District Heating Plant Room Block Of Flats

[Tadees]

A small district heating plant room in a block of flats accessible only to trained contractors.  Would 5KG CO2 extinguisher be adequate?

[AnthonyB]

If it's small a 2kg may do it, depends on the size of the enclosures of the electrical panels.

Or if you are wanting to avoid the cost of external agency servicing you could stick a P50 in.

[kurnal]

These rooms often become used by the site maintenance team for storage of all sorts of equipment. The benchmark is that you should provide for class A risks, but this may be varied if your risk assessment indicates that this is never ever likely to occur.

Like you I have made such judgements not to provide cover for non existent risks myself previously.

The size of the heating control panels I have seen in such premises have led me towards recommending 5kg CO2 for use by maintenance staff. If you leave it to maintenance contractors to provide FFE for the duration of their work you can guarantee they will turn up with DP. Whether they will be trained to use the CO2 is another matter......

[John Webb]

Can't maintenance contractors be told not to bring in DP, backed up by the current para 5.4.3 of BS5306-8:2012?

[kurnal]

You can tell them, make it part of the contract etc etc but try getting the message down to the folk at the sharp end when they inevitably carry an old battered and often untested 6 or 9 kg DP on the van.

[John Webb]

You can tell them, make it part of the contract etc etc but try getting the message down to the folk at the sharp end when they inevitably carry an old battered and often untested 6 or 9 kg DP on the van.

Now why doesn't that surprise me?

[AnthonyB]

You can tell them, make it part of the contract etc etc but try getting the message down to the folk at the sharp end when they inevitably carry an old battered and often untested 6 or 9 kg DP on the van.

Add often de-pressurised as they caught the handles briefly once a year or two ago (you don't need any powder to actually go down the hose for this to happen).

It is similar with construction/refurb works in general. It's funny how construction is recognised as being a high fire risk sector, but you often see the fire protection being either nothing or just a random pile of unserviced sometimes u/s junk acquired over the years from empty buildings.

Some of the bigger construction firms are better organised (e.g. Bowmer & Kirkland use Britannia P50's in boxes on trolleys with wireless fire alarms and the kit is always in mint condition) but a lot of refurb works are done by smaller concerns.