Fire Smoke Damper
The Need for Fire Smoke Damper Explained
Where there’s fire, there’s smoke. Fire is often the leading cause of safety hazards in the building industry, and New York City is no stranger to this threat, thanks to the high density concentration and oversaturated population of the urban landscape.
Any fire hazard on your building is a product of three elements at play: ignition, fuel and oxidant. All these three factors connive with each other to produce a wide-spreading fire, and in any such case that your building is not designed for fire protection systems, then you risk your building occupants in the worst-case life-or-death scenario. Often, if you are the building homeowner or facility manager, this could spell liabilities on your part when your building facility doesn’t meet any of the stringent codes imposed on life safety systems. Local authorities having jurisdiction will more or less know if your building facility is up-to-date with the fire code, or was only code-compliant from the initial approval signoffs.
That leads us to finding the culprit for the fire hazard. Usually, in buildings where retrofit is much needed, fire starts from an isolated standpoint then usually spreads all throughout the other floors of the building through heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) ductwork system. Before you know it, fire swallows all the whole neighborhood.
Our engineers prepare for this undesirable scenario through proactive design: we install fire smoke dampers to mitigate the dissemination of fire hazards. Albeit not purely designed as a part of an active fire protection (AFP), fire smoke dampers play an integral role in putting a stop to what could be a potential disaster for your building facility.
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The Relationship Between Fire Smoke Damper and Automatic Sprinkler System
At the heart of every cost debate in the fire protection systems lies in the elimination of fire or smoke protection feature to offset the expenses from automatic sprinkler systems. In a few words, many consider prioritizing sprinkler systems over fire smoke dampers as they relatively put a direct relationship on high value and cost. With the latter being lower in costs, fire smoke dampers became an afterthought when sprinkler failures are the ones rising up steadily in numbers.
What exactly can this mean for the fire protection of your building facility? This cost bias on sprinkler systems often stirred up quite a controversy in the fire industry, as sprinkler malfunctions were neglected on purpose in the discussion. On a positive note of efficient planning, sprinkler systems operate 96% of the time, but we still can’t ignore the fact that sprinklered buildings still have an extensive smoke damage beyond the fire zone. In the event that you choose to eliminate fire smoke dampers and your sprinkler systems fail—rendering your facility as non-sprinkled due to malfunction or object obstruction—it is only a matter of time before this small flicker reaches a full-blown wildfire.
This is why you need both active and passive fire protection for your building. As conscious engineers who design for the holistic success of your fire protection design, we do not treat fire smoke dampers as a nuisance, rather they are installed as a critical support for the sprinkler systems. Since smoke migration often is the leading cause for mortality in fire hazards, sprinkler activation alone will not do the job of keeping all the building occupants safe. At New York Engineers, we design for your safety.
Factors You Need to Consider for Fire Smoke Damper Installation
Whether you choose any of the three dampers available, each fire or smoke damper follows stringent code requirements on construction, installation and operation as per NFPA 90A: Standard for the Installation of Air-Conditioning and Ventilating Systems. Given the code standards, this doesn’t only refer to the HVAC systems per se, but also the installation of fire, smoke or combination fire smoke dampers on your fire-rated penetrations.
To better experience the efficiency of your fire protection systems, you need expert engineers such as New York Engineers to interpret correctly all the clauses in the fire building code. This can often cause confusion for novice code interpreters as applications of fire smoke damper can range differently in types of occupancy, barriers and partitions. Take note of this exception: some smoke dampers are allowed by code to be removed or operated separately within the installation of engineered smoke control system.
For your better understanding, we simplify the importance of planning, placement and control of your fire smoke dampers as follows:
- Provision of proper smoke control and required pressure differences on horizontal exits and smoke barriers
- Proper installation of access panel with identification number and controller for periodic testing
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