Intern Corner 2

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Updated: 06/27/05.

Intern Corner (Episode 2)

July-August 2004 issue of Mad-Spec

by H.B. Huisinga, CSI, CCCA, LEED AP

Several questions have come up this month that prompted me to ask, why?

The first was from a Project Manager on one of my projects. As many hard-working specifiers know, Project Manager’s have specific requests for materials from project to project. Trying to stay on top of all the requests can be a delicate balancing act. When my Project Manager asked me five times in one week to make sure the vinyl tile specified did not have a “felt” backing even after I had confirmed his request, I took the time to stop and ask. Why?

My first inclination was to associate “felt” with mold growth, but the request turned out to be based on past performance rather than mold growth.

Most generally in the high-performance world, felt-back vinyl tiles are passed over for non-felt-backed vinyl tiles. The reason for this centers around the wearing surface thickness of the tile. A felt-backed vinyl tile has a smaller wearing surface thickness as opposed to a non-felt backed one. In the event something is dragged, dropped, moved or installed over the felt-backed tile and it scratches the surface, there is a greater chance that the scratch will cut through the entire wear layer of the tile causing the tile to fail.

It was also pointed out to me that generally felt-backed tiles are used in residential applications where non-felt backed tiles are used in commercial applications.

Another question raised earlier this month is over the topic of when to use sprinkler heads in a fume hood. This poses an interesting quandary.

The notion of using sprinkler heads in a fume hood seems like a good idea, doesn’t it? Yeah, I thought so, too. It turns out this is a very tricky topic. Why?

I minored in Chemistry and Physics in college and I know from first hand experience the first bad look over sprinklers in fume hoods comes from “water-damage” and all it’s negative history.

What I didn’t immediately think of was: What if you don’t know what chemicals are being used in the fume hood? The liquid being introduced into the fume hood could interact negatively with the chemicals present to cause an even more disastrous situation. Such as fire expanding outside of the fume hood work area and into the room. Yikes! This situation could be especially dangerous when compressed hazardous gases are being kept in the area.

All right, how many of us are designing these types of labs? These labs are becoming more and more frequent as technology advances and labs are becoming state of the art to keep up with client needs. (Homeland Security. Bio-terrorism. Need I say more?)

So, should we or shouldn’t we use them? According to Seattle, WA fire codes, all fume hoods are to be equipped with sprinklers. California is reported to be closely following after this train of thought as well as other well known lab facilities across the US.

Fisher-Hamilton makes an add-on dry-chem, stand-alone sprinkler system (5, 10 pounds) for their fume hoods for an extra cost. One thing to note here is that a stand alone sprinkler system will need to be checked annually to make sure it’s in proper functioning order—just like fire extinguishers.

A general rule of thumb could be to use sprinklers in fume hoods if there is more than 10 gallons of flammable liquid present. This hint was picked up from an FM Representative on one of my projects.

My advice is to get with your lab planner and review each fume hood on a case by case basis.