What comes to mind when you hear the words “fire protection”? When I am out and about talking to people about what we do, they automatically think I am in the fire sprinkler business. Thus a dialogue begins about the difference between water based and clean agent fire systems. The latter is far more effective in special hazard applications, but far less widely known.

High value assets like MRI machines, museum archives and computer servers call for an alternative to water based fire suppression. Who wants water resting in potentially leaky pipes or broken sprinkler heads ready and waiting to discharge thousands of gallons of water on 100,000 square feet of critical-to-your-operation computer servers acting as the center of your business universe? NO ONE!

So the halon clean agents were born and a crucial need was met. It sounds simple in theory yet so many don’t employ this age old technology. Clean agents have a changed a bit since the “old days”, so what are they now?

The fire protection industry now employs HFCs (hydro fluorocarbons), Flouroketones and Inert Gases (Each getting more and more environmentally sustainable, will discuss this in a later blog). HFCs were developed first to replace halon gases banned from production around 1989 because of there ozone depleting characteristics. Clean agents are used to a suppress fire without damaging sensitive electronics or assets, without disruption of business operations and with no clean up required. A few dollars up front during construction could save you or your client an enormous financial loss in the future.

Let’s put a dollar value on downtime. Even though fire instances are rare, it’s all about minimizing the risk. An industry report from January of 2004 estimated the downtime impact per minute for several types of businesses:

*Data from Alinenan ROI Report, January of 2004

Now let’s do the math. An e-commerce outfit could stand to lose over $2,000,000.00 in 4 hours in the event of a fire or release of a water based fire system when a clean agent system may only have cost them as little as $100,000.00 to begin with.

Clean agents are the most effective, cost efficient method for protecting critical assets. They are truly lean, mean, clean fire protection machines.

So what kind of lean mean clean fire protection machines are available? Clean agents are typically broken down into 3 categories – HFCs (hydro fluorocarbons), Inert Gases and Flouroketones, each with their own pros and cons. In regard to design and suppression effectiveness and efficiency the three can be compared as follows.

You’ll notice sustainability mentioned several times in the chart above. Increased awareness of green house gas emissions, global warming potential and atmospheric lifetime are now factors making their way into the decision making process when evaluating the type of fire protection for your hazard.

Your client’s initiative, the company image and values, your company’s commitment to the environment and community and/or the project budget will dictate your choice of clean agent.

Now hopefully you can see that the dilemma isn’t whether to use whether to use a clean agent, it’s which clean agent to use.

Certified Fire is a leader in design, installation, monitoring, and maintenance of fire alarm and detection, fire suppression, and explosion protection systems. We represent Notifier, Fike, and Ansul; three of the best known and highest quality manufacturers in the fire protection industry. Certified Fire is registered at the state and federal level as a veteran-owned small business. You can learn more about Clean Agent Fire Suppression, Fire Alarm Systems, Dust Testing and Explosion Protection Systems at  www.certifiedfire.com.