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  More: Design & Consulting 
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Design of Systems The design of fire protection systems is a process. A good design is one that produces a cost effective system, well matched to the expected fire, that will perform reliably and effectively during the fire event. A multi-step process is used to achieve these objectives that includes design and construction period services. A fire protection system provides defense against fire for life, property and business operations. To design an effective defense, the fire threat must be well understood. In addition, the unique vulnerabilities of life, property and business operations must be identified. A fire hazard analysis early in the design process assesses these issues. Analyzing the fire hazard involves identifying the various combustible materials (fuel) within the area being protected. The arrangement of these materials is equally important. These factors determine how strong a fire will be and how rapidly it will grow. The performance of the fire protection system is then designed to match the predicted fire performance. Cost effectiveness is achieved by optimizing this match, so that the fire protection system is not over-designed, and through creative application of fire protection techniques. For example - suppose that you own and operate a small telecommunications hub facility in a rural location, ten miles from the closest all-volunteer fire station. Your local building code does not mandate the provision of an automatic fire suppression system. As Owner, however, you need any potential fire damage to be limited to a single rack of equipment because for every hour of downtime due to a fire, you lose $1 million in revenue. You also want to minimize damage to electronic equipment from the extinguishing agent. In this case, the internal and external environment factors in this case lead to several performance objectives. The fire protection system must be able to extinguish a fire in its incipient stage using an agent that will cause only minimal damage to electronic equipment, and the extinguishment process must result in minimal downtime. Once performance objectives like these are determined, a fire protection system can be designed to meet them. To complete the above scenario, an appropriate system for your facility might be as simple as one human being with a portable carbon dioxide extinguisher, if the facility is constantly occupied. Harrington Group has experience analyzing a wide range of fire hazards and designing cost effective fire protection systems to effectively defend life, property and business operations against the expected fires. Our expertise is broad and covers the systems and occupancies listed below. Systems
If you would like more information, or believe your firm could benefit from HGI's expertise, we invite you to contact us. Our engineers are trained to listen to your needs and concerns, and help you move forward to find the Best Value Solution. | |||||||
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