For applications that require supply and return detection, InnovairFlex has a 2-to-1 sensor to power board capability using the D4120 and the D4S (see image at left). This capability eliminates the need to run power to a second power board for these applications, significantly reducing installation time and costs. It also reduces maintenance and testing costs by enabling the testing of two sensors from a single location. For more information, visit www.systemsensor.com/flex.

i³ Series detectors come in multiple configurations to match a variety of application requirements. Standard i³ conventional photoelectric detectors meet most application needs, including those for office buildings, retail establishments, hotels, and residences.

Two- and four-wire Auxiliary Form C Relay detectors are ideal when controlling auxiliary functions, such as elevator recall or door closure, is required.

Sounder models are ideal for residential applications. These two- and four-wire units generate an 85 dBA temporal tone and can easily be synchronized with the i³ reversing relay/synchronization module.

The four-wire Isolated Thermal model initiates a local alarm when smoke is detected and a general alarm when the thermal sensor is activated. These are well-suited for applications like dormitories, retirement facilities, and lofts.

For more information on i³ series smoke detectors, visit www.systemsensor.com/i3.

Section 908.7 of the 2012 IFC and IBC requires CO detection to be installed in “newly” constructed Group-R and Group-I occupancies if the building contains a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage. An open parking garage, as defined in the International Building Code, or enclosed parking garage ventilated in accordance with Section 404 of the International Mechanical Code, shall not be deemed to be an attached garage. Also CO alarms shall be installed and maintained in accordance with NFPA 720, Standard for the Installation of Carbon Monoxide (CO) Detection and Warning Equipment, and the manufacturer’s instructions.

Section 1103.9 of the IFC covers the requirements for existing Group-R and Group-I occupancies. These requirements are the same as those in 908.7 for newly constructed occupancies. As with most codes and standards, there are exceptions to the mandatory requirements. If sleeping units or dwelling units do not contain a fuel-burning appliance or have an attached garage, but are located in a building with a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage, CO detection is not required if:

• The sleeping unit or dwelling unit is located more than one story above or below any story that contains a fuel-burning appliance or an attached garage

• The sleeping unit or dwelling unit is not connected by duct work or ventilation shafts to an attached garage or any room containing a fuel-burning appliance

• The building is provided with a common area^† CO alarm system.

Also, Section 908.7.1 of the 2012 IBC and IFC clearly permits system-connected CO detectors to be installed as a primary form of protection if they are installed and maintained in accordance with NFPA 720 and listed as complying with ANSI/UL 2075. It’s worth mentioning that NFPA 720 permits either CO alarms complying with ANSI/UL 2034, Single and Multiple Station Carbon Monoxide Alarms, or CO detectors complying with ANSI/UL 2075, Gas and Vapor Detectors and Sensors, to be installed.

^† The term “common area CO system” is vague and is undefined in the I-Codes and NFPA 720. There is a change proposal that’s currently being considered for the 2015 edition of the IFC and IBC that will add clarity to this term. The proposed text is for “a CO detector to be provided in the common area between the attached garage and the dwelling units and it will activate an audible alarm at a constantly attended location.”

In terms of fire protection, these “great indoors” present great challenges. This month’s LifeSafety addresses the challenges of protecting tenants and other occupants, assets and the environment of these indoor structures.

Occupants, including tenants, are a top priority. The building owner should think about the safety of visitors and workers when developing an Emergency Communications System (ECS). This should be an integral part of their Emergency Plan and address such things as what to do in various emergencies like bad weather, fire or a police situation. The ECS helps to communicate those plans to the building occupants in as safe and timely a manner as possible. To do this, intelligibility of speakers is incredibly important, as is clear and consistent messaging. Alert strobes, speakers and dual strobes can be key elements in an ECS system.

Minimizing nuisance alarms and preventing operating interruptions are also top priorities. A happy tenant is a long-term tenant. System Sensor intelligent multi-criteria detection reduces the likelihood of nuisance alarms and unnecessary disruptions.

When investing in large facilities, the investment needs to be protected from fire for many reasons. Whether it’s a sports stadium, a mall complete with ancillary occupancies, or an office building with a large atrium, System Sensor products safeguard these environments. You can depend on System Sensor for total protection for these “great indoors.”

By Roopa Shortt,
Audible Visible Marketing Manager, System Sensor

Americans like everything bigger: Bigger hotels, bigger stadiums, bigger convention centers. Bigger is not always better in terms of protecting large indoor properties, however. Rather, better technology and smarter planning can offer greater protection.

Integrated multi-detection devices, such as those sensing heat, smoke and carbon monoxide, are emerging to take a more inclusive approach to protecting indoor spaces. Voice evacuation systems for sharing important instructions are gaining traction and are borrowing intelligibility principles from similar public address system devices.

These technologies, as well as aspiration systems and other newer devices, have great potential for detecting danger and improving egress in some applications within large indoor properties.

The sophistication of protection in large indoor venues varies widely. According to the NFPA Fire Analysis and Research Division, 15 of the 17 large-loss fires in 2010 occurred in these structures. Many of these did not have automatic suppression systems; some didn’t even have functioning detection equipment or “human error” overrode the protective systems. These 15 structures, which included several public assembly buildings and large facilities, resulted in a total property loss of about $369.8 million.

• A deliberately set fire at the 1.4 million-sq.-ft. Roseville Galleria shopping center in California caused $110 million in damage.

• Two fires were reported in churches, including the historic, 8,000-sq.-ft. Provo Tabernacle in Utah, which reported a $15 million loss.

• A 300,000-sq.-ft. Louisiana restaurant and a 37,000-sq.-ft. South Carolina golf course country club each had damages of $10 million.

Large-loss fires capture attention from a design perspective due to the sheer magnitude of the fire and life safety challenge: How do you choose the right technologies to detect fires and protect people and property within facilities that could be the length of a football field or more? What is the proper tradeoff between system types, cost and coverage? How far do our responsibilities in systems design extend?

As cited in Home Insurance Co. of Illinois v. National Tea Co., a deli oven in one shopping mall store started a fire that destroyed the store and caused water and smoke damage to other mall stores. The trial judge concluded that the store in which the fire originated was solely responsible for the damage. The mall owners complied with all applicable building codes, and therefore, were not negligent.

In “Premises Liability for Shopping Mall Fire Safety,” John O. Hayward states that although tenants are liable in these cases, mall owners, who essentially act as landlords, should protect tenants from harm resulting from foreseeable activities taking place within these areas.

As the uses and designs of large public facilities continue to evolve, fire and life safety system planners would be well advised to go beyond meeting code and protecting each party’s legal obligations. By incorporating longer-term thinking for diverse uses and occupancies, engineers can help drive more thorough and responsible fire and life safety system designs.

Who’s the Client?

Admittedly, making the case for a more technologically advanced system can be challenging, depending on a number of factors, not the least of which is the client. When the client is a contractor in a design/build situation, cost is king, and the contractor may not appreciate any design that exceeds minimum code requirements. In that case, it may take some careful negotiation to convince the contractor to discuss with the building owners what levels of risk they may be exposed to with a minimum-code approach versus a more reliable or advanced fire and life safety system.

It’s ideal, then, to promote more technologically advanced systems while appealing to the goals and objectives of others involved in the decision-making process.

Kevin Kimmel, a senior fire protection engineer with architectural/engineering firm, Clark Nexsen in Norfolk, Virginia, has designed safety systems for numerous occupancies and large, indoor structures. He says tuning into building intent during the planning phase is key: If the architect and the client have spent hours in planning meetings talking about their design concepts and the beautiful interior for a new casino, then a design engineer needs to respect how important visuals are for the project.

“That’s when you pull the architect off to the side and explain, ‘We can do beam detection or discreet air sampling, and it will increase costs just slightly. Otherwise, you’ll have this,’” he says, while showing a photo of the 20 highly visible white spot detectors that will clash with the interior finishes and overall design aesthetic. “You want to make sure when you’re in those meetings that you’re listening to their mission so your system doesn’t interfere with that environment.”

It’s ideal, then, to promote more technologically advanced systems while appealing to the goals and objectives of others involved in the decision-making process – even when it’s a less critical safety design priority such as aesthetics.

A fire and life safety system is just one component of a commercial property, however. “The owner is not just sweating detectors and fire alarm systems; he’s looking at carpeting, furniture, lights, LEED points, all these other things that go into design,” says Kimmel. “We’re 30 seconds in a four-hour meeting. We have to understand our place as part of a huge system, and it has to all flow together.”

For example, a fire suppression system can limit the amount of damage a fire causes, but if it activates in error, the suppression system itself can cause costly damage or interfere with mission critical activities. In this case, fire sprinkler monitoring devices are used to ensure fire sprinklers work properly.

What’s the Occupancy?

Type of occupancy – whether it’s transient with a changing mix of people who are unfamiliar with the environment or non-transient with a fairly steady set of people who regularly frequent the space – also matters in designing for large facilities. Even within the institutional and commercial residential building segment, these occupancies can differ. It’s possible to prepare dormitory residents for building evacuations or run test drills for more non-fire emergencies, such as a shooting or severe weather conditions. In a hotel with new guests arriving every day, however, the focus shifts to informing occupants during the crisis.

This makes for a disturbing paradox: The occupants who best know their environments have more warning of and preparation for potential emergencies than those in transient environments who most need this information.

It’s understandable, however – hoteliers, retailers and theater owners do not care to worry their customers with troubling details that would detract from their enjoyment. Plus, it would be unimaginable from a business standpoint to require a convention center to evacuate show attendees for a disaster drill – the value of such an exercise would be extremely questionable in any case.

Fire protection engineers and system designers should balance the sometimes conflicting needs of protecting occupants and building assets with protecting a facility’s main mission, be it entertainment, financial interests, education, or other possibilities.

One such approach would be to include directional sound technology within the fire or emergency communications system to guide occupants to the nearest safe exit.

Triggered by the fire alarm control panel, directional sound technology, such as ExitPoint™ from System Sensor, emits a broadband sound frequency that occupants intuitively follow, decreasing evacuation times by up to 75 percent. This helps to ensure that occupants who are unfamiliar with the building’s egress routes or emergency plans can quickly escape the building safely – even in smoke-filled or darkened buildings with little or no visibility.

What’s Normal?

Although a fire and life safety designer usually commands a good understanding of the occupancy and structural type, it’s wise to evaluate all possible uses – current and future – as well as the conditions under which the fire and life safety systems will operate.

While reaching an idea of what constitutes normal, everyday use for a large building is fairly simple, it’s also easy to overlook unusual circumstances or application changes that can affect the environment. These out-of-the-ordinary instances could be seasonal in nature, related to special occasions such as concerts and other performances within the mall that impact noise and foot traffic, or physical additions such as a waterfall in a hotel lobby that could muffle notification devices or create problems due to high humidity. When designing for intelligibility, it is important to consider worst case scenarios for ambient noise, and to design a voice evacuation system that would meet those requirements.

Planning for the ordinary and the extraordinary within the framework of what’s normal in fire and life safety system design is just part of the picture. Engineers and systems designers also have to balance cost efficiencies, environmental applicability and suitability, and the business interests of all involved parties, among many other factors.

When it comes to life safety, large venues require big thinking.

By Kenneth Bush

Kenneth Bush is a senior fire protection engineer for the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office in Easton, Maryland. With 35 years vested in the industry, he reviews plans and inspects buildings for compliance with the state fire prevention code, which currently references the NFPA Life Safety Code, NFPA 101® and Fire Code, NFPA 1. Bush is an active member of the NFPA 101/5000 Technical Committee on Mercantile Business Occupancies, currently serving as Chair of that committee.

Which approach is taken to design fire and life safety for large public buildings such as shopping malls?

Our current experiences in the review and inspection of larger buildings indicate an increasing reliance on the performance-based standards. Each model code includes a performance-based option – for example, Chapter 5 of Life Safety Code® 2012 edition – that allows a designer to consider the alternate provisions in lieu of code-prescriptive requirements to provide for an equivalent level of safety to address a variety of fire protection issues inherent to the building use and occupancy.

Modeling is a common practice used to evaluate the performance-based scenario. Typically, two types of models are used with this verification process. The first model can be utilized to determine the effects of a potential fire. Then, the time needed for all building occupants to travel to a safe area, which may be to the exterior or to a protected space within the building, can be calculated based upon the building’s size and arrangement with consideration to the numbers and mobility capabilities of the occupants.

“For larger retail centers…the biggest challenges are the size of the building and the types and amounts of products that are stored, displayed, accessed, and sold to the public.”
— Kenneth Bush, Senior Engineer, Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office

Combining these modeled scenarios, the time needed to protect building occupants from a fire incident can be determined and used to design the right combination of fire protection features. Such protection schemes may include automatic sprinkler protection, fire and/or smoke detection and early occupant notification systems, smoke control or a combination of several protection features. The goal is to control the egress path environment for a long enough period of time for people to proceed to a safe location based upon the effects that can be expected from a fire in that particular space.

Considerations for proper fire modeling are needed for each area of the building. For example, if there is a number of stores that display and sell similar products, such as clothes or paper goods, one common model for that particular area can be used. But, if different types of products are sold involving a combination of hazards, such as flammable fuels or hazardous materials, which are typically found in larger retail markets, then the models must be adjusted to address potential hazard scenarios from rapidly developing fires or hazardous quantities of smoke and toxic fumes.

What’s involved in protecting bulk merchandising properties?

For larger retail centers, such as Sam’s Club, Wal-Mart or Home Depot where most of the merchandise is stored right where it’s sold, the biggest challenges are the size of the building and the types and amounts of products that are stored, displayed, accessed, and sold to the public.

One of the best strategies for the protection of bulk merchandising and high rack storage buildings is sprinkler protection. Early detection and fire suppression is important because these buildings are often occupied by transitional shoppers who come there only occasionally and may not be familiar with the  building. In turn, this decreases the awareness of the possible hazards of a fire and increases egress time. Therefore, the biggest challenge is to confine the effects of the fire with sprinklers and special sprinkler schemes that introduce large amounts of water as quickly as possible right at the point of the fire’s origin and to provide for sufficient time for evacuation.

What challenges arise when protecting shopping malls?

Not only is the building size a factor, but also the diverse number and type of occupancies, as well as a large number of occupants that present current fire protection challenges. Shopping mall occupancy classifications were strictly retail. But now, there are a variety of occupancy classifications housed in these buildings, including restaurants, attached living spaces, and even healthcare facilities. Such spaces could be occupied by a large number of persons having a wide variety of occupant characteristics, situational awareness, and mobility impairments. Covered shopping malls are now commonplace in many other building use groups.

“Even the best design strategy relies heavily on the successful operation and coordination of each component device.”
— Kenneth Bush, Senior Engineer, Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office

There are some advantages to the large buildings that serve as covered malls. The building’s size can be perfect for the accumulation and dilution of combustion products like smoke, safely isolating these hazards from the building’s population. Malls and tenant spaces with no ceilings can use a passive smoke management system, which dedicates certain areas of the building left open so smoke migrates away from occupants for a long enough period of time so they can egress the building before it becomes a hazard.

For other occupancies, such as warehouses, there are often few occupants, most of whom are familiar with the layout and design of the building, the associated paths of egress, and of the potential hazards associated with the use and occupancy of the structure. Fortunately, in these spaces, most people are continuously aware of their surroundings, are awake and alert, and can react quickly.

How would the protection method differ for diverse mall occupancies?

Egress is the primary consideration for fire and life safety in general. For covered malls, the size of the building and the travel distance for people to evacuate must be considered. Occupants may not be within the required prescriptive travel distance to an outside door for a mall building because of its extreme size. To compensate, areas of refuge or designated protected interior spaces can be part of the egress scheme. These egress spaces might take the form of covered pedestrian ways with fire-rated corridors and doors that are accessible from interior pedestrian ways and lead the occupants to a safe area.

For other adjacent occupancies, such as separate residential or business buildings attached to a mall, the requirements for that occupancy would apply. Early detection should probably be considered in spaces that are not normally occupied, such as a storage area or a space that’s closed for extended periods of time or where the reaction of occupants could be delayed or impeded by physical barriers or occupant capabilities.

Are new technologies being used to protect these spaces?

We’re moving toward very specific designs and equipment. The sprinkler industry has introduced equipment and system designs that are arranged to provide a high water flow in a short response time through early suppression fast response sprinklers. Fire alarm notification is moving toward voice communication or text-type messages, which relay specific instructions to a wider variety of occupants.

In some cases, intelligibility is an issue because of ambient noise conditions in larger buildings. Another issue is the language barrier. There are situations when information provided in a specific language cannot be understood or interpreted by everyone present. Other considerations to bridge this gap include the use of commonly recognized symbols, pictograms, or other means to relay common information.

What ensures these designs and systems work as they should?

It’s very important to consider the proper testing and maintenance of fire protection features as these systems play increasingly important roles in performance-based design options and away from the prescriptive code requirements. Because each fire and life safety concept is designed on a case-by-case basis, each design has its own special combination of fire protection features that often rely on each other to obtain the desired levels of protection. Therefore, it’s imperative each system component is properly maintained, tested and will always perform its intended function. Even the best design strategy relies heavily on the successful operation and coordination of each component device.

The Apex Tool Group is a billion-dollar tool manufacturing company with over 90 facilities worldwide. One such facility is its hand tool manufacturing plant in Gastonia, North Carolina. This particular plant specializes in processing raw metal into well-known brands of hand tools and sockets for industrial, commercial and do-it-yourself customers. The process to make 30 brands of hand tools creates caustic by-products and an extremely dirty environment.

“Conventional smoke detectors in those rooms …would be having nuisance alarms and dirty detector warnings every couple of months.”
— Jamie Colley, president of Integrated Technical Services

This posed challenges for Integrated Technical Services, LLC, the company that designed, installed and now maintains Apex’s fire system at the Gastonia facility. “The Apex plant is processing latex and other chemicals, causing particles to constantly flow though the air. There’s a fine layer of powder (residue) everywhere in the basement that gets into everything,” says Jamie Colley, president of Integrated Technical Services.

This type of environment causes many hazards Apex must address, including the difficulty to detect smoke and ultimately a fire. “There was a switchgear room in the basement and a compressor room next to the production floor that were not as clean as an environment should be for smoke detection,” Colley adds. Apex’s insurance company required the company to install smoke detection in two of its switchgear rooms. “Conventional smoke detectors in those rooms were counterproductive. They would be having nuisance alarms and dirty detector warnings every couple of months,” says Colley.

Colley, who has been working with aspiration systems for over 10 years, looked into the System Sensor FAAST Fire Alarm Aspiration Sensing Technology^® as an option.

The FAAST 8100 aspirating smoke detector is designed to provide early or very early warning fire detection while minimizing false alarms – both required for a safer working environment in the Apex facility. To achieve this, the detector utilizes a unique dual vision sensing technology that uses a high-sensitivity blue LED to detect incipient fire conditions (with particulate levels as low as 0.00046 %/ft obscuration) and an infrared laser to detect larger nuisance particulate.  Advanced algorithms process data from both sensors to provide the earliest and most accurate fire detection available.

“I like the concept and benefit of the FAAST dual technology as a safeguard against false alarms,” says Colley. “Any time you are sucking particulates into a unit that sensitive, you want to make sure you are actually creating an alarm when an alarm is needed, not creating nuisances. The dual sensor is a more effective means of filtering out the actual smoke.”

Colley programmed FAAST to monitor four stages of smoke and trouble conditions (action 1, fire 1, fire 2, and trouble contact), with everything but fire 2 set up as a supervisory condition. The fire panel is at the guard station. When there is a non-fire 2 alert, the guard can view the camera monitor to see if there is any smoke in the area and dispatch someone to investigate the area in question without calling the fire department or evacuating the building. If the system should alarm at a fire 2, it would set off the horns and notify the fire department – treating it as a building fire.

Soon after installation at the manufacturing facility, FAAST was put to the test. Colley received a call from Apex when FAAST alarmed at an action 1. “There was an actual smoke event on the production floor,” Colley explains. “Smoke had seeped from the production floor into the compressor room next door, where FAAST was installed, creating an alert. When they went out to investigate it, they determined there was smoke in the area. It didn’t initiate in the control room, but it still picked up the early stages of smoke in the area.

“FAAST really did exactly what it was supposed to do,” says Colley.

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?

“System Sensor devices are working together in a networked fire alarm situation, thereby providing increased fire protection for one of the crown jewels of theSeattleschool district.”
— Dennis Lane, Sales Engineer at Chubb

Renovation of the 230,000-squarefoot Chief Sealth was completed with an emphasis on life safety issues and energy and environmental conservation, while revitalizing the school’s appearance inside and out. The objective was to create a superior educational environment, including classrooms with technology upgrades, new foreign language classrooms, a renovated auditorium and full Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility.

Catering to roughly 1,000 students, who comprise one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse student bodies in Washingtonstate, Chief Sealth has undergone periodic upgrades to its fire and life safety system prior to this renovation. Already equipped with NOTIFIER^® and System Sensor products, the newly designed system was required to maintain that standard and reuse as much as possible.

Because of its specific experience with NOTIFIER and System Sensor devices, Chubb Fire & Security, a UTC Fire & Security Company, worked with Tres West Engineers of Tacoma, Wash., to design and manage the installation of the fire and life safety system for the school renovation. Chubb is a fully licensed fire, life safety and security contractor with expertise at retrofitting properties to current safety standards.

Because Chief Sealth has serviced the community since its opening in 1957, the school district was concerned about maintaining its heritage and existing architecture, including its beautiful, arched ceilings. This was one of the factors that played into the fire and life safety system design.

“There were some complications in the actual design of the fire alarm system related to accommodating unblemished ceilings, which in turn created obstacles in installing the devices,” says Tony Bartling, Project Manager at Chubb. “The goal was to do as little exposed pipe work as possible, which caused some additional challenges in determining the locations of the smoke detectors and of the audible visible devices.”

Overall, detectors and notification devices were placed throughout the campus in accordance with the International Fire Code. But that didn’t always prove to be easy. “One of the challenges in the building was the number of beams that crossed corridors.” saysDennis Lane, Sales Engineer at Chubb.

The driving factor was to provide a code-compliant system. “The nice part about the current fire alarm system is it is easily expandable to accommodate additional notification devices or the smoke detectors, beam detectors, heat detectors, what have you. The device compatibility and expansion becomes a nonissue,” says Bartling.

“System Sensor devices are working together in a networked fire alarm situation, thereby providing increased fire protection for one of the crown jewels of theSeattleschool district,” says Lane.