A new draft British standard (DD 8458) for watermist fire protection systems has just been published, nearing completion, covering industrial/commercial and domestic/residential applications.
The new document for fire protection in domestic and residential premises has now been completed by the technical committee with very few issues needing to be addressed and only one of these being of a technical nature. It has now has been submitted to the committee chairman for the final sign-off before publication.
The document has been written as a complement to the current BS9251 standard covering the use of sprinklers. The main factor that prevented misting systems from being compliant with BS9251 has been the standard’s restrictions on nozzle spacing and minimum flow rates of water.
These regulations are currently based on long-standing tried and tested historical data, which cannot be applied to water mist systems for two reasons:
• Similar historical data does not exist for misting systems
• All manufacturers of water mist systems have flow rates and pressures that are unique to them
Based on this it was felt that to produce a robust document, test protocols should be included to prove the effectiveness of a system before it could claim compliance. These criteria have now been added as an annex to the main document.
Ultra SS Fire Group Ltd aims to be the first company in the UK to carry out full scale testing to comply with these protocols.
Watch this space.......
