Utility Transformer Room Ventilation Requirement

[saladhawks]

The local Fire Chief has recently contacted the utility that I work for in Southern California and advised that our standard practice of installing intake blowers w/o fire dampers for transformer rooms within customer buildings does not meet building code requirements. Note that it is our standard practice to exhaust (w/o fire dampers) to the ambient atmosphere outside of each building. Also, all of the transformer rooms are designed with a 3-hour fire rating.

What are some of the other standard practices that are used for utility transformer room ventilation?

 

[rbulsara]

I am not a mechanical or HVAC engineer, but I can say that if the tranformer vault is surrounded by the building (no wall of the vault is a exterior wall) then the Fire Chief is right.

If your intake and exhuast are mounted right no exterior wall, without passing through building interior that requires fire separation, then what you are describing may be acceptable.

You may want to post this in HVAC or Code forum