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Re: Fire suppression/environmental conditions for tape formats



When we renovated in 2000, city code required an Energen system to replace
our old Halon system.  It may be less expensive to install a water system
in new construction, but the cost of installing water pipe in the existing
structure (if I had wanted to, which I didn't) would have been far greater
than installing the Energen system.  And the cost, should a sprinkler go
off, is potentially a whole lot greater.  I think you greatly exaggerate
the danger to humans (Terminator 2 notwithstanding).  Our old Halon system
discharged while some men were in the storage area working on the building
security system.  None of them had difficulty exiting the room under their
own steam and they suffered no ill effects.  I have heard that the blast
can be devastating to records stored near the discharge head.
LMc

At 01:22 PM 8/19/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>With this in mind, I am curious to know if anyone has experience of using a
>fire suppression system using inert gases in archives that could then be
>using to suppress fires in a server room.

I'd be less worried about the tapes than if someone was caught in the room
if/when those "inert" gases ever went off. I know Halon and its elemental
'cousins' have been used in U.S. collection storage areas until recently,
when some folks started to realize that the gases did a great job of
extinguishing fires... as well as any staff (who also need oxygen) that were
unfortunate enough to be around when the thing went off.

Gas systems can also be expensive to install and maintain (or remove), but
in unoccupied areas they'd *probably* do less damage than water systems. I'd
be interested to hear from others on the list who've actually worked in a
Halon-equipped facility -- that scene from "Terminator 2" *was* pretty cool
;-)

JM

Jeffrey V. Moy, Archivist
The Newark Museum
49 Washington Street, P.O. Box 540
Newark, NJ  07101-0540
(973) 596-6622
jmoy@newarkmuseum.org

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Dr. Laura McLemore, CA
College Archivist
Austin College
Suite 6L
Sherman, Texas 75090
fax 903-813-2297
lmclemore@austinc.edu

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