The Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) recently released Guideline 1.0 on Fire Safety for Impulse (Jet) Fans in Car Parks.
The guidelines assist building certifiers, engineers, builders and installers when preparing or reviewing a proposal involving impulse (jet) fans in car parks.
2015 revisions to AS1670.1 and AS1668.1 provided additional fire safety requirements when impulse fans are provided in carparks and these standards now adequately address previous concerns regarding early shut down of jet fans in a fire.
As a result buildings are no longer required to comply with the BCA 2016 fire safety performance solution. However, where jets fans are installed in series, a mechanical engineering performance solution will be required.
The mechanical engineering performance solution should contain detailed engineering justification to demonstrate that the jet fan system will not have a significant detrimental effect on the safe egress of occupants or operation of the sprinkler system.
One company with fully compliant products is Fantech which can provide Jetfan car park design assistance along with a turn key product solution which includes integrated smoke detection and control logic to shut down the jet fans in the very early stages of fire development (as required by the standard).