THE challenges of protecting buildings from fire can be complex, depending on the fire load of the facility and the fire risk of goods stored in the building. Although a sprinkler system is often considered sufficient to protect a building and its contents, supplementary fire systems may be necessary.
That’s according to Duncan Boyes, Chairman of fire protection specialists, the Centa Group, who added that these secondary measures may include electronic fire detection and gas suppression systems, may be necessary.
“Passive Fire Protection (PFP) like fire doors and retardants, grease ducts, fire stops and closures, as well as specialised cable coatings, also form an integral part of fire protection in a building. “Gas suppression systems are particularly well-suited for installation in server and computer rooms, libraries, museums and public buildings,” he said,
Gas suppression systems are automatic fire extinguishing systems that utilise inert gases or chemical agents to control and extinguish a fire, without human intervention. These systems leave no residue and are designed to protect critical enclosures which require a quick reaction to extinguishing a fire.
Automatic ceiling units are available from 1,5 kg to 9,0 kg and use powder/gas as the extinguishing medium. They have a working pressure of 1500 kPa.
Boyes said the company recommended its ‘room integrity testing’ procedure to support discharge testing of clean agent fire suppression systems. “This process gives assurance that the fire suppression system will hold the concentration of the gas as designed.” The integrity tester measures the leakage of a room.
Centa utilises a national, intranet-based maintenance programme. A barcoding system assists with management control by retaining information on product type, location of fire systems, pressure test dates, recommendations and outstanding tasks.
Centa’s areas of expertise include gas and bus suppression systems, electronic fire detection, water systems (sprinklers and water reticulation), passive fire protection (fire doors and fire retardants), kitchen systems and room integrity testing. The company also supplies a range of specialised fire equipment.