Cost Effective Automatic Fire Suppression For Business Critical Areas

By Author: Jen Smith
Total Articles: 17
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In today’s harsh economic times, effective and dependable fire suppression within business critical areas such as data rooms remains essential, but securing it at the right price can be difficult. Ian Bartle examines some of the key challenges involved and explains what can be done to alleviate the pressure on those critical budgets.

It’s understandable that in all businesses, continuous examination of operating costs are routinely made. Within this, the cost of fire suppression is often considered to be a relatively high but necessary cost. However, there can be very few applications where the absolute reliability of operation of the automatic fire suppression equipment is more business critical than in a data room.

For instance, data rooms of any size will have an air conditioning system in place to control the temperature because of the tremendous amount of heat that’s generated on a continuous basis. Failure of the air conditioning system to function may lead to overheat situations placing stress on the equipment and components. This could cause an outbreak of fire with a resultant and devastating loss ...
... of all data within minutes. And don’t forget, we’re potentially talking here of data that’s taken many years to build.

So no question, data rooms need to be protected by a dependable automatic fire suppression system, but does the cost of the system have to give the financial director sleepless nights? The answer is a resounding no.

One thing that we all know is that high volumes of water and computers don’t sit happily together. That’s why for years now, chemical gaseous agents such as FM 200, Inert gas systems and now water mist have been employed to do the job of fire protection. They have performed the task of suppressing fires by physical cooling of the affected area or by decreasing the oxygen in the atmosphere to a level that no longer supports combustion. All utilise a system of high pressure pipework and nozzles to deliver the suppression medium into the risk area.

However, recent world wide shortages of raw materials have prompted dramatic increases in the cost of chemical gases, FM 200 in particular. This in turn has affected the cost of new fire system installations and that of recharge and service where gas needs to be replaced (up to 40% in some cases), making them far less competitive on price. This fact has forced buyers of fire suppression systems to widen their search for equally reliable but more cost effective alternatives.

As already described, Data Rooms need the optimum in automatic fire suppression and extinguishers as do other special areas such as network infrastructures, art galleries, museums, antique centres, and power generation plants to name just a few. The objective is always to save lives and property. But innovative fire protection can now do a whole lot more. Today it combines science and economics and matches these qualities to total effectiveness and reliability.

In the case of Data Room protection there is now a system that not only beats the performance of chemical and Inert gases, it also provides a superior, environmentally friendly fire suppressant. Not only that, the system known as Stat-X allows easier and more cost-effective installations for all these types of challenging applications.

The Stat-X family of automatic fire suppression systems is a second generation Condensed aerosol technology, manufactured to ISO 9001:2008 standards with many internationally recognised approvals and standards such as UL in the USA. It’s a patented potassium-based aerosol that’s ecologically safe, up to ten times more effective than any current halon alternative with zero ozone depletion and no global warming potential.

And if that’s not enough, the Stat-X application automatic fire suppression system technology requires no pressure vessels, manifolds, nozzles or pipe work. All factors which result in significant installation and maintenance savings.