Fire Protection For Attic Space

The state fire marshal s office has worked extensively in the areas of incident command and management weapons of mass destruction training and personnel protection equipment for all of ohio s first responders including fire ems law enforcement health and public works.

Fire protection for attic space.

The starting point to determining if attics require sprinkler protection is section 8 1 which basically says to protect all spaces unless there is a specific exemption somewhere in the standard. The living space should be separated from the garage by a firewall that extends from the floor to the roof. While all of this is intended to create a fire barrier between garage and house it is not specified as one hour rating or fire wall by the residential editon of the florida building code fbc or the. When there is a living area habitable space above the garage the ceiling requirement ramps up to 5 8 type x fire rated drywall.

1301 7 7 09 fire protection systems. An automatic sprinkler system installed in accordance with paragraph c 3 a. One such case is the idea of providing automatic sprinkler protection in attics. Nfpa 13 installation of sprinkler systems the standard for the installation of automatic sprinkler systems never specifically addresses whether or not an attic requires sprinkler protection.

Fire sprinkler protection for attic spaces represents a unique challenge both in sprinkler place ment and fire control. Combustible concealed spaces formed where ceilings are attached directly to the underside of composite wood joists or onto metal channels no deeper than 1 inch 2 5 centimeters do not require sprinkler protection where the joist channels are fire stopped at intervals of not more than 160 cubic feet 4 5 cubic meters and where at least 3 5 inches 8 8 centimeters of that installation is installed at the bottom of the joist channels. If the ceiling material is fire rated the firewall can terminate at the ceiling. Iv 903 2 8 4 care facilities.

Drywall joints shall be taped or sealed. Quite often unique challenges are best addressed by the use of specific applica tion sprinklers.