To the forum:
I wanted to ask you guys what the approved installation
practice is for this scenario. I have a roughly 3,600^ft2 mezzanine built
entirely with noncombustible materials inside a non-combustible building
(steel columns, steel beams, z-purlins). The area above the mezzanine is not
going to be used for storage (or so they say anyway) and the only thing that
is going to be on the mezzanine are a couple fuel-fired furnaces. My
coworker seems to think that they may decide to store up there and to simply
put sprinklers up there to alleviate any issues down the road. There is no
easy access to this space, but it would be an awful lot of space to simply
not use. NFPA 13 2007 edition doesn't really address this specific
scenario unless I wanted to localize the protection, but if I went to that I
might as well protect the entire space. I found a couple of informal
interpretations that shed some light on the issue.
The first one was on 7/18/07 on the subject of heat producing equipment in
noncombustible concealed spaces and in a nut shell stated that in my
situation I would not need to sprinkler the space. The feeling is that
without a fuel load to propagate the fire around the unit sprinklers are
unnecessary.
The second interpretation was on 12/18/2008 on the subject of
non-combustible concealed space - electrical equipment and has a statement
that says the lack of a fuel-fired equipment in a non-combustible space
normally relives the requirement of sprinkler protection for that space
which would lead me to the logic that if it is fuel fired I would need to
sprinkler the space.
I'm unsure what is the correct method to protect this space, if it needs to
be protected at all. With the absence of storage what is the right thing to
do? I just want to know what is required.
Thanks,
Reed Barduhn, EIT
Inland Fire Protection, Inc.
1100 Ahtanum Road
Yakima, WA 98903
___
Sprinklerforum mailing list
http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
For Technical Assistance, send an email to: techsupp...@firesprinkler.org
To Unsubscribe, send an email to:sprinklerforum-requ...@firesprinkler.org
(Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
