Shutting Down Emergency Generator

[gadfly56]

I'm not sure if this belongs on this web site, let alone this forum, but people here have a surprising breadth of knowledge.

We have a health care facility equipped with an emergency generator. It is fossil fuel fired and has intake louvers which open when the generator is on. I don't know yet if the generator is an Article 700, 701, or 702. The room has an FE-13 fire suppression system in it. On a recent inspection, during testing, the technician found that the intake louvers did not close when the panel was activated. From the suppression system view, this is very bad as suppressing agent will leave the room via the louvers and will not achieve the minimum effective concentration of agent to fight the fire. If the generator is running, the question is whether it is more important to keep it going as long as you can (like a fire pump) or shut it down to allow the louvers to close. You can't run the generator with the louvers closed as the flow of air provides equipment cooling and combustion air. I'm waiting for the customer to get back to my on their preferences, but this may or may not align with code requirements.

 

[d0nut]

A healthcare generator is designed to NFPA 99 and Article 517 of the NEC. The life safety branch must also meet the requirements of Article 700, except as amended by Article 517. The generators don't have the same "run to failure" requirements as the fire pump, but you really don't want them to shut down as evacuating a hospital is extremely difficult.

As to the suppression question, does the room have a wet sprinkler system as well? If so, I would tend to leave the system as installed. The FE-13 system would be set to operate before the wet system to suppress the fire. If it didn't work, either due to the louver being open or some other reason, the wet system would activate to suppress the fire. This way there is still a chance that a fire in the generator room won't dump water on the generators, but there is also a method to extinguish the fire if the clean agent system cannot work.

 

[gadfly56]

A healthcare generator is designed to NFPA 99 and Article 517 of the NEC. The life safety branch must also meet the requirements of Article 700, except as amended by Article 517. The generators don't have the same "run to failure" requirements as the fire pump, but you really don't want them to shut down as evacuating a hospital is extremely difficult.

As to the suppression question, does the room have a wet sprinkler system as well? If so, I would tend to leave the system as installed. The FE-13 system would be set to operate before the wet system to suppress the fire. If it didn't work, either due to the louver being open or some other reason, the wet system would activate to suppress the fire. This way there is still a chance that a fire in the generator room won't dump water on the generators, but there is also a method to extinguish the fire if the clean agent system cannot work.

I don't know if the room is sprinklered, but that's worth a look see.

Here in NJ we have what's called the Joint Commission which has review, inspection, and certification authority over health care facilities in NJ. I'll have to check into their requirements as well.