Making My Home More Energy Efficient

Fire Suppression For Your Brand-New Building: The Four-Prong Approach And What It Can Do

21 March 2016

Aubrey Kelly

If you are constructing a new building for your business, and the building is worth a lot of money, you may want to protect it with more than just insurance. A fire suppression system is required for all new buildings, but usually a sprinkler system or fire extinguishers on each floor is considered sufficient. In your case, with your new and very expensive building, you may want to take the four-pronged attack to suppress fire in the event that your new building does burst into flames.

The Sprinkler System

A top-of-the-line sprinkler system should be installed with the pipes running up and through every floor of the building, including the basement (if your building has one) and any attached parking garage space. Every closed-off room in the entire building should also have sprinkler heads in the ceiling that will activate when the building is on fire. A plumber can install all of the necessary pipes and connect the sprinkler system to the water intake line.

The Fire Extinguishers

Along with several multi-purpose fire extinguishers located on every floor of your new building, you may also want to place extra fire extinguishers in the stair wells, in the offices along the outer walls, and in the common areas where employees gather for meetings and breaks. If you make the extinguishers as accessible as possible, then small fires can be put out before they become large fires. (It may also be helpful to have all of your employees go through a fire suppression and safety training too, so they know how to use all of those fire extinguishers you made sure were installed in the building.)

Vacuum Suppression Systems

As the third prong of the fire suppression attack for your new building, you can also incorporate a vacuum suppression system. This type of system shuts off the ventilation system and reverses the airflow to suck all the air from a room, floor or space. Because the air, and therefore the oxygen, is sucked out of the room, the fire does not have the oxygen it needs to "breathe" and continue to burn. The fire in the area where the vacuum suppression has been triggered is smothered and dies. You can install this type of system to vacuum-suppress entire floors (individually or all together) or just specific sections of the building.

Contain All Combustibles in One Area or Work Only on Computers

As the final prong of the four prong approach to fire suppression, contain anything that can combust or burn to one area. That means if all of the things your company does can be done without the use of paper, or limited amounts of paper, keep all of the paper, including paper files, in one area with a closable, lockable door. When you can lock the fuel for a fire behind a door, you can cut off the path of the fire and keep it from spreading until your other fire systems and extinguishers can be activated and used.

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