Who here has a sprinkler system in their arcade?

[Gray_Area]

This occured to me with Chad's last post in his basement addition thread about fire stop code in his area.

I thought, hell why just have a barrier to keep the fire away from you and the rest of the house for a longer period, why not stop it all together?

Thinking about it, I might do Halon or something cos that shouldn't destroy your machines.

[mgb]

Well halon has been outlawed for a number if years cause it will kill you but you could do a deluge system such as fm200 or an ionized mister but none of those are cheap by any means

[HaRuMaN]

Well halon has been outlawed for a number if years cause it will kill you but you could do a deluge system such as fm200 or an ionized mister but none of those are cheap by any means

Lol... not true.  Halon is no longer manufactured as of 1994 since it is a CFC, but you can still get recycled halon systems.

[ChadTower]

There might actually be an old sprinkler head right on the edge of my gameroom.  There is something that looks like one right above the furnace.  I'm going to look at that tonight just out of curiousity.  I have never really taken a look at it and it's probably 50 years old.

[DeLuSioNal29]

Lol. We still have Halon here at work. (Broadcast facility). It will suck all of the air out and extinguish the fire. Side effect:  Humans need oxygen to breathe. (But the equipment will be saved.)

[mgb]

Either way halon is not easily available and I don't believe you can get a new halon system installed and would be mucho expensive to put in your house.

Chad, that may be a fusible link heat sensor over your boiler. Usually just cuts the fuel if tripped.

Delusional,
  You are correct, I believe your place does still have halon. Wee installed the fire system there that monitors it.
Hey that's some expensive equipment you got there, who needs oxygen anyway

[Gray_Area]

We was told that in a fire, you take a big breath, hopefully before the halon blows, and get the hell out of there.

In any case, how about a CO2 system?

[mgb]

It seems pricey though.
You need the agent, a solenoid, a panel, at least 2 smokes for cross zoning, a pull for manual dump and the plumping for the agent delivery.

How big is your game room

[Gray_Area]

It seems pricey though.
You need the agent, a solenoid, a panel, at least 2 smokes for cross zoning, a pull for manual dump and the plumping for the agent delivery.

How big is your game room

I think the question is, how many games do you have/want to save?  I don't have many, but many here do.

[Drnick]

I would never use Halon for this job regardless of the price difference.  I like being able to breathe.  It's a good Idea but a pricey one.  We use Inergen at our place and the cost of the tanks is something like $2000 each.  We have a computer room that is about 50Ft x 25Ft and have 12 Cannisters. Then there is the manual panel, the sensors etc etc etc.  But it will put a fire out in about 10 seconds and you could stand in the middle of the room whilst it is all going off.  Not that you would want to, but at least you could.

[DaOld Man]

Im no expert, but after working up close and personal with fire suppression systems for 25 years, here's my 2 cents worth.

Halon: used to use it in the computer rooms at work. Use Cardox now.
Cardox: (Carbon Dioxide in liquid form), used through out the mill. Heat sensors set off the cardox, which is stored in a pressurized and refrigerated tank. It instantly turns to gas when it reaches atmospheric pressure. Mill operator can also "dump" cardox manually by pressing a button.
Water deluge: If cardox fails to dump, water is sprayed throughout mill. Operator can also do this manually.

Cardox is very expensive and very dangerous. It can smother you to death in a few seconds. When working in the mill we must lock out the cardox so it cant dump on us. When going into pipe and electrical tunnels beneath the mill (prohibited while mill is running), we must either lock out cardox or carry an Emergency Life Saving Apparatus (ELSA pack), which is basically a small oxygen bottle with enough air to last 10 minutes, if cardox dumps, you have to put a plastic bag over your head and turn on the air, then walk not run (yeah right) to the nearest exit. (Of course you wont be able to see where you are going, because the cardox has a white color added to it, and in just a few seconds after dumping, it will be too smokey too see through.)

Water deluge is very messy. We usually have to change out several prox switches when this happens (which is very rare.)
Water deluge would do a lot of water damage to your home and your cabinets.

I dont know why anyone would want either of these systems in your home. Cardox is expensive and dangerous. Water will do about as much damage to wood stuff as smoke would.

Why not just mount a couple of hand held fire extinguishers and up the insurance?

[mgb]

Why not just mount a couple of hand held fire extinguishers and up the insurance?

+1000

It just doesn't seem that a deluge panel in a home setting would be wise due to the danger of accidental activation or cost. Especially cost.

If you really wanna have some extra protection, go with the hand held fire extinguishers and maybe a small fire alarm panel like a cheapy FireLite or system smoke detectors on your home burglar alarm panel

[shponglefan]

Ditto insurance + fire estinguisher.

[Gray_Area]

Preventive is best. The scenario I'm thinking of though is when you're asleep or, especially, not home.

[mgb]

I agree it'd be a wonderful thing to have but no matter how you slice it, it's risky and most of all expensive.
  For some things, the cost outweighs the need

[ahofle]

Preventive is best. The scenario I'm thinking of though is when you're asleep or, especially, not home.

Speaking of prevention...how about turning off the arcade machines when you're not home/around?   

[paigeoliver]

I worked a hotel for like 12 years and we had a fire system. Sprinklers were accidentally triggered 3 times over that 12 year period (by people bumping them with things), costing thousands of dollars each time. Really, by the time the fire suppression system triggers it is likely already too late to save your games. Get a fire extinguisher.

You don't need extra insurance unless you have a REALLY high end collection or collect 90s and newer pins. I have 21 games in the gameroom and the standard coverage on my homeowner's insurance would more than cover them.

[shponglefan]

Preventive is best. The scenario I'm thinking of though is when you're asleep or, especially, not home.

Like others have said though, you either have systems which are dangerous or systems which will wreck your cabs anyway (i.e. water); and the relative cost is probably more than the cost of the cabs anyway.

[lilshawn]

just don't replace your blown fuses with tinfoil or overfuse and you'll do fine.

[kahlid74]

Lol. We still have Halon here at work. (Broadcast facility). It will suck all of the air out and extinguish the fire. Side effect:  Humans need oxygen to breathe. (But the equipment will be saved.)

Misnomer, Halon doesn't suck the air out of the space it's deployed in.  I've been in a data center when it fired.  It's loud, and depending on where you are with relation to the jet valves has the potential to knock you several feet back on your butt.

If you're serious about this, look towards Sapphire.  It's what we use in most data centers now.  It takes 2-4 times as much to do the same thing Halon did, but it's quite safe.  Just remember how it works; Encompass and surround the fire completely, break the chain chemically.  A sapphire/Halon system going off inside an arcade cabinet would blow the arcade cabinet into pieces.

[lilshawn]

"displaces oxygen" is what we are all looking for here. Both halon and CO2 do this.

technically any non flammable gas could be used for this.

[Gray_Area]

Preventive is best. The scenario I'm thinking of though is when you're asleep or, especially, not home.

Speaking of prevention...how about turning off the arcade machines when you're not home/around?   

How did you know??!  Actually, mostly I leave things on when I'm home, then I can just go up and play/mess with them. My main computer is on all day, and my theatre pc can be, too, because I play electro-ambient music throughout the day. There have been times when I've had up to five systems on at a time. Play some guitar, then go surf on my main rig in ways I can't with that pc, then go play some games, hit the kitchen for water or munchies and the ambience is playing in the living room.....

[sandheaver]

Honestly water is fine.  We've all fixed water damage on wood, and if we've done a good job painting the damage is minimal.  Most sprinkler heads I've seen are heat-activated, so your cabinets won't get wet unless they're on fire, anyway, and that's a time when you want water raining down.

The ultimate best protection is insurance.  That's what insurance is for; you don't cover for the value you paid, you cover for the value you'd have to pay to replace everything, the replacement cost.

Insurance is far cheaper than halon or liquid co2 or anything you can rely on when you're not around except maybe sprinklers, and insurance (if you don't pick a crummy insurer) will always get you back where you were if you buy the coverage meant to do so.  Insurance doesn't require permits or installation or training.

Every year I see the same houses, on the same river, flooded up to the 2nd story.  I used to think the owners were stupid, now I just think they have good insurance (and/or are good at insurance fraud.)

The above text is all for homes; if it's an actual arcade you're speaking of, open to the public, you're probably required to have sprinklers and insurance, anyway.  And, if you're not, I would invest in both regardless.

[lilshawn]

the fire triangle:



remove any one side of the triangle and the fire will go out.

remove heat (normally by spraying with water) Without sufficient heat, a fire cannot begin, and it cannot continue

remove oxygen (smothering or replacing the oxygen with something non-flammable)

remove fuel (nothing to burn) Without fuel, a fire will stop. Fuel can be removed naturally, as where the fire has consumed all the burnable fuel, or manually, by mechanically or chemically removing the fuel from the fire.

[Gray_Area]

The above text is all for homes; if it's an actual arcade you're speaking of, open to the public, you're probably required to have sprinklers and insurance, anyway.  And, if you're not, I would invest in both regardless.

And this came to mind: it's, like, a no-brainer for any commercial/industrial building to have an extinguisher system. People would freak the ---fudgesicle--- out if there wasn't one.

the fire triangle:



remove any one side of the triangle and the fire will go out.

Well, this brings a few things to mind......

First off, why not a modular, infra-red sensing system.  IR is ---smurfing--- cheap, and so are fire extinguishers, and so are relays. Each 'pod' wouldn't have a lot of juice or whatever in it, but it wouldn't need to if they all went off in the area. Even better that the system could detect the areas in need, using only the pods over troubled areas. Hell, you could program the ---smurf--- for all kinds of scenarios - flood, burst, etc. And instead of CO2, use a noble gas. Even refrigeration coolant would be far cheaper. A pod could be square or circular, so it could be put inside the ceiling, or mounted to it similar to a camera pod or light fixture. The wiring would be minimal, but the system could also be wireless.

[sandheaver]

inventing a fire suppression system is going to be more troublesome than selecting an existing system to deploy.

your idea might work, though, if you can get a failsafe sensor, and enough logic in whatever is using the camera / IR sensor feeds to recognize a fire from a hot day where the A/C broke, for example.  The IR sensors that are cheap sense IR only; they can't read temperature.  You'd need enough logic to truly detect a fire every time and never detect a fire when there isn't one.  Might be hard, might be easy, I don't know.  Seems that use of a smoke detector would probably be a more reliable sensor system.

I still maintain that insurance is the best recovery method.  knowing that a company is legally bound to replace my stuff seems a lot easier than working out a way to prevent the damage in the first place.  I do believe that prevention is the best method, but the best prevention methods are expensive and lethal, as previously discussed.

[ChadTower]

Chad, that may be a fusible link heat sensor over your boiler. Usually just cuts the fuel if tripped.

It's on the water pipe.  There isn't any water involved with my furnace.

[TopJimmyCooks]

Inergen is another halon replacement used for data center fire suppression.  It's not pleasant but it is more surviveable than halon if it goes off with people in the room.  Again, as others have mentioned, very expensive, has to be maintained, tied into a proper fire alarm system, etc. not really for home use. 

[Gray_Area]

your idea might work, though, if you can get a failsafe sensor, and enough logic in whatever is using the camera / IR sensor feeds to recognize a fire from a hot day where the A/C broke, for example.  The IR sensors that are cheap sense IR only; they can't read temperature.  You'd need enough logic to truly detect a fire every time and never detect a fire when there isn't one.  Might be hard, might be easy, I don't know.  Seems that use of a smoke detector would probably be a more reliable sensor system.

Well, brightness of a black body object connotes temperature. Anyways, I'm sure some Tesla-like mother ---smurf--- came out with something ridiculously simple, and analog at that, decades ago. And the same thing happened.