Equipment, and NFPA 76, Standard for the Fire Protection of Telecommunications Facilities, are the standards that pertain specifically to the protection of IT equipment, IT equipment areas, and telecom facilities. The rest of the facility will be designed to the applicable codes and standards for hazards other than fire and life safety.

The purpose of NFPA 75 is to set forth the minimum requirements for the protection of IT equipment and IT equipment areas from damage by fire or its associated effects, namely smoke corrosion, heat, and water.

Chapter 4 of the standard addresses Risk Consideration. It states in section 4.1 that “the following factors shall be considered in determination of the need for protecting the environment, equipment, function, programming, records, and supplies: (1) Life safety aspects of the function (e.g., process controls, air traffic controls), (2) Fire threat of the installation to occupants or exposed property, (3) Economic loss from the loss of function or loss of records, (4) Economic loss from value of the equipment, (5) Regulatory impact, and (6) Reputation impact.”

The following chapters address building construction, materials and equipment permitted in the IT equipment area, the construction of IT equipment, fire protection and detection equipment, records kept or stored in IT equipment rooms, utilities, and finally, emergency and recovery procedures.

NFPA 76 provides the requirements for fire protection of telecom facilities where telecom services such as telephone (landline, wireless) transmission, data transmission, voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) transmission, and video transmission are rendered to the public. Telecom facilities include signal-processing equipment areas, cable entrance facility areas, power areas, main distribution frame areas, standby engine areas used to run standby power, technical support areas, administrative areas, and building services and support areas occupied by a telecom service provider.

The purpose of the standard is to provide a reasonable level of fire protection in telecom facilities, to provide a reasonable level of life safety for the occupants, and to protect equipment and service continuity. NFPA 76 is intended to avoid requirements that could involve unnecessary complications for or interference with the normal use, occupancy, and operations of telecom facilities and equipment.

Chapter 4 of this standard also addresses Risk Considerations. Section 4.1 Risk Factors reads:

Fire protection programs for telecommunications facilities shall be determined based on an evaluation of the risks and hazards associated with the site and services provided from the facility and the business continuity planning and disaster restoration capabilities of the telecommunications service provider specific to the site.

4.1.1 Fire protection programs shall be established with consideration given to the following factors:

(1) Exposure threat to facility occupants, the general public, and exposed property from a fire occurring at, adjacent to, or within the facility.

(2) The importance of telecommunications service continuity in supporting public safety through emergency communications (such as 911), national defense communications requirements, video transmission of critical medical operations, and other vital data.

(3) Methods employed by a service provider, as part of a risk management or business continuity strategy, that allow service to remain viable during and after an event or to be replaced or restored within a reasonable period post-event.

(4) The potential for a given protection strategy to result in a service disruption or inhibit the ability of the service provider to restore service in a timely manner post-event.

Section 4.2 of the standard continues with this method of characterizing the risk considerations in order to provide the most suitable design.

The following three chapters address performance-based design approaches, prescriptive-based design approaches, and redundant-or-replacement-based design approaches, respectively. The subsequent chapters detail the requirements for fire protection elements, fire prevention, pre-fire planning, damage control, and emergency recovery.

“If you think of how many of our work and personal records, everyday use files and information are accessible online through centralized data repositories, you can quickly see the importance of NFPA 75.”
— Jonathan R. Hart, Associate Fire Protection Engineer, NFPA

Please explain the significance of NFPA 75 and 76.

These documents have and continue to become more and more important as society grows reliant on what these documents are designed to protect. If you think of how many of our work and personal records, everyday use files and information are accessible online through centralized data repositories, you can quickly see the importance of NFPA 75. Likewise, information sent via telephone, Internet and similar transmission methods bring to bear the need to keep the routes that information travels up and running, which is a main goal of NFPA 76.

A small sampling of what is protected by NFPA 75 and NFPA 76 includes data storage/retrieval systems, ranging from criminal and medical records, financial records and transactions, insurance and legal records, and registration databases. Data processing systems are protected, including background checks, prescription compatibility, weather modeling, and defense systems, among other critical information. Data communications that are protected include wired-line, wireless (GSM, WiFi, etc.), satellite, radio, Internet, cable, and air traffic control.

What are common elements of these standards that overlap with mission-critical facilities?

Both NFPA 75 and 76 contain a Chapter 4 titled “Risk Considerations,” as stated above. These risk considerations employ an analysis of the risk factors involved both from a fire as well as from an accidental failure of the protection strategies. The overall design of these facilities is required to consider such risks and the total impact of downtime.

In addition, each of these standards requires the facilities to have an emergency fire plan, a damage control plan, and emergency recovery procedures.

How do the standards apply to different areas within a mission-critical facility?

NFPA 75 only applies to the protection of IT equipment and IT equipment areas. The rest of the facility will be designed to the applicable codes and standards.

NFPA 76 simply requires that telecom facilities be separated from the rest of the building by two-hour fire resistance-rated partitions. The standard contains additional conditions for telecom facilities housed in multiple tenant buildings that require either specific building construction types AND require automatic suppression, or limit them to one story.

How do the standards address instances that go beyond traditional fire detection?

NFPA 75 requires the installation of automatic detection equipment to provide early warning of fire. This needs to be a listed smoke detection-type system installed and maintained in accordance with NFPA 72^®, National Fire Alarm and Signaling Code. The automatic detection systems are required to be located at ceiling level throughout the IT equipment area, below raised floors containing cables, and above suspended ceilings that recirculate air.

NFPA 76 requires Very Early Warning Fire Detection (VEWFD) for rooms containing over 2,500 square feet of signal-processing equipment areas and Early Warning Fire Detection (EWFD) systems for facilities containing less than 2,500 square feet of signal-processing equipment. Raised floors require fire detection depending on their use and the detection used in the area above them. The standard requires that EWFD and VEWFD use sensors or ports with spacing that is less than normally required by NFPA 72. Specific requirements for each type of detector are contained in Section 8.5 of the standard.

Which emerging topics affect safety considerations in these facilities?

Trends that are driving some of the changes that occur in NFPA 75 and NFPA 76 protected facilities include increasing power densities, which produce greater amounts of heat and therefore require increased amounts of airflow through these areas for cooling. The movement toward making buildings more environmentally friendly is leading to innovative HVAC solutions to increase system energy efficiencies. A demand for faster speed of product from concept to market creates issues in keeping on top of the newest technologies. In general, information technology equipment and telecommunication facilities change at a very fast rate. This creates some challenging issues in determining exactly what is being used, what arrangements are being used, and how these can be protected.

The nature of electronic data and the potential for the important use of that data leads to an ever increasing “critical” nature of these services. The need for some combination of physical protection, detection and alarm, use of appropriate suppression systems, redundancy and a higher-than-average level of reliability for system performance results in improved chances of continuity of operations when something goes wrong and access to important data when it is needed.

For more information on NFPA Codes and Standards, including NFPA 72^®, NFPA 75^® and NFPA 76^®, visit www.nfpa.org/codes.

NFPA 72^®, NFPA 75^® & NFPA 76^® are registered trademarks of the National Fire Protection Association.

Mike Knoras is a Project Manager for the Atlanta regional office of Aon Fire Protection Engineering Corporation (Aon FPE). Aon FPE consults on matters of life safety, code and fire protection, which includes emergency voice systems, mass notification systems and other systems that require audibility and intelligibility. As a licensed professional engineer with master’s degrees in electrical engineering and fire protection engineering, his vast experience spans fire alarm and life safety systems and emergency voice systems placed in high-rise buildings, public assembly areas, and large mixed-use occupancies.

How have you seen intelligibility come to be part of fire alarm systems?

It’s actually been a “requirement” in NFPA 72 since 1999, although it simply stated emergency voice alarm systems had to have messages with voice intelligibility, with most of the information provided in the annex of NFPA 72. Essentially, the annex provides additional information and guidance the engineer or designer can use when applying the code sections. As of the 2010 edition, Annex D is entirely devoted to intelligibility and how to approach design, how to look at a building, how to divide it into different segments, and how to test for intelligibility. This edition also defines a new term called an acoustically distinguishable space (ADS), a specific area that has common acoustical properties. This could be a room, or just a part of a room. However, the annex is just additional reference information and not a part of the code or its requirements.

What is intelligibility’s role in an actual building notification system?

What’s interesting is that intelligibility is now stated in several sections, both for emergency voice communication systems, which is fire alarm based, and for mass notification systems (MNS), which is now also identified in NFPA 72. The code states the system (fire alarm or mass notification) must have intelligibility, but is non-specific and stops short of applying a value of intelligibility as “acceptable.” There are scales to measure intelligibility, which are referenced in the annex of NFPA 72, but not in the body of the code.

Although intelligibility is slowly being required formally, primarily by the Department of Defense for military projects, it is being placed into the hands of the engineer or the designer to determine which areas need to have intelligibility. That puts more pressure on the engineer and the authorities having jurisdiction. A janitor’s closet, for example, wouldn’t need to meet the requirement of intelligibility. As an engineer, you need to evaluate whether the ADS needs intelligibility, at what level, and then how to provide that intelligibility.

Intelligibility and mass notification have their roots in the U.S. Department of Defense Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) document 4-021-01, the Design and O&M: Mass Notification Systems design guide. This document spells out the MNS requirements for any military base or property. It defines a 0.7 value for intelligibility on the Common Intelligibility Scale (CIS) throughout the facility. While a hard number is required, it also recognizes that many areas don’t lend themselves to promoting intelligibility. However, this document also puts the responsibility of deciding where intelligibility is possible into the hands of the engineer or designer. Intelligibility is required throughout the building. Where it isn’t reasonably possible to meet it, the standard evacuation audible tone must be audible to notify personnel and allow them to reach an area where intelligibility can be achieved within a defined travel distance. Therefore, even though the military has a defined requirement of 0.7 on the CIS scale, they still recognize that intelligibility isn’t an exact science and allow the engineer and designer to determine when it can be accomplished.

One very important thing to remember, while you can define where intelligibility can, and cannot, be achieved, you had better be ready to defend that decision to the local authority. Whether it’s the municipal fire department or the base commander, you need to have sound reasoning based on life safety to support your decisions.

How do you approach life safety design for intelligibility in a building?

Before I address intelligibility, the first objective is to determine what is needed to meet the code requirements for audibility in the building. Then, I determine device locations and calculate the audibility in the different rooms by using simple logarithmic equations. If you have an existing building, an actual sound test can check the audibility. Once you have a design that meets the requirements for audibility, then you look at the features of the space or room and determine how the design can be applied to meet intelligibility.

“ …while you can define where intelligibility can, and cannot, be achieved, you had better be ready to defend that decision to the local authority.”
— Mike Knoras, Project Manager, Aon FPE

It’s important to find out what acoustical surfaces are involved in each area. I have to determine if the features of the room absorb or reflect sound, and then determine the best location for the speaker in that area: Is it better to put it on a wall, or on the ceiling? Am I more concerned about the sound penetrating into the room, or will that actually cause more of a problem and I need to limit where the sound goes? If it’s a decent size room, I may need to have more speakers added to other walls, then there could be multiple signals reaching the listener at different times, and it actually garbles the message. Maybe I need to put them in the ceiling to distribute the message more evenly throughout that space, or maybe even a combination of wall and ceiling speakers. Once I decide where I want to mount the speakers, then there are different patterns that can be used to achieve the most uniform sound coverage. These patterns are actually derived from audio engineering to achieve the best sound dispersion, intelligibility, and audibility. There is always an element of trial-and-error in designing, but using these patterns can greatly simplify the process.

Most buildings have areas where designing intelligibility can only be estimated and field adjustments are necessary. The real world can be very different from what you have calculated and designed. You’ll want to plan to have enough devices to evenly distribute the sound throughout the area using relatively low power. Otherwise, you may find that you have too few speakers, tapped at too high a setting, and your only option is to add more devices after-the-fact, which is always more expensive.

“ Do you spend thousands of dollars to meet the letter of the code, or do you meet the intention?”
— Mike Knoras, Project Manager, Aon FPE

When you have a very unique or challenging environment, it can often pay to hire an acoustic expert with the right equipment and software to model the space or area and predict the type and location of speakers that would give the best chance of meeting intelligibility. There are going to be points within an area where intelligibility cannot reasonably be achieved. That’s when you have to weigh the impact on life safety versus the cost to achieve it. Do you spend thousands of dollars to meet the letter of the code, or do you meet the intention? This is always a difficult choice and I haven’t come across any serious issues to date, but it is always a potential problem.

What do you use as your design guide?

There are some rules of thumb, and a lot of white papers by researchers for audibility and intelligibility that can offer some guidance, as well as several standards such as the National Electrical Manufacturer’s Association (NEMA) 50B, Emergency Communications Audio Intelligibility Applications Guide. However, nothing beats experience – making some mistakes along the way teaches you a thing or two as well.

There is also computer software specifically designed for estimating the audibility and intelligibility within a room or space. Some software is very basic and requires only a little information about the room, its construction, the speakers, and their layout. Other software can model an entire room and inputting the materials used for the surfaces within the room and other features can give a very accurate estimation of the intelligibility you can expect to achieve.

Are you looking to put intelligibility throughout the building or in select spaces?

Intelligibility in general is required in all occupiable spaces, similar to audibility. However, NFPA 72 exempts several areas, such as mechanical rooms, elevator rooms, individual offices, and private bathrooms. Each ADS needs to be considered on its own merits. The engineer or designer has to make the determination as to whether intelligibility should be required in the ADS, and then how to meet it.

How would the recommendation differ by type of building, such as a manufacturing plant?

In general, any time you have large groups of people, such as an assembly occupancy with 300 or more people in a single space or venue, a voice fire alarm system is required. This is also true of high-rises, large assembly buildings, and malls. Very challenging areas are airports, train stations, and subway and bus stations. However, even a common office building can have intelligibility challenges.

When you consider an industrial environment where a high noise level could interfere with hearing an emergency message, it poses a separate challenge. You may find you cannot achieve a message with intelligibility when the manufacturing processes are operational. Even if your message can be louder than the background sound, intelligibility still may not be achievable. We have to look at what we’re trying to achieve. I approach it the same way, but what I have to look at first is what affects the intelligibility. If the processes can’t be stopped so that the message can be sufficiently louder than the background sounds, then I’m going to look at alternative measures – which don’t necessarily have anything to do with intelligibility at all. I may need to use visual notification to alert people that there is a fire.

Is the emergency voice fire alarm system considered a separate entity from the MNS or can it be integrated?

You can implement each system separately, or you can combine the voice messaging. In fact, the UFC requires all new construction have a combined fire alarm/mass notification system installed. Integrating the voice portion of the systems makes perfectly good sense because both fire alarm and mass notification systems have extremely close requirements as far as their performance, where and how well they have to perform, and the configuration of the system. The fire alarm speakers, amplifiers and wires are physically the same for the fire alarm voice system and an MNS.

Also, the UFC requires audibility of the mass notification system everywhere the fire alarm system is required to be heard. Technically, if both systems are designed properly, then the speakers for both systems would be placed in the same locations – combining them makes a lot of sense. Where they differ is visual notification. Both NFPA 72 and the UFC normally require mass notification systems to use a different colored strobe, typically amber, although the UFC does have variations depending on the branch of the service. This would then require separate wire, strobes, and usually separate raceway for the mass notification strobes, although they are still connected to the fire alarm system for power and control. MNS may also be installed separately from the fire alarm system, which can actually be more cost-effective if you are adding the system to an existing building and don’t want to upgrade or replace the existing fire alarm system.

Why is an aspirating system typically used?

Recognizing a fire in its incipient stage is critical long before smoke is visible to the human eye. Aspirating systems help prevent damage to irreplaceable artifacts, documents, records and originals.

In many cases, conventional spot detectors do not provide an early warning and may be impaired by their surrounding and environments. A fire could spread before enough time is generated to trigger an alarm and then the fire may become unmanageable.

How long have you been inspecting aspirating systems?

We’ve been inspecting systems now for over five years, and in that time, we have done 25 to 30 system installations. We have noticed a renewed interest in aspirating systems and believe it’s due to improvements in detection as precise as 0.00046 %/ft obscuration.

What types of mission-critical applications have you installed with an aspiration system?

We recently consulted on and then inspected an aspirating system in a government warehouse. The high-flammable documents stored in a high-ceilinged 500,000-square-foot warehouse consisted of irreplaceable CDs, microfilm, storage tapes, and in some cases, original government documents. The environment is clean and humidity controlled to perform for an aspirating system.

In this case, a normal sprinkler system wouldn’t work. Its purpose is to save lives and facilities and not necessarily the contents of the facility. The water damage to the stored records would be astronomical. An aspirating system provides the earliest possible warning of a fire before damage is done and business continuity is interrupted.

How do you inspect high ceilings or large areas above the stratification layer?

Stratification occurs when smoke is heated by smoldering or burning materials and becomes less dense than the surrounding, cooler air. The smoke rises until there is no longer a difference in temperature between the smoke and the surrounding air.

In cases such as a high-ceiling warehouse, we check into installing a vertical sampling pipe above the stratification layers in the ceiling in addition to the horizontal pipe network on the ceiling. The vertical sampling pipe should have sampling holes at various lengths to sample within any stratification layers present in the area.

High air exchange areas usually have some form of mechanical ventilation to maintain constant or cyclical air flow for heating, cooling or maintaining some other sort of special environment. Smoke tends to travel with the air flow. We make sure that positioning of sample pipes near the return of an air handling unit or heating/air conditioning unit is done properly to help ensure early detection of particulate in the area.

What about concealed voids under the floor?

Some locations use under-floor voids as return air plenums. The pipe network must be designed to monitor the flow through these areas. Floor voids typically are used for cable runs or for small equipment installation. Monitoring must be done using a pipe network designed for operation in these areas. If you install pipe in a floor void, keep in mind that the air sampling holes should be located at the bottom of the pipe.

What is your role as a commissioning agent?

The commissioning process provides the owner and/or building manager with a high level of assurance that the aspirating system has been installed in the prescribed manner and is operating within the performance guidelines set in the design documents, local codes and regulations.

Our role as a commissioning agent functions as the contact point for disseminating information. We assist the design and construction teams in completion of the construction process. This includes system verification, functional performance testing and conformance with the intended design of the system. Our duties also include documenting construction activities and the proper performance and operating information for the owner and/or the building manager. We verify functional testing and ensure that all codes and regulations are met or exceeded, along with industry standards.

Commissioning is the final stage of the aspirating system installation process. It ensures that design criteria are met for the pipe network installation and that the system is correctly monitoring the proper alarms and levels for the installation site.

Incidentally, the NFPA has a proposed standard in this area. It is called NFPA 3, and it is a recommended practice on commissioning and integrated testing of fire protection and life safety systems.

How do you check ongoing maintenance needs such as the filter?

Maintenance of the filter in an aspirating system is inherently easy. The control panel issues a warning to replace the filter when necessary. Remember that all systems also must be tested after installation and periodically thereafter to satisfy the Authority Having Jurisdiction. Aspirating systems offer maximum performance when tested and maintained in compliance with NFPA 72.

What advancements would you like to see in aspiration systems?

The bottom line for many is cost. An aspirating system could be competitive and be used in an area of 8,000 square feet, for example, in the semiconductor industry. It would take four spot detectors to cover the same area. Dust problems or debris accumulation have always been an issue in aspirating systems and are now almost a nonissue with today’s monitored filtering system.

Do you need any special education for  integrating aspiration systems into fire alarm system design?

As a design firm, our company specifies and designs systems in order to provide biddable construction documents. To keep up with the latest in products and technology on the market, technical training seminars are attended. Our engineers also rely on their experience with designing fire alarm systems, so that the appropriate interfaces with the fire alarm systems are correctly specified.

In what applications has your company used aspiration systems?

Four years ago, our company was selected to design the fire alarm system incorporating the high-sensitivity smoke detection (HSSD), or aspiration system, for the National Park Service Hampton Mansion in Towson, Maryland.

Was this the first time you designed an aspiration system?

Our company has worked with aspiration systems in computer rooms. We replaced an entire fire alarm system where the building already had several aspiration systems in place. With the new fire alarm control panel, we provided interfaces for the aspiration systems, so that it would go into alarm when any of the control panels sent it an alarm signal.

Why was it important to integrate the aspiration system into your fire alarm system for the Hampton Mansion project?

There was a need to detect a fire in its very earliest (incipient) stage. Because the Mansion did not easily lend itself to alternative fire suppression systems such as water mist or chemical suppression, the main objectives were to protect the Mansion and all of the artifacts inside from fire, as well as water damage from the sprinkler system. Facilities personnel needed very advanced notice of an impending fire in order to investigate early, so that the activation of the automatic sprinkler system would only be a last resort.

The building is an artifact. It was owned by seven generations of the Ridgely family, including Charles Carnan Ridgely, one of Maryland’s first governors. The house dates back to the 18th century and was turned over to the National Park Service after 1948.

In addition, the National Park Service acquired the Hampton Collection, which currently contains 45,000 artifacts and 100,000 archives dating from the 18th through the 20th centuries, including furnishings, portraits, rugs and many other items from the family. These are on display in the Hampton Mansion. The purpose of installing this system was to protect all of the assets.

In addition to providing very early warning, use of the aspiration system was important for aesthetic reasons. To preserve the historic fabric of the building as much as possible, the design team did not want to have visible spot-type smoke detectors on the ceilings.  The aspiration system was designed to follow the new concealed sprinkler pipes that were trenched into the plaster ceiling. The aspiration system wasn’t designed into the  entire Mansion project because of cost. Instead, seven small panels for the piping system were used for areas open to the public.

The air sampling nozzles are smaller than sprinkler heads and blend well with the ceiling, so they aren’t noticeable. But in areas that aren’t considered to be public viewing areas, regular ceiling-mounted, spot-type smoke detectors were used.

Which building or NFPA codes need to be followed when designing an aspiration system?

One is NFPA 72 for the placement or location of air sampling intakes. There are a series of interrelated codes based on the occupancy classification of the building, or space within the building being designed, in addition to the other systems being interfaced, such as HVAC, fire suppression sprinkler, pre-action, deluge, chemical suppression and life safety. There are many other codes that need to be followed, depending on the project and the jurisdiction in which it is located.

What criteria do you use to determine the necessity of adding aspirated smoke detection systems?

• The need for very early warning of an impending fire.
• The value of the items in the protected area.
• Aesthetics: sensitivity to the historic fabric or appearance of the building.
• Controlled environment, no operable windows, especially if the protected area is near a roadway.

What are the basics to know before incorporating an aspiration system into a fire alarm system?

Know the ceiling heights and whether the ceiling will be smooth or sloped. Be familiar with the manufacturer’s specific limitations on sampling pipe run lengths in order to comply with air sample transport time. Discuss acceptable locations for the smoke detector panel with the design team. The air sampling tubes and ports might not be visible, but the smoke detectors will be.

Which steps are essential in designing a fire alarm system with an aspiration system?

The aspirator system is a smoke detector device. It alone will not notify occupants when it is in an alarm condition. The aspirator detector needs to be interfaced with a fire alarm system so that it can activate the appropriate alarms on the main fire alarm control panel, such as occupant notification. The design must include a main fire alarm control panel; the aspiration system is the smoke detection portion of the system on the main panel. First, lay out the room. Next, determine the area to cover with the aspirator sensors, and then design it so the system interfaces with the main fire alarm system.

Where else do you see applications for aspiration systems?

Normally, an aspiration system would be used in computer rooms or data centers, especially where the function of the data center is important for society, such as banking or security facilities. It can also be used in a facility where it would be beneficial to use chemical suppression or sprinkler systems as a last resort, so that investigators can figure out what’s causing the alarm.

*Statistics and historical information provided by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior Web site at nps.gov.

Can you tell us about your company?

Advanced Cabling Systems was founded as a structured cabling company in 1995. Now with more than 60 employees and two offices in Arkansas, we are recognized as the leader in low-voltage technologies in Arkansas. In addition to structured cabling, Advanced now offers fire alarms, mass notification, security, access control, school intercom, and nurse call. Advanced’s annual revenues were $1.5 million in 2002 and are expected to reach $10 million this year.

Why are you successful?

Through our System Sensor manufacturer representative, Mark Gilmore, and National Training Manager, Rick Swift, we have developed not only a close relationship, but have become known in Arkansas as a leader in training and implementation of System Sensor products to engineers and fire marshals. We run very successful twice-a-year, one-day product code and regulation seminars.

For example, as to state and local fire safety regulations, we invite responsible government employees to the System Sensor seminars to make them more knowledgeable about codes, device placement, testing and inspections.

We also have a bidding department that keeps up with the bid process through Dodge and CMD. We are most successful in the design build and negotiated markets. We offer a full line of products and consider ourselves a one-stop shop for our customers’ needs…one place to buy, one place to warranty and one place to call if concerns arise.

We believe strongly in customer service, we automatically notify our customers when their detection devices need updating or scheduled maintenance is required. We have a dedicated sales and service department just for testing and inspections. This helps our clients to maintain a fully working system for emergencies.

What are the benefits of System Sensor products?

System Sensor offers a full line of life safety products that are on the cutting edge in development, are easy to install, are clearly superior in sound quality, and are well known. System Sensor also offers a full line of horns, strobes, horn strobes, speakers, speaker strobes, and both wall- and ceiling-mount devices. System Sensor products are all competitive in pricing.

What suggestions do you have for installers?

Read your instructions and take advantage of the ease of installation, especially of System Sensor products. Wiring and testing of your circuits is much easier with System Sensor products like SpectrAlert^® Advance. You no longer have to wait until the walls are completed to test.

How do you approach “green”?

We are a leader in green or LEED^® certified projects and installations. Some of our more notable LEED installations in Arkansas are Heifer International Headquarters and Winrock International which are both nonprofit organizations; Pulaski Heights Methodist Church; Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality; Caldwell Toyota; and Hewlett-Packard’s new call center in Conway, Ark. (a large System Sensor project).

Do you have System Sensor in your offices?

Yes, although code did not require our office to have a fire alarm system, we chose to install a full system showcasing the System Sensor product line and others we install.

Do you know of any time a System Sensor product was actually used in an emergency?

Recently the new First Security Center, a multi-use facility in Little Rock, put its NetSOLO 7100 fire panel system with System Sensor products to the test. A condo resident attempted to light a gas fireplace. Failing to properly ventilate the area before bleeding the volatile gas line, the tenant lit the fireplace, causing an explosion. Fortunately, it wasn’t too serious — there wasn’t a huge wall-blowing explosion — but it “popped” pretty well.

The fire system responded instantly, detecting the heat (as there was not a great deal of fire or smoke) and sending the whole system into full alarm mode. The system detected that this was more than just a smoke detector sensing a little dust or smoke particle. It made the occupants aware by setting off the full alarm and emptying the building. It really worked exactly like it was supposed to, preventing further damage and injury.

Due to the addressable features of the fire panel system, building management was able to determine which device activated first, as well as the succession in which the other devices activated. A System Sensor heat detector was the initial activator, followed by the fire pump running the sprinkler water flow, a System Sensor smoke detector and finally a carbon monoxide detector. The fire department responded within eight minutes of the alarm.

Any concluding comments?

In all aspects of our business, especially life safety, we must take the life of our customers and their families as being the most important thing we think about. You never know whose life you may save and, on the other hand, whose life may not be saved if you do it the wrong way. This is especially true when designing a fire alarm system. Notification is at the top of importance. If everyone is not aware of an emergency, a life could be lost or someone hurt.

Thomas Trask is an acoustical engineer and senior associate at Newcomb & Boyd, an Atlanta, Ga.-based multidiscipline consulting and engineering firm providing innovative solutions for facility design, construction and maintenance. His acoustical engineering responsibilities have included acoustical analysis of performing arts centers, museums, laboratories, houses of worship, data centers, commercial buildings, production studios, high-rise residences, hospitals, academic buildings, and judicial facilities.

What piece of the building design puzzle pertains to acoustical design?

Typically an acoustical engineer is tasked to do an acoustical design for a few specific spaces in an entire facility. It can be anything from every space to only one or two spaces. Mainly it will be the most critical spaces in respect to clarity, such as a lecture space. It also depends on what you are trying to achieve: Are you trying to keep noise from getting into or from getting out of the space? Or are you trying to have the noise in the space meet a certain quality or quantity? Low background noise is beneficial in a learning environment, whereas an open office environment prefers a higher level to mask the conversations. Mainly, acoustical designs are for spaces that need critical engineering analysis on the acoustic end, such as an auditorium, sports venue, or another big, reverberant space where the role of audio reception is of importance to the occupants.

What is the tie-in with fire and life safety designs?

In the past, the fire alarm industry primarily focused on audibility requirements, assuming that if the sound was loud enough, it would be sufficiently intelligible. With the increasing use of voice messages for controlled and staged emergency evacuation, intelligibility now plays a role. The first objective standards for speech intelligibility in the context of fire and evacuation were introduced as an appendix to NFPA 72, 2002. This intelligibility requirement is intended to help ensure that the messages from voice evacuation and fire systems can be heard and understood by the occupants of a building.

Although a specific measure of intelligibility is noted, but not currently specified, by NFPA 72, the Code’s Annex recommends the use of International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 60849 and a Speech Transmission Index Public Address (STIPA) of 0.50 or Common Intelligibility Scale (CIS) measurement of 0.70. CIS = 1+log10 (STIPA). For example: A voice communication that comes over the alarm system says to evacuate. From a design standpoint, the code says that voice communication – whether it’s prerecorded or a live person – has to meet a CIS level of 70 percent voice/speech intelligibility. Because the code doesn’t mandate proof that this will be met during the design phase, it is left up to the local Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) official to require a measureable quantity.

To an acoustical engineer, 70 percent is still a very marginal measure of intelligibility. We’d like 90 percent, especially for clarity and comprehension. If you were having a phone conversation and could only understand 70 percent of it, would that be adequate?

How is the proper CIS level calculated or determined?

Intelligibility, by definition, is difficult to quantify. Right now, it is calculated only in instances where some authority mandates it or it’s stated in a job’s RFP. When this does happen, it brings everyone on a level plane, knowing that they now have to do an acoustical assessment when they are doing the fire protection design.

Of the places that have adopted the NFPA 72 code and require intelligibility measurement, the IEC 60849 code provides a procedure to measure the CIS levels. In reality, such places have typically been limited to airports, convention halls, and sometimes sport centers/stadiums. It’s usually instances where you have large groups of people at any one time. That makes a lot of sense from a safety perspective.

The question becomes, when do you measure it? You start with a reference signal that you are measuring against. In an airport concourse, for example, do you measure it when there is a large group of people present or when it’s empty? Ideally, the code prefers that testing be conducted while occupancy is near typical levels, but the AHJ will be the final arbiter. While instrumentation is readily available to conduct intelligibility measurements for life safety systems, only qualified staff are currently allowed to conduct the actual measurements.

As an acoustical engineer, how do you design to that standard?

For the most part, acoustics is not considered to be life safety, life structural or fire safety. However, an acoustical engineer would look at the architectural design of the space. That is going to have the greatest impact on the intelligibility of the room once you get past the device placement. These factors are usually going to be the quantity and types of finishes that go in the room. Background noise can have an effect on it, but usually the fire enunciators are capable of providing a signal high enough to overcome background noise in most spaces. The only time you would not be able to do that is in a large space like a stadium, where it would work better if the annunciation/evacuation system is tied into the house sound system, which uses large, professional-grade loudspeakers. Typically, the fire system is a separate entity.

Placement of devices, on the other hand, depends upon the room size and the ceiling height. For a low ceiling, you place them closer together. But for a high ceiling, the typical approach is to put more devices into that space in hopes that the extra devices will make up for the poor acoustic design. The intelligibility from an acoustics/voice standpoint in the room design, meaning the volume, the finishes and background noises in the space, all have proportional implications.

Do more units offer greater intelligibility?

Not necessarily, but if you have them closer to people, then it can because you don’t have to drive the signal as loud and still retain a sufficient signal-to-noise ratio. It’s somewhat analogous to headphones; when you put headphones on, you will hear a lot more clearly. This approach will require more speakers in order to maintain decent sound level uniformity over the speaker’s coverage area without having to overdrive the signal to meet audibility requirements. But this design approach is better able to compensate for acoustically challenged spaces that typically exhibit poor intelligibility due to the space’s inability to absorb sound as it propagates around the room. If you put acoustically absorptive finishes in the room, then this sound is more likely to get absorbed. By the time it arrives back to the people, it will be at such a level that it won’t matter anymore.

Are there any tools that you use to help with design issues?

There are 3D modeling programs typically used by audiovisual professionals that assist in predicting a number of acoustic attributes within a defined space, including intelligibility, but these programs have not traditionally been applied to emergency evacuation systems. For this to happen, life safety manufacturers will have to begin to offer modeling data for their speaker devices.

How does the issue of intelligibility differ in a healthcare setting?

Healthcare is a bit more acoustically challenging because of the desire for microbial-resistant finishes, which typical sound absorptive materials, such as fiberglass, do not possess. However, proper space planning and the introduction of new “green” sound absorptive materials can help to mitigate distracting noise that occurs from activities and equipment.

A joint sub-committee, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and the Institute of Noise Control Engineering (INCE), is trying to pass a guideline: Sound and Vibration Design Guidelines for Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities. This guideline is not directed to fire and life safety A/V devices and does not mention NFPA 72 or voice emergency systems. It primarily addresses the criteria that would make the facility most beneficial to the patient by reducing the noise level while they are trying to recuperate.

Q. What does a fire safety consultant do?

A. We provide plan review services for municipalities, building owners, architects and engineers. We review the building and/or the fire protection plans, specifications and hydraulic calculations for strict compliance with state and local codes. Additionally, we provide complete building code consulting, site review and inspection services, seminars, fire service planning and management, and fire investigations.

Fire consultants inspect and witness both new and existing fire protection/building code system testing. We will typically perform a cursory site visit, prepare a proposal for the work to be performed and contact the local code official for more information. For municipalities, for example, we inspect the systems for compliance with required codes and approved plans. Then we provide the municipality with a report on the inspections, tests performed and recommendations.

Q. What does a report usually contain?

A. A report outlines actions needed to meet requirements about any code issues related to fire protection or fire protection systems and good fire protection practices. Fire consultants’ reports normally will outline options available and explain each of them fully, including their financial impact.

Q. What types of inspections and tests are required in fire inspections?

A. The required tests and inspections depend on the type of system(s) that are present in the project or occupancy. The plan review letter details the required tests that must be scheduled for each type of system that has been submitted for approval.

Q. What is the sequence for the required tests and inspections in buildings with multiple systems?

A. During site work, the underground fire service water main is completed and tested first. Once the underground has been flushed for both the clean water sample and the required NFPA 24 flush test, the sprinkler system can be connected to the lateral feed main. Then the fire sprinkler system hydrostatic test and rough inspection takes place. The fire alarm system acceptance test is performed when the system is installed and connected to the monitoring agency. Commercial kitchen wet chemical systems, FM200 systems and dry chemical systems can be inspected and tested whenever they are completed. Final inspections on all systems then verify full operation at the time of occupancy.

Q. What suggestions do you have for contractors and installers to make the process go more smoothly?

A. First, get a copy of the latest NFPA 72. There are useful, reproducible forms in the annex, such as submittals, testing forms and the latest information on the decibel requirements. In many renovations or additions, voltage calculations should be addressed. Make sure the voltage to the new area meets requirements. Caution should be used not to overload the system. The audibility at the end of the line could vary as much as 20 dB or more.

Recently, we determined that the smoke/fire detection system for a five-story high-rise with multiple wings and hundreds of units did not meet audibility requirements. Almost the entire building had to be rewired.

Q. How do you prevent such a problem from happening?

Companies such as ours can provide the up-front review of drawings before the actual work begins. We strongly suggest this before submitting to the Authority Having Jurisdiction. Also, allow for new technologies in your plans, and submit complete and accurate plans with as much information as possible. Check for obsolescence of upgrades of existing detectors or alarms. Rapid changes occur regularly in the industry.

Q. How much do inspections typically cost? Who is responsible to pay inspection costs?

Costs depend on the jurisdiction and the fees paid for the plan review. In some cases, the plan review fee includes one or two site inspections. If more than two site visits are required for system(s) approval, additional fees may be required based on an hourly rate.

Typically, the contractor is responsible for all costs associated with site work. If additional fees are required for field work, the responsible party must pay those fees in advance unless other arrangements are made.

Q. How much responsibility does the architect assume for life-safety matters?

King: The architect leads the design, and the engineer follows up with the details. The engineer is responsible for the technical aspects of making sure there is adequate egress lighting and signage and that they are powered correctly. The location of these elements is up to the architect.

Q. Who is responsible for code compliance?

King: It depends on the components. For example, lighting has to be compliant with the National Electrical Code®. Therefore, the engineer would be in charge. In terms of suppression, you would have a licensed professional designing the sprinkler system. Both of these items are outside the scope of the architect’s work, but overall compliance with the building code is the architect’s job.

Q. Are clients more concerned with initial cost or operation/maintenance cost?

Wells: That varies. Clients with low operating budgets are typically willing to pay more upfront for lower operational costs, whereas others are less concerned with the long-term operating costs and are more concerned with the initial cost. We try to determine which approach is most desirable for the individual client. The duration of the lease, the life cycle of the equipment specified for the space, and the initial capital spending available are a few factors that need to be analyzed to determine the appropriate specifics for the design.

Q. Will owners who plan to keep the building spend more money initially for greater savings in operation and maintenance?

King: That’s true. And then there are some who plan some obsolescence into their development and they add more time for that cost over the life of the space. It really is not that significant to them.

Q. What if you could cut 40 percent current draw from the fire notification device circuit?

King: In terms of the overall building, it really is not a significant amount. But at the end of the day, savings add up. You need to take a holistic approach. Even if it is more expensive, sometimes the expense is minimal in terms of what the building could achieve in the long run with energy savings.

Q. Do larger retailers tend to build their own facilities or take over space?

King: It’s a mix. It can vary from location. You might have the same retailer in different locations go into a strip mall or stay in their own box. It’s really location, location, location.

Q. Do the larger retailers usually rent or own their facilities?

King: Both. It just depends on the location and the availability of property. If there is not much land available, they’ll go into an existing facility or have it built to suit their needs.

Q. What do you recommend when a client is looking to take over existing space?

Wells: The space should be appropriate for the proposed use in terms of construction classification and square footage. The function and proposed floor plan should be reviewed to ensure that the suppression system and fire alarm system are adequate and to determine whether redesign of the items will be necessary. The building codes have several requirements: providing lit exits, lights on battery packs that provide a path to the nearest exit and minimum travel distance to the nearest exit. The design should provide a clearly evident means of egress. Clear identification of egress paths is vital because patrons may be unfamiliar with the space. Some factors for egress design consideration include size, clarity, lighting and signage.

King: There are a lot of factors that could be involved based on the differing uses. Think of an Internet café, which would have a wide, open space, versus a craft store that could have a lot more shelves, material and flammable elements. You may need to have a suppression system engineered, depending on how the store is laid out. Or, you may need additional smoke detectors to trigger the alarms. You definitely need a design professional to evaluate the space.

Q. At what point should building space be evaluated? What are the code implications?

King: The time to review and evaluate a facility is when you are doing alterations to an existing facility. In Ohio, you do not have to bring the whole building up to current standards, depending on the scope of the work you’re doing. It really is an interpretation by the building official. Design professionals with experience have a feel for what will be permissible and what will not be.

Q. What do you do to prevent false alarms? How do false alarms affect your clients and your business?

Wells: The detection and notification systems should be maintained. Facility operations should budget funds for adequate testing and maintenance of these systems. Designers should locate these items appropriately and ensure installation is tamper proof. It is important that the designers provide systems that operations can maintain. Businesses are exposed to shrinkage due to false alarms.