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Fire Suppression Room Sealing Services

Fire Suppression

Fire Suppression

Essential Security & Protection Against Fire Threats

Successful extinguishment of a fire by a gaseous extinguishing system depends upon the maintenance of the extinguishing concentration for a specified period after discharge. Excessive leakage of extinguishant may result in reignition.

Inadequate room sealing is the predominant cause of failure of gaseous extinguishing systems. It is also found that room integrity performance reduces with time, usually due to changes in construction, cabling or services.

It is important to ensure that good room integrity is established and maintained within the data centre space, particularly bearing in mind the potential consequences of system failure. Annual room integrity inspection and testing are also required by the BFPSA and are routine practice within most data centre environments. The benefits of ensuring room integrity are widely recognised by insurers and regulatory authorities, who frequently require such testing.

Workspace Technology offers a complete room integrity inspection, room sealing and room integrity testing service for any server room or data centre environment.

The criterion used to determine whether the amount of leakage is acceptable is the retention time. In most circumstances, extinguishant is lost via leakage through low level apertures to be replaced by fresh air entering at high level, thus creating a descending “interface”. The retention time is the time it takes for the interface to reach the highest item requiring protection. A minimum retention time of ten minutes applies in most cases.

The retention time will be determined through the deployment of a Room Integrity Test.

The retention time is influenced by the type of gas, the height of protected equipment and the number, size and positions of the leakage paths. As a broad principal, smaller rooms require a better standard of room sealing than larger rooms. The basic room construction has a noticeable bearing. Solid blockwork, concrete will provide inherently better results than lightweight plasterboard construction. Among the least favourable are designs where partitioning runs between suspended ceiling and raised floor rather than slab to slab. Subsequent compartmenting of floor and ceiling voids presents many difficulties.

General Sealing Work Services

Item

Service Detail

Services Penetrations

Inspect and identify leak points. Fit proprietary sealing systems where possible.
Install suitable fixed boards and/or mineral wool and/or mastic and/or in-situ foamed sealant.

Doors & Windows

Inspect and identify leak points. Doorsets should incorporate flexible 'smoke' seals and frames should be backfilled or mastic sealed. Fit brush strips where required.

Construction Joints

Inspect and identify leak points. Seal board joints and the junctions between wall and floor elements with appropriate fire retardant mastic sealant.

Ducting Systems

Inspect dampers and louvers and adjusted to minimise leakage.

For more information on our inspection, room sealing, integrity testing and range fire suppression products and services please contact our Sales Team on 0121 354 4894 or send us a message.