A major international bank with its head office in Scotland had a “life safety” issue relating to means of escape for office staff and visitors from one of its prestigious buildings. The local authorities required that the building have its escape routes protected by enclosing the stairs and fitting fire doors. This would then become designated as a protected stairway. The bank was horrified with this as the building is an historic structure and the stairways form part of the architectural beauty of the buildings interior. A compromise was proposed by the local authority and this was to install a sprinkler system.

Whilst this was a compromise, it was also impractical as the building is positioned within a main city and there would be insufficient space for sprinkler equipment i.e. water storage tanks and pumps, and the installation of the necessary pipe work would be impossible or intrusive. A solution to the problem had to be found. THERMATECH designed a High Pressure Water Mist system to provide adequate protection of the open stairways and landings.

The system proposed uses very small amounts of water and as such the water supply requirements are small and the pump equipment takes up a fraction of the space required by a conventional sprinkler pump. Additionally the system uses small diameter stainless steel pipe work enabling it to be installed out of sight. An added advantage with this solution is the ability to reduce smoke and temperature in the stairwell during activation. This solution was accepted by the local authorities.