Fire pump room requirements

The pump room or pump house must be ventilated adequately. Floors must be pitched or sloped for adequate drainage of escaping water away from critical equipment such as the pump , driver, controller, or automatic transfer switch. In addition, NFPA requires that an enclosed passageway from an enclosed stairway or exterior exit doorway to the pump room be provided for those pump rooms not directly accessible from the exterior of the building. Requirements for alarms and signals are listed in 4. The interconnect control wiring between the controllers in different pump rooms must meet specific requirements listed in 4.

Identify the appropriate sections of NFPA 20. Describe the purpose of the various. Fire pump room requirements 4. Does NFPA require that the pump room be dedicated exclusively to the fire pump equipment ? Due to space limitations, we wanted to have a pump room that would contain the hot water and chilled water pumps along with the fire pump. The room is hour rated and will be sprinkled. The IBC has new requirements for fire -resistive separation of fire pump rooms in high-rise and non high-rise buildings.

It also has requirements for outdoor fire pump buildings.

The requirements are based on NFPA 20. FIRE PUMP SERVICE - NFPA 2 4. What’s new is fire pumps, controllers and risers shall be readily accessible within the room and to those who access the room. If the room has a lock, then the key needs to be always available to those who need to access the room. Under the new NFPA provisions, fire pumps in series must be installed in the same pump room.

This modified fire pump design increases the reliability of the overall fire pump operation. When the pumps are located on the same floor, failure of a lower level pump will no longer result in cavitation and damage to the higher-level pumps that it feeds. Run them within an enclosed construction dedicated to the fire pump circuit(s) and having a minimum of a 2-hr fire -resistive rating. Regardless of the floor space, the room needs to not only be big enough but properly laid out to prevent messes like the above photo.

Where a fire pump room cannot be located on grade with direct access from outside of the building, a protected space with a fire rating in accordance with Table 4. The new requirement also ensures firefighters can respond and assess pump operation during a fire in accordance with NFPA standards. A typical design would be to use a combination controller and transfer switch in a cabinet to avoid the need for additional requirements laid out in NFPA 20. This can cause confusion, however, because Art. We are considering lowering the floor (slab on grade) in the fire pump room for increased clearance, approximately 6-inches.

As such, this floor will be lower than the remaining portion of the building. A discussion has ensued in our office about the compliance and if permitted by code.

There may not be any combustion happening, but there will be heat generation, so yes. Provision shall be made for ventilation of a pump room or pump house. The fire pump starts when the pressure in the fire sprinkler system drops below a threshold.

The sprinkler system pressure drops significantly when one or more fire sprinklers are exposed to heat above their design temperature, and opens, releasing water.