Occupancy Classification for College Biology Lab

[yountsky3]

I have a project where the consulting engineer says a Biology Lab in a new University Building is Ordinary Group I. I feel it should be considered Light Hazard and most people I've talked to seem to agree. He is referencing NFPA 45. Do I have an argument?

 

[stookeyfpe]

You can review NFPA 45 (and any other NFPA standard) for free by creating an account on there website.

 

[greenone]

In CA, we classify commercial Biology labs as B occupancy, and the CA Fire Marshal's office has a task group reviewing the L classification, which has been primarily used for university labs. The meeting minutes are available online.

NFPA 45 is pretty clear, in Chapter 4,Table 9.1.1(a), about what constitutes high vs low hazard. You need an estimated chemical inventory to make the determination. My experience has been that Bio labs have much lower flammable quantities than Chem labs; however, without the inventory, there is no data to argue one way or the other.

 

[UFT12]

The commentary of NFPA 45 suggests the reader to provide the protection schemes of the standard regardless of meeting the quantities cited in 1.1.2. This mainly due to life safety concerns rather than property risk. But nevertheless, depending on room size, actual sprinkler design, water supply location etc, applying OH1 instead of LH may not introduce significant costs, at least worth spending the time to search codes, arguing about it etc.