Thursday, February 28, 2013

Automatic Fire Suppression System for Home and Small Business

I have been searching for several hours for an automatic (unmanned) fire suppression system for my music and film studio.  I’ve got a lot of stuff (equipment, data, media, etc.) that I’d like to keep safe from fire, even when I’m not around, so just a fire extinguisher won’t do.

I started my search with Halon, because when I was a kid I saw a fireman do a demonstration at an Indian Guides meeting with this stuff, and it was AMAZING.  Evidently Halon destroys ozone like nobody’s business though, so it was banned in 1994.

The replacement is called Halotron, and is often used in auto racing and marine applications.  It’s great because there is no thermal issue (like with CO2, which can get really cold), and it leaves absolutely no residue (like dry chemical or foam, which will DEFINITELY damage equipment).

It’s strange that there are not more options for this out there (or, ANY options, as the case may be).  This seems like something that anyone with an expensive home theater or computer set up could really use.  And a delivery system for a relatively small canister of Halotron seems like it would be incredibly simple.

There is some indication that ceiling mounted “spot” fire extinguishers exist (basically an extinguisher you hang from the ceiling with a heat activated sprinkler head), but I can’t find a trustworthy looking source (lots of weird options from India, but that’s all I can find).ModularABC10

There is also a guy currently selling three Halon ceiling mounted fire extinguishers on eBay from his old business, so that is also an indication that these systems exist, or at least used to, but I’m definitely not going to buy his old, used extinguishers to protect my valuable equipment, media, data, and building.

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It baffles me that it would be so difficult to find an item that seems like it would have tons of applications for residences and small businesses.

Anybody with some information on such a thing, please post in the comments!

3 comments:

Marc said...

I have a similar need/application. I just found
http://kanexfire.com/modular_ceeling.html
Their "clean agent" looks like what you want.

Marc said...

Feel free to remove my last comment, I see now it's the same as what you've already found.

Here's a US firm that claims to have done work for large NASA vehicles:

http://www.nauticalfire.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/aerosol_fire.pdf

Using this US firm's gear:

http://www.statx.com/Fixed_System_Thermal.asp

I searched for [ Condensed aerosol fire suppression ]

The Invisible said...

Thanks for your comments, Marc. I hadn't seen them before. I just e-mailed both companies, and will post if I get any decent information back!