Fire Damper Commissioning
LSS Life Safety Services®(LSS) continues their commitment to working with independent commissioning agents, bonding companies, consultants, and general contractors. Ultimately, working together to perform damper and fire door commissioning services during the design and construction phases.
What is Commissioning?
“The basic purpose of building commissioning is to provide a quality-based process with documented confirmation that building systems are planned, designed, installed, tested, operated, and maintained in compliance with the owner’s project requirements. Commissioning of existing systems may require the development of new functional criteria in order to address the owner’s current systems performance requirements”. – The Building Commissioning Association (BCA)
“The word “commissioning” means a process intended to ensure that building systems are installed and performed in accordance with design intent, that the design intent is consistent with the owner’s project requirements, and that operations and maintenance staff are adequately prepared to operate and maintain the completed facility”. – American Society of Healthcare Engineers (ASHE), “Health and Facility Guidelines”
Per NFPA 3, interconnected life safety systems (both active and passive fire protection systems), will undergo testing after the initial commissioning process. This ensures the fire safety system remains operational and that it works as intended in the event of a fire.
Why have your facility commissioned?
Of course, protecting the occupants of the building is too crucial to skip the due diligence of commissioning. Keep in mind, retrocommissioning is equally as important as the initial commissioning process. Facilities go through significant changes over the years with construction projects and renovations. In general, it is not uncommon for alterations to the original design of the life safety systems to occur. It is important for the life safety system to undergo commissioning to ensure the safety for years to come
Fire Damper Commissioning
LSS will provide the following information for the commissioning agent, when performing fire and smoke damper commissioning and retro-commissioning services:
- Detailed inventory of the location of every fire and smoke damper
- Damper functional checklist that includes:
- Model number of Damper
- Damper size and type
- Type of barrier damper is located Details regarding breakaway points, damper angles, and damper sleeve
- Fusible link details
- Details about actuator
- Operational details of every damper
- Other specific details related to project
- Digital pictures of every damper “open” and closed” to demonstrate damper’s operation and/or to show any deficiencies