Smoke Detector Sensitivity Testing
Protect your investment and restore your peace-of-mind.
Smoke detectors represent the first line of defense in early detection of fires. But like all sensitive instruments, smoke detectors are designed to operate within a tightly specified window of sensitivity. Over time it is possible for these devices to “drift”, making some detectors too sensitive which could cause causing false alarms, or less sensitive, potentially leading to no alarm during an actual emergency.
Keystone Fire Protection is able to offer an accurate and cost-effective means of measuring this drift using the Gemini 501B® Smoke Detector Sensitivity Analyzer. Using an aerosol generator, the Gemini Smoke Detector Analyzer produces a calibrated, adjustable smoke matching the UL Standard for smoke detectors.
Gemini is a universal smoke detector tester (it can test all brands of spot-type smoke detectors) and has become the industry standard.
Sensitivity testing can be done during a routine inspection of your alarm system and is required to be performed at the time of commissioning and every other year thereafter.
Room Integrity [Fan] Testing
Rooms protected with clean agents – FM-200TM, FE-227TM, NOVEC 1230TM, ECARO 25TM – rely on the integrity of the enclosure to maintain the design concentration of the agent. Holes, leaks and penetrations into a sealed room can seriously compromise the system’s ability to extinguish a fire.
Room integrity or “fan” testing is a non-emissive means of measuring the total area of the holes in the protected room. Using a proprietary blower door, software computes the worst-case leakage of the fire protection gas mixture through those holes.
Although fan testing is a necessary part of the initial acceptance test for a new clean agent system, these spaces should be tested annually as a part of the inspection. Changes made to protected spaces, after the system has been installed, could diminish your system’s performance during an actual emergency.
We recommend fan testing your room, each year, in conjunction with the inspection of your system.
