[labnetwork] Room Pressurization During a Fire Alarm

[Dennis Schweiger]

Jacob,

can your system differentiate in the location of the fire alarm, and the
nature (smoke alarm versus sprinkler release versus pull station)?  Not all
FIRE inputs require the same response, and not all are true (disgruntled
student pulling a fire alarm during exams, for example).

If it's in the cleanroom, suffocating the fire is a good thing, if it's
outside of the cleanroom, leaving the room pressurized makes the most sense.

Now, that's not a silver bullet fix, because there are dozens of scenarios
to work through, and ramifications for each selection.

Here at UofM, we went round and round, and settled on the above criteria.

Dennis Schweiger
Faclities Manager
University of Michigan/LNF

734.647.2055 Ofc


On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 7:43 AM, Jacob Trevino <Jacob.Trevino at asrc.cuny.edu>
wrote:

>  Hello All,
>
>  We are so very close to having our contractor hand over our new building
> and cleanroom, however an issue has come up over cleanroom pressurization
> during fire alarms. Currently in a fire alarm event, the building
> management system ramps the cleanroom supply air down, while maintaining
> hood exhaust rates, thus bringing the room into negative pressure. We have
> been told that this was done to comply with NYC Department of Building
> code, which requires rooms to be negative relative to ?corridor
> pressurization (in the event of a fire).
>
>  The cleanroom team argues the negative pressure has two very negative
> implications. The first and most important is that with hoods still pulling
> air at normal rates, doors leading out of the cleanroom may become
> suctioned shut and difficult to open in the event of fire. Secondly,
> negative pressures are obviously bad for the cleanliness of the cleanroom.
>
>  We would like to throttle the system down to maintain a very light
> positive pressure in the event of a fire alarm, however we are still
> meeting a good deal of resistance from building designers who have never
> worked with a cleanroom before.
>
>  I am very curious to learn what your pressurization scheme might be in
> the event of a fire alarm. Do you have any references you have found
> valuable (people, organizations, documents)? Any input would be greatly
> appreciated.
>
>  Best,
> Jacob
>
>   -----------------------------
>
> *Jacob Trevino, PhD*
> NanoFabrication Facility Director
> The City University of New York (CUNY)
> Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC)
> Tel.  (646) 664-8914
>
> Fax. (646) 664-2965
>
> Email: Jacob.Trevino at asrc.cuny.edu
>
> Web: http://asrc.cuny.edu/
>
>
>
>
>
>
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