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Shifty Pony posted:Depending on the species it can be highly illegal to disturb a bird's nest with eggs or chicks. The thought did occur to me later. Considering it was a large industrial plant out in unincorporated area surrounded by hundreds of acres of swampland, it's unlikely I made much of an ecological impact unless they were actually Phillipe's Crested Lightpole Tit and I sealed off the last remaining lightpoles in the area  We were under a lot of pressure from the mill to finish in time for a VIP visit, we notified our contact at the plant and he wanted them gone, and it wasn't worth losing my job over.I did end up making birdhouses over the next few months and gave 'em to a friend with some rural property out of a sense of lingering guilt. Doesn't quite make up for it but it is what it is.
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Apr 15, 2014 21:33
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Motronic posted:Not anymore (well, not ALWAYS). Couldn't you also limit it to high fire potential areas? I know if I had it all I would care about would be kitchen, laundry room and, garage.
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Apr 15, 2014 21:37
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ColHannibal posted:Couldn't you also limit it to high fire potential areas? I know if I had it all I would care about would be kitchen, laundry room and, garage. If it's not a required system then you absolutely can. But you can do kitchen suppression much more cheaply (and often time more effectively) than a full on sprinkler system. Many "old folks homes" around here have a residential version of a kitchen hood suppression system (like what restaurant hoods have). That poo poo works too. It's saved the local place (which is right behind the firehouse) countless hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage in the three (out of 100 or so) units where it's actually needed to dump.
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Apr 15, 2014 21:41
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What's involved in getting alarms that are tied directly to the station? I like that, and I live in an area that is well populated, but not terribly densely so, and I feel like that would have an even greater impact here, since the low traffic means a fire truck could be here in like a minute once it rolled out of the station. Do they operate over existing comm lines, or something? My house is fairly new, 2007, and I'm pretty sure all the smoke alarms are tied together at least, so would it just mean some black box goes on the utility panel in my basement or something? Just curious, because I like the idea. Also, how pissed do they get if the oven smokes up a bit because someone forgot to clean it and it sets off the alarm? I would assume you could just call and say "false alarm," but by that time, the crew would probably already be out the door. Whenever a neighbor has a burn in their back yard, and I'm driving home, I always wonder, "What if that's my house smoking?" Such a setup would basically completely alleviate that concern. Also, the whole kids/family/pets/etc. thing. 
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Apr 15, 2014 22:59
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Bad Munki posted:What's involved in getting alarms that are tied directly to the station? I like that, and I live in an area that is well populated, but not terribly densely so, and I feel like that would have an even greater impact here, since the low traffic means a fire truck could be here in like a minute once it rolled out of the station. Do they operate over existing comm lines, or something? My house is fairly new, 2007, and I'm pretty sure all the smoke alarms are tied together at least, so would it just mean some black box goes on the utility panel in my basement or something? You pay a monitoring service to call 911 for you. I don't think you can get wired directly to a fire station. Generally you get a free pass for a few false alarms per year for both the police and the fire department beyond which they will start fining you for being a pain in the rear end.
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Apr 15, 2014 23:17
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Ahhhhhh, I see. So it'd just be, like, ADT or whatever.
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Apr 15, 2014 23:26
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DNova posted:You pay a monitoring service to call 911 for you. I don't think you can get wired directly to a fire station. Most monitoring services will also do a "call before dispatch", where the monitoring service will attempt to contact you before dispatching fire/police. That way you can tell them not to call emergency services if you accidentally set off your alarm.
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Apr 15, 2014 23:27
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Bad Munki posted:What's involved in getting alarms that are tied directly to the station? I like that, and I live in an area that is well populated, but not terribly densely so, and I feel like that would have an even greater impact here, since the low traffic means a fire truck could be here in like a minute once it rolled out of the station. Do they operate over existing comm lines, or something? My house is fairly new, 2007, and I'm pretty sure all the smoke alarms are tied together at least, so would it just mean some black box goes on the utility panel in my basement or something? What others said is about right just abut everywhere. Direct-to-station is long gone (like since the early 80s). FYI, ADT is horrible and basically a finance scam. Go find a local installer who does their own thing and has their own dispatch or contracts out for it. They will install equipment that you actually pay for now including the labor. That equipment will be both higher quality and not proprietary so if you aren't happy with the dispatch/monitoring service you can change without gutting the system. You also eon't keep paying for low grade poo poo forever as part of your "monitoring fee" and be tied into keeping their monitoring for an absurd amount of years. Seriously, gently caress ADT. They are scumbags. Bad Munki posted:Also, how pissed do they get if the oven smokes up a bit because someone forgot to clean it and it sets off the alarm? I would assume you could just call and say "false alarm," but by that time, the crew would probably already be out the door. Even with the monitoring service this happens. WE (not everyone) typically send out an officer (typically driving a pickup with a cap or an SUV that could act as a command center) to qualify the call before rolling the big trucks if we hear the alarm company said the homeowner called it off. But sometimes they come out anyway. We refer to it on the radio as a "culinary catastrophe". It's no big deal. That's what we do; that's what we're there for. If it happens too frequently you have a problem with your system that need to be addressed (too sensitive, wrong detector(s) in the wrong area(s)) and we'll let you know that. Motronic fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Apr 15, 2014 |
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Apr 15, 2014 23:35
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Motronic posted:That's what we do; that's what we're there for. This makes me feel less bad about calling 911 every time the fire alarm in my 80 unit apartment building goes off.
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Apr 16, 2014 00:01
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FISHMANPET posted:This makes me feel less bad about calling 911 every time the fire alarm in my 80 unit apartment building goes off. DO NOT FEEL BAD ABOUT THAT. Seriously. Just don't. You're doing the right thing. Whether it's for protecting life and property or forcing the management company/owner to fix the malfunctioning system. It's still the right thing to do. And you can't know which is it unless you've surveyed the entire building first. Just call. Motronic fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Apr 16, 2014 |
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Apr 16, 2014 00:09
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I felt like .001% bad before. The fire station is actually across the street from the building. The first time it happened I didn't realized that the fire department wasn't notified/nobody called 911, and the building wasn't burning down after 2 hours, so my roomates just wandered over to the fire station to let them know there was a fire alarm.
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Apr 16, 2014 00:10
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I've got interconnected smoke alarms in my apartment building and a few months ago they all went off at 5 am. I was like 95% sure there wasn't a fire but called anyway. Obviously for the 5% chance but admittedly mostlyMotronic posted:forcing the management company/owner to fix the malfunctioning system
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Apr 16, 2014 07:50
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gently caress sprinklers, if I'm required by law to have some sort of anti-fire thing in a house I'm building, it's gonna be Halon (or equivalent).
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Apr 17, 2014 03:57
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atomicthumbs posted:gently caress sprinklers, if I'm required by law to have some sort of anti-fire thing in a house I'm building, it's gonna be Halon (or equivalent). Yeah.....that sounds great until you realize what it actually means. Gas displacement doesn't work without a sealed enclosure. So this means AT A MINIMUM that you can't have any windows that can be opened in the space. Then we get into things like HVAC supplies and returns and just general sealing that's way beyond what more enclosures are set up to have. If it was easy everyone would do it. Because the gas and heads aren't really all the expensive. Passing a door fan test is.
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Apr 17, 2014 04:01
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Motronic posted:Yeah.....that sounds great until you realize what it actually means. Then I will fill my basement with enough suppressant tanks to blow all the air out of the house whether or not the window is open Fire cannot withstand my wrath
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Apr 17, 2014 04:12
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atomicthumbs posted:Then I will fill my basement with enough suppressant tanks to blow all the air out of the house whether or not the window is open I'm glad I'm not the only one who's considered having a giant CO2/Halon tank hooked up to the furnace so I could "pull the pin" on the way out and kill the fire.
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Apr 17, 2014 14:33
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Previous owner had a roof leak. Instead of y'know.. fixing it, he paid a handyman to replace the drywall with the waterproof green board stuff that you use in bathrooms. So for the past unknown period of time, water has been running down between the cinder block wall and the green board. As you can guess, that is not great for the wood floor, or even the joist. In addition, they didn't even use a 4x8 sheet, instead three smaller pieces to cover that area and the finishing was poo poo, the wall looked wavy. So far we have ripped out the drywall, cut out the rotted hardwood floor sections (the patch isn't going to be the prettiest thing in the world... but no choice really that I can tell) and removed/replaced the rotting sub floor, put in some extra supports between the joists etc. Luckily the joist itself wasn't really that badly damaged and is still 90%. Right now the roofer is up there doing repairs. I understand why the PO didnt fix it due to the price and him already being underwater/possibly in foreclosure when they discovered it, but it still sucks. He purposefully didn't disclose it because I am certain he knew what it was. There was signs of him trying to caulk up there and some expanding foam as well. Edit - we did ask about that, and he said it was water leaking in from where a window AC unit had been removed, and that he just hadn't had time to get it addressed. So really shame on me for being naive.
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Apr 17, 2014 14:53
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Never, ever, ever trust anything that someone who is trying to sell you something says, unless it is negative. First lesson I learned when buying a car... it applies to anything, really. People love to lie by omission when selling stuff, too. And throw you off by describing a minor flaw so they seem honest but not mentioning a huge one at all. atomicthumbs posted:gently caress sprinklers, if I'm required by law to have some sort of anti-fire thing in a house I'm building, it's gonna be Halon (or equivalent). Works great till you realize that you and fire depend on the same thing: oxygen.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:08
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kastein posted:Never, ever, ever trust anything that someone who is trying to sell you something says, unless it is negative. First lesson I learned when buying a car... it applies to anything, really. Humans can breathe in air that has too little oxygen to sustain a fire. Halon and its modern replacements are specifically made to be used in environments where you can expect humans be when the systems are activated.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:17
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DNova posted:Halon and its modern replacements are specifically made to be used in environments where you can expect humans be when the systems are activated.  No. No they are not. Halon/Halotron systems are required to be alarmed and time delayed to allow time for the occupants to exit. We've lost people on ships, the Russians lost 20 on a sub, and there are numerous other deaths through the years due to "clean agent" systems. Some bank employee who got trapped in the vault after hours at some New York bank died because she thought it would be a good idea to pull the fire alarm so someone would know she was there. Well....it worked I guess since they did find her.
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Apr 17, 2014 15:24
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Motronic posted:
Inergen: INERGEN is a blend of inert atmospheric gases that contains 52% nitrogen, 40% argon, 8% carbon dioxide, used for fire suppression system agent. It is considered a clean agent for use in gaseous fire suppression applications. Inergen does not contain halocarbons, and has no ozone depletion potential. It is non-toxic. Inergen is used at design concentrations of 35-50% to lower the concentration of oxygen to a point that cannot support combustion, but still safe for humans. Halon: It is considered good practice to avoid all unnecessary exposure to Halon 1301, and to limit exposures to concentrations of 7 percent and below to 15 minutes. Exposure to Halon 1301 in the 5 to 7 percent range produces little, if any, noticeable effect. At levels between 7 and 10 percent, mild central nervous system effects such as dizziness and tingling in the extremities have been reported.[2] In practice, the operators of many Halon 1301 total flooding systems evacuate the space on impending agent discharge. (note - 5-7% is what is required to extinguish fire, and you can be in there with mild effects but shouldn't hang out in that environment forever). There are other new gases that are basically similar. You can be in there during the inundation without much risk. Certainly less than smoke inhalation or burning to death. Also, we're talking about residential homes not submarines and bank vaults. sleepy gary fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 15:39
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Just to be clear, you posted this:DNova posted:Halon and its modern replacements are specifically made to be used in environments where you can expect humans be when the systems are activated. The modern replacement for Halon is Halotron. Not Inergen. They are very different systems. DNova posted:
Calculating the correct level of Inergen requires a known volume in a sealed space. It is used for things like 911 dispatch centers. You simply can not properly calculate "enough to put the fire out but not enough to kill people" with an unknown volume/leakage like in a house. Or anything with windows that open. Or doors that aren't auto-closing and only held open by maglocks interconnected to the detection system. So it needs to be exactly like those spaces in it's air sealing properties to work as designed. Again, gas and heads aren't expensive so if it was feasible everyone would use it everywhere. Clean agent extinguishment just isn't as simple as you've made it out to be, nor is it as simple as the marketing materials you quoted. But....what the hell would I know, right? It's not like I spent a decade as the AHJ doing plan review, code compliance and testing on these things. Oh wait....I DID. Motronic fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Apr 17, 2014 |
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Apr 17, 2014 15:57
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I didn't make any claims about how easy it is. When I said Halon and its modern replacements, I meant modern gas-based fire suppression gases, which would include the two gases I mentioned in my post.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:03
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 I didn't consider putting fire suppression into my house while it was apart, now I kinda wish I did. I've still got at least one wall on each finished room that has the other side unfinished, I bet that'd be enough to put the piping in...
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Apr 17, 2014 16:09
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kastein posted:I didn't consider putting fire suppression into my house while it was apart, now I kinda wish I did. I've still got at least one wall on each finished room that has the other side unfinished, I bet that'd be enough to put the piping in... Probably, but you may find that the most expensive part of all is getting engineering approval on your plans. If you're serious about it let me know and I'll be happy to do a plan review (assuming you are going to draw them yourself and get someone to stamp them). You'll also want whoever is stamping them to run the flow calculations - they have software that just spits out the 12+ pages of crap required at near the push of a button. Or you can spend a week doing it yourself in excel.
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Apr 17, 2014 16:15
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Hey Motronic/others, I think these fire safety tips are really cool and want to ask a bunch about my own apartment's system but I don't really want to derail the thread further, could you start a thread / is there already a thread about home safety I could ask in? Thanks 
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Apr 17, 2014 22:31
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Hey Motronic/others, I think these fire safety tips are really cool and want to ask a bunch about my own apartment's system but I don't really want to derail the thread further, could you start a thread / is there already a thread about home safety I could ask in? Thanks I dunno...that's not a bad idea. How about this: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3626362 I'll start working on a real first post.
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Apr 17, 2014 23:05
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Clearly the only answer is to use that foam stuff they use in airplane hangers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYAOHYKBYas
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Apr 18, 2014 03:27
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Regarding fire suppression, at work we have an FM200 system in the machine room. It has some sort of explosive bolt system for releasing the gas, is that standard in this kind of system? Also I like that halon can apparently convert to phosgene at high temperatures... I assume the modern replacement mentioned up-thread doesn't do that?
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Apr 18, 2014 03:44
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Pham Nuwen posted:
Halon doesn't. Halon breaks up to release free halogen atoms that scavenge hydrogen and poison the chemical reaction that's burning things up. The fire-putting-out chemical that turns into phosgene is carbon tetrachloride, which hasn't been used to put out fires for a very long time (when I was at summer camp back in the 80s I did see a case of CCl4 glass grenades sitting in a storeroom, and they were ancient back then).
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Apr 18, 2014 13:59
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DNova posted:Humans can breathe in air that has too little oxygen to sustain a fire. Halon and its modern replacements are specifically made to be used in environments where you can expect humans be when the systems are activated. Dear God no they are not. There's a reason datacenters with Halon suppression have breathers every 10' or so inside just in case a tech is caught when the system dumps. Getting the right concentration is a very, very exact thing, and tends to run into problems based on how fast an unpredictable fire is consuming oxygen in the room as well. Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 14:17 on Apr 18, 2014 |
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Apr 18, 2014 14:02
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Tell me more about these breathers. Are they portable air tanks or respirators?
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Apr 18, 2014 17:31
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Liquid Communism posted:Dear God no they are not. There's a reason datacenters with Halon suppression have breathers every 10' or so inside just in case a tech is caught when the system dumps. Getting the right concentration is a very, very exact thing, and tends to run into problems based on how fast an unpredictable fire is consuming oxygen in the room as well. What breathers? I have been in many datacenters and have never seen anything like that. Part of the initial safety walk through when you first get access is them telling you "If the alarm goes off, run for the nearest door.". Usually the system gives you a minute or so before it dumps the halon, so you can get out.
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Apr 18, 2014 18:54
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NancyPants posted:Tell me more about these breathers. Are they portable air tanks or respirators? Negromancer posted:What breathers? I have been in many datacenters and have never seen anything like that. Part of the initial safety walk through when you first get access is them telling you "If the alarm goes off, run for the nearest door.". Usually the system gives you a minute or so before it dumps the halon, so you can get out. Not all occupancies with clean agent systems have them or are required to. It depends on how far away you are from a means of egress (meaning you will find them in big datacenters just because of how big they are). The ones I've seen are mini SCBAs, very much like what the fire department would use but they are demand draw rather than positive pressure.
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Apr 18, 2014 19:03
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I worked in a sensitive military facility that had a halon system. They told us when it goes off, it unloads Halon so fast that it blows poo poo everywhere like a hurricane and we may or may not get out of the building alive. Not sure if any of that was actually true or if it was just a way to scare us from pulling the fire alarm. They used to also have incendiary grenades on top of all the racks of electronic equipment but they got rid of them. I don't know why they took them out, but my best guess is that bored soldiers are capable of doing really dumb poo poo.
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Apr 19, 2014 01:19
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SkunkDuster posted:I worked in a sensitive military facility that had a halon system. They told us when it goes off, it unloads Halon so fast that it blows poo poo everywhere like a hurricane and we may or may not get out of the building alive. Not sure if any of that was actually true or if it was just a way to scare us from pulling the fire alarm. Were the incendiary grenades there for any reason in particular or just for shits and giggles? VV I was thinking that at first, but wouldn't the halon put it out  VV
Shame Boy fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 04:57
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Were the incendiary grenades there for any reason in particular or just for shits and giggles? I would assume as an "oh poo poo our systems are compromised / our base is being overrun, destroy them now" measure.
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Apr 19, 2014 05:12
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Were the incendiary grenades there for any reason in particular or just for shits and giggles? If you don't want anyone to get a hold of something, the best way to do that is to destroy it.
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Apr 19, 2014 05:14
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Parallel Paraplegic posted:Were the incendiary grenades there for any reason in particular or just for shits and giggles? Incendiary grenades are usually full of thermite, which has its own oxidizer built in, so it doesn't need an oxygen atmosphere (indeed, any atmosphere at all) to burn. I don't think that halons would be able to poison the reaction like they do with normal fires though -- they work by scavenging free hydrogen atoms, so when your reaction is Fe2O3 + Al -> Al2O3 + Fe you see the problem -- and I think some of the reactive metals actually burn hotter in a halogen atmosphere, so you might just end up turning a blazing pool of molten iron into a white-hot volcano of the stuff. Either way, it's not going out without a fight. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 07:38 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 07:35
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The grenades were there to destroy the cryptography equipment in a hurry to keep it from getting into enemy hands. The two systems were intended to be used independent of each other. If something isn't on fire but should be, use a grenade. If something is on fire and shouldn't be, use Halon.
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Apr 19, 2014 12:59
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