There are rooms where a sprinkler head doing its job is itself the disaster. A server room, a switch room, an archive or a control room can be written off by the water used to put out a small fire in one cabinet.
Suppression systems flood the room with a gaseous agent instead. It interrupts the fire, leaves no residue, and lets the equipment return to service once the room is ventilated.
How a protected room is arranged
Where suppression is used instead of water
Data centres, server rooms and comms rooms.
Electrical switch rooms, substations and control rooms.
Plant rooms and generator rooms.
Archives, record stores and strong rooms.
Process areas where the stored material reacts badly to water.
What the system includes
- Agent storage cylinders, sized to the volume of the protected room, with discharge nozzles and pipework.
- A dedicated detection system, normally on a double knock arrangement so one detector alone does not release the agent.
- A release panel with manual release and abort controls at the door.
- Warning signage, sounders and beacons inside and outside the room.
- Room integrity considerations, because an agent that leaks straight out through a gap will not hold its concentration long enough to work.
Design considerations we work through
- Agent selection against what is in the room, whether people occupy it, and the environmental profile of the agent.
- Room volume, sealing and pressure relief, since discharge raises pressure sharply in a sealed space.
- Interlocks with the air conditioning, ventilation and dampers, so the agent is not extracted as it discharges.
- Evacuation timing and the abort function, where the room is normally occupied.
- Reserve or second shot provision where a single discharge would leave the room unprotected.
On site
Common questions
Is a clean agent system safe for people in the room?
Agents intended for occupied spaces are designed to work at concentrations below the level at which they present a hazard, and the system is arranged with a pre-discharge alarm and an abort control so occupants can leave first.
CO2 systems are a different case and are used where the space is normally unoccupied. We will tell you plainly which category your room falls into during the design.
Can suppression replace the building sprinkler system?
Normally it supplements it rather than replaces it. The suppression system protects a specific room, while the building system covers the rest of the structure.
What is acceptable depends on the building classification and on what the approving authority will accept for your submission.
What happens after a discharge?
The room is ventilated, the cause is investigated, the cylinders are refilled or replaced and the system is recommissioned and returned to automatic.
We hold the recommissioning as part of the maintenance contract so the room is not left unprotected while procurement runs its course.
Do you maintain suppression systems installed by others?
Yes, subject to a survey. We check the cylinder weights and pressures, the detection, the release arrangement and the room integrity before we take a system on.
If we find something we cannot verify or a component we cannot obtain parts for, we will say so before signing a contract rather than after.
Want this scoped for your building?
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