Non-water residential fire suppression
user-7674797
| Posted in General Questions on
We are building a new pretty good house and wondering about fire suppression. Since we have well water, we’d need a water tank, and that isn’t feasible. Does anyone have advice on residential non-water fire suppression systems? Any special considerations in the construction phase? Are they worth it? Thank you.
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Replies
User...797,
I'm not sure whether you mean interior structure, or wild-fires. In the case you near the former I'll take a stab at the second part of your question.
The risk of a residential fire in a newly built house is almost entirely dependant on occupant behaviour. While many of the sources of fires in older buildings can be attributed to defects (poor wiring, lack of separation between framing and chimneys, etc.), those aren't present in a code compliant new house. The risks are almost entirely things like cooking, open flames like candles and cigarettes, and corded appliances. If you are confident you aren't going to do these activities in a dangerous way, the risk is too low to justify a fire suppression system.
Thank you, Malcolm, for your reply.
Are you in an area that requires residential structures to be sprinklered? If you are, there are ways to do this on a well and that’s probably your best option.
If you want a “non-water” system, you can either go with dry chemical type extinguishers (which spray a powder and make a big mess), or a “clean agent” system (which can be VERY expensive). Clean agent systems are what many people mean when they say “halon”, even though halon hasn’t been used in years due to CFC regulations. The usual commercial replacement for halon is FM200. These systems are usually used in places like datacenters and laboratories, not homes though.
Do you need/want an automatic system that is permanently installed, or can you just use some extinguishers?
Bill
A clean agent system is extremely cost prohibitive on a residential budget. I don't know what kind of budget you're on, but a tank and pump fire sprinkler system based on NFPA 13R is a better choice cost wise comparatively. And no different space wise, as you'd need to store tanks of agent. It also involves the need for a commercial fire alarm preaction system to detect the fire then actuate the agent dump. And you'd need some pull stations and abort buttons kicking around as well.
Malcolm has some good points that the majority of residential fires are from smoking materials and cooking.
But otherwise nothing beats automatic suppression systems for occupant fire safety. Also nothing beats the cost/benefit of water as an agent for fire suppression (other than special circumstances like combustible metals, pools of volitile combustible liquids or sensitive electrical equipment like sever rooms etc)
So to answer your question, are there non water suppression systems? Yes, but if a water sprinkler system is unfeasible, then a clean agent system is most likely extremely unfeasible.
Just my thoughts,
Jamie
Thank you for your replies. It looks like a fire suppression system just isn't worth the expense and effort.
user-7674797,
I agree, in a sense, that automatic fire protection might not be "worth" the cost or hassle.
But, for a thought experiment, I suggest looking at uponor for a residential fire sprinkler system. It integrates with their domestic plumbing system to its relatively minor additions for sprinkler heads. I only will use uponor or PEX-A systems with localized manifolds (also called logic plumbing) for supply plumbing, so in this case it's pretty simple. Of course, if you refuse to spec pex, or have a stubborn plumber that still sweats copper lines, etc, then surely at that point it gets overwhelming. Also, I think uponor offers free design services for their fire suppression system. But I have not used it (yet).
I can tell you from a practical and functional standpoint, sprinklers save lives and property. I've gone to little fires that could have been big fires, because the sprinkler system worked. Water damage can be mitigated with good plumbing design. I also prefer some water damage comparatively to a lot of fire damage.
Not trying to convince you, just my recent thoughts on the subject as I'm planning to do this on the next build I do.
https://youtu.be/kZDh5aeOmeI
Jamie