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Installing Halon Fire Supression System at Home? 183

Posted by Cliff from the be-prepared dept.
swmagazine asks: "The house my family is building just burn down 2 weeks before competition. Now that the insurance is paying out some money, I am seriously considering installing Halon system at home because the house comes with a server room and I will be having at least 10 computers running in the house. I would like to know if anyone has experience with Halon system as well as the feasibility of installing such system at home." The possibility that your computer could conceivably be a fire hazard is extremely low on newer machines. Older machines, without the proper protection, may overheat, and that might cause problems. Might such a system minimize the damage posed by a house-fire, or are they too expensive (or too ineffective) for the average home owner?
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Installing Halon Fire Supression System at Home? More

Installing Halon Fire Supression System at Home?

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  • FM-200 (Score:5, Informative)

    by pci ( 13339 ) <[vince.power] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:03PM (#6411552) Homepage
    Well since no one, that I know of, makes ozone depleting Halon anymore, you may want to look at an FM-200 system. I still think this is a bit excessive for home use, most systems I've seen are more than >$10k after purchase and installation.
    • >>ozone depleting Halon

      That's just knee-jerk enviromental scaremongering. What has a greater enviromental impact:
      1) a Halon discharge which prevents a fire, or
      2) a house burning to the ground?

      Yep, that's what I thought. If you doubt #2 is the correct answer might I suggest that sometime, just for fun, you ask an environmental engineer about the remarkable volume of nasty chemicals, soot and particulates released as a result of burning carpets, padding, insulation, paint and misc. plastics which make

  • not halon (Score:5, Informative)

    by Naikrovek ( 667 ) <jjohnson@ps g . com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:03PM (#6411554)
    halon is un-breathable. this means that if someone is in the house when the system releases its gas, that that person/animal is dead. it starves the air of oxygen.

    I wouldn't do it.

    the best prevention is to simply watch what the heck is going on with all the electrical stuff in your house and to simply not be careless. sure, all fires aren't preventable, but 99.999% are. Insurance and a good data backup solution will take care of the rest.

    • Try Water (Score:5, Informative)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:28PM (#6411675) Homepage Journal
      Right you are. Halon isn't particularly effective anyway. It's only used in machine rooms because it doesn't damage electronics. And even that usage is on the decline. Given the way computers collapse in cost, it doesn't make sense to spend a lot of money protecting them. If you want to protect your data, back it up offsite.

      Consider the ordinary building sprinkler system. There's a reason you can't put up a new public building without one: they're damned effective. But they're also expensive. I don't think I've ever heard of them in a single-family structure.

      • Re:Try Water (Score:3, Informative)

        by elmegil ( 12001 )
        From my experience, Halon is in many places illegal; the only places I know that still have it were fitted long ago and are relying on grandfather clauses to save the massive expense of refitting with foam or other types of fire suppressant systems.
        • Now that you mention it, it's been a long time since I saw a Halon-equipped machine room. And that one was plastered with signs that said in effect, Don't even think of coming in here.

      • Re:Try Water (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 )
        Or, if you're looking for something that will be a tad bit easier to clean up and will have less collateral damage - why not just a regular ABC Dry chemical (monoammonium phosphate) system? It's fairly cheap, readily available and [survivalinstinct.com] pretty safe [wfrfire.com].

        Or what about plain old CO2?

        =Smidge=

        • ABC and CO2 (Score:3, Interesting)

          by fm6 ( 162816 )
          Yeah, I saw some of those in a hardware store, considered the price, and decided it would be stupid not to have a bunch on hand. But:

          They're only useful if you're around to use them, and use them quickly. I think the rule is that if you don't catch a fire within three minutes of it starting, you should get the fuck out and call the fire department. Those suckers spread fast.

          They're only got for 3 or 4 years, then you have to replace them. Come to think of it, all mine probably need replacing!

        • Dry Chemical powder tends to ruin things electronic - it winds up being corrosive when exposed to normal humidity or something.

          And the shit gets *everywhere*.
          A insurance guy said to me once if you ever have a fire in your office that had DCP used to extinguish it they'll replace any electronic gear in the room without any hassle.

          CO2's pretty good for electrical gear - although it's capability at putting fires out is poor compared to dry chemical extinguishers.

          • Yeah, it'll completely ruin the electronics for sure.

            But if your PC bursts into flames, I think it's pretty much gone at that point anyway...
            =Smidge=
            • I was thinking along the lines of - if you have 10 servers in the room, and one catches fire, you've ruined the other nine as well putting the first one out.
          • Trouble with CO2 is that when it comes out of the extinguisher, it is really cold - maybe -70C. Thermal shock will destroy your diskdrives, and probably motherboards. You have something at a nice, comfortable 40 degrees C, and then immerse it in something 100 degrees colder. So even stuff that wasn't burning most likely gets destroyed.
        • Easy to clean up? Hardly. I had to use mine once for a kitchen fire and it was a mess to clean up.

      • Resedential sprinklers are NOT expensive (Score:5, Informative)

        by A nonymous Coward ( 7548 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:46PM (#6412063)
        I was quoted $1.25 per sq ft several years ago. Even if prices have gone up to $2 sq ft, that's only 1 or 2 percent of the total cost. Pretty cheap for good protection.

        Also, the very fact that you are thinking of Halon implies you want to put the fire out and preserve everything. That's a nice goal, but computers are cheap and easily replaced, and presumably you have offsite backup storage.

        The point of fire protection is to give occupants time to get out and to stop the fire from spreading. Saving the structure itself is a nice side benefit. Saving minor contents is pure gravy.
        • You're right (and I was wrong) about the cost. But sprinkler advocates seem to consider sprinkers to be very effective at preserving structure and contents. The thing is that most fires start small and grow quickly. But if you have sprinklers, even a small fire will set off 3 or 4 heads, and that'll limit fire and water damage to the area around those heads. Compare that to waiting for the fire department to come -- even if they save the structure, water damage is likely to ruin the contents.

          So I guess th

          • So I guess there's no really good reason sprinklers aren't in every new structure in the U.S. I'd guess that the only resistance comes from building developers, who see even a marginal increase in costs coming out of their bottom line.

            That's one reason. The other is that sprinklers are damned ugly, and many people actually care about such things. If they could figure out some way to embed them in the ceiling, then perhaps they'd catch on for single family homes.

            I dunno, though. Assuming I, my wife, and t

            • That's one reason. The other is that sprinklers are damned ugly, and many people actually care about such things. If they could figure out some way to embed them in the ceiling, then perhaps they'd catch on for single family homes

              New sprinklers look a lot better then older ones these days. I visited a friends house down in New Mexico a while back and they had sprinklers all over the apartment about 6 inches from the celing on the walls. You don't notice them until you really look at them. They come pre

            • I'd almost rather the whole thing burnt to ground, rather than try to clean up and recover from the water mess.

              Then, if sprinkler advocates are correct, you should install them. Each sprinkler head works independently, so the water damage is limited to the area where the fire started. If you wait for the fire department to come and put out the fire, you're far more likely to have a pile of waterlogged books. If you get a good response time, they're likely to save the structure, but spray a lot of water in

          • Sure your residential sprinkler sounds good on paper. However they require quite a bit of water. In a city it is (in theory) no big deal to put a bigger pipe into all houses just to supply the sprinklers. However I have my own well, to provide for a sprinkler means I have to have a bigger pump, which costs significantly more money. The power for that pump comes from the main panel (through other boxes latter) in my utility room, right next to the most likely places a fire would start (dryer, furnance,

      • Consider the ordinary building sprinkler system. There's a reason you can't put up a new public building without one: they're damned effective. But they're also expensive. I don't think I've ever heard of them in a single-family structure.

        I have seen new apartments and new single-family houses with sprinklers installed.

        • I was wondering - do you put sprinklers in the kitchen? And what about electrical/chemical fires?

          I remember something about pure water (with no contamanents) is not conductive. Is this true? Could you filter the filter somehow enough to make it better on electrical fires?

          • Here is what you want to remember. The primary responsibility of the sprinklers is to *contain* the fire, not necessarily extinguish it. Generally one of the first things the fire department does when they get on scene of a house fire is pull the meter. This turns most Electrical Fires into something a little easier to deal with.

          • Re:Try Water (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Maclir ( 33773 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @09:40AM (#6414251) Journal
            I have done a number of commercial computer room installs. The process is:
            1. Have the sprinkler system integrated into the electical and a/c.
            2. As soon as sprinkler head pops, flow detectors on the sprinkler pipes detect it, set off an alarm and kill the electrical power.
            3. A/C dies - we dont want something pumping in fresh air.
            4. If you have a UPS - kill power on both sides of the UPS.
            5. Generally, except for the equipment that started the fire, everything will work once you dry it out.
            • everything will work once you dry it out

              Nope. A science teacher of mine once presented this experiment:

              • Hook two spoons up to a light bulb and a battery.
              • Put the spoon in different ends of a box filled with fresh water.
              • Uhm, observe that nothing is being conducted.
              • Add salt.
              • Ahh, observe that something is now indeed conducted.

              Conclusion? Fresh water conducts electricity.

              On an unrelated note, this teacher also did gymnastics.

              PS: Brilliant post. Please accept this +1 Insightful pseudomod.

          • I remember something about pure water (with no contamanents) is not conductive.

            You heard correct, straight pH 7 H20 is non conductive, but the second it is exposed to air, you've shot that to shit (trace ozone, NOX's and SOX's in the air will swing the pH to acid, never mind the fact that the standpipes (commercial PVC, Copper, or Lead) will deposit trace minerals in the water screwing with its conductivity.

            If you want truly pure water, you have to do a clean distillation on it (or figure out how to b
      • Building codes in Scottsdale, AZ require sprinklers in all new construction, residential or commercial. There may be other cities with the same codes.

        jim
      • But they're also expensive. I don't think I've ever heard of them in a single-family structure.

        Funny - friends just moved into a brand new place (single family) out here in the San Diego area. Their place had sprinklers in it - which I'd never seen before, either.

        I bet that cost varies a lot depending on where you live. Since it was put into a new home, I'm guessing it might be cheaper in the region.

    • Re:not halon (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dahan ( 130247 ) <khym@azeotrope.org> on Friday July 11, 2003 @01:50AM (#6412804)
      halon is un-breathable.

      Depends on what you mean by "un-breathable." It's unbreathable in the same way that nitrogen is unbreathable, but I've managed to survive for a few decades breathing approximately 80% nitrogen/20% oxygen.

      this means that if someone is in the house when the system releases its gas, that that person/animal is dead. it starves the air of oxygen.

      No, that's not true. As the OSHA says [osha.gov], "Not acutely toxic at <10% by volume" and "Generally used at <7% by volume." The National Fire Protection Association agrees, [osd.mil] stating that a concentration of 5 percent Halon in air is sufficient for most flame extinguishment. It doesn't work by removing oxygen from the air--CO2 and nitrogen flood systems do that. It works by actively interfering with the chain reaction of a flame.

      As the OSHA site mentions, there are some downsides... breathing 15% or so for a couple of minutes might cause some irregular heartbeats in some people. Also, Halon decomposes into hydrofluoric acid and hydrobromic acid when it's exposed to fire. But then again, it'll put out the fire almost instantly (halon will even stop an explosion in progress)--the minute quantities of HF and HBr are much better than the large quantities of other toxic gasses that burning things put out.

      But the bottom line is that no, you won't die if the Halon system goes off in a room you're in. I've heard that when Halon was first introduced, they'd demo it by putting a guy in a closed room and have him light a cigarette and candle, then dump in the Halon. The cigarette and candle would go out, and the guy would be in there with no ill effects.

      • Halon health risks (Score:4, Informative)

        by BobBoring ( 18422 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @09:42AM (#6414266) Homepage
        Halon is bad for the ozone layer was the reason given for its going out of use in the US. They have found out recently that it is not as bad as they though so it is starting to come back.

        Being exposed to Halon is not a big deal. The OSHA exposure standard is based on exposure to Halon in a neutral environment. Being in the room with a halide gas and a large fire is the problem.

        The major health risk with Halon dump extinguishers is the by products of the quenching cycle. The way halides interfere with combustion is an ionic cycle that sucks the energy out of the combustion process. The cycle is a true cycle and depends on the halides eventually returning to their original state. During the cycle you get other unstable intermediate products that are not toxic per say. They are ionicly unstable and will rip atoms out of stable molecules to get to a stable state. The hotter the fire the more of the intermediate products produce and the longer they hang around. Additionally the cycle is not 100% closed. The combustion products from the plastics in computers plus the halide gases make some bad stuff(TM) like phosgene for example.

        A small fire goes out quickly, typically >30 seconds and produce little in the way of toxic by products. A big fire goes out more slowly, 3-5 minutes. Because larger fire is hotter and takes so much more time to quench, far more of the toxic by products are produced. Breathing the larger quantities of the intermediate products created by a larger fire plus toxic gas produced by the fire can cause irreparable harm to you lungs. Getting out of the room quickly is to avoid exposure to the smoke and letting the Halon do its job.

        The SOP for Halon dumps was: you pull the handle the electric primary power to the room disconnects, a horn sounds, a short time, seconds, later the Halon floods the room. The delay is to let everyone leave before the flood starts. Once the fire is out and the Halon and combustion site has a chance to cool off you only have to worry about the toxic smoke from the fire. I've seen people open the door to soon after a fire, let too much of the Halon escape and have the fire rekindle.
      • I've managed to survive for a few decades breathing approximately 80% nitrogen/20% oxygen.
        Yeah, but I wouldn't recommend trying to breath pure nitrogen. Which is what it'd take to put out a fire.

      • Re:not halon (Score:4, Interesting)

        by anticypher ( 48312 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [rehpycitna]> on Saturday July 12, 2003 @07:23PM (#6425432) Homepage
        halon is un-breathable.

        Depends on what you mean by "un-breathable."

        I've walked around in a couple of rooms immediately after Halon tests, with no ill side effects. The first time was specifically monitored by pulmonary/blood specialists to detect harmful chemicals entering the body. From what I could determine from reading their raw reports, nothing did. That was a standard 7% Halon discharge.

        The second time was at a company with a really stupid manager who just had to test every part of his new DR plan. In that one the local fire department got involved, so all their firemen could stand around inside and see what occured during a discharge. Walked inside about 20 seconds after the discharge to a room full of white mist, it was a full 10% flood fill test. No side effects from that, except for a pesky hole in the ozone layer which is still following me around today.

        The firemen and doctors both pointed out the nasty effects of HF and HBr on the body, and how long and painful the treatment is. Damage to bone structure is permanent, lungs tend to stay scarred, etc. Which is why if you have a Halon discharge into a room with a big, hot fire, its very wise to hold your breath and do everything you can to get to fresh air. Cleanup crews for several days afterwards will have to wear full protective gear until they can neutralise all the HF.

        However, there is usually enough oxygen in computer room installations, even with a fire, to breathe long enough to get outside. Inside of U.S. military tanks, the Halon concentration is typically 50%-70%, complete overkill but maybe necessary under battle conditions where turning off aircon, power, and engines would lead to a very dead crew very quickly.

        There are quite a few replacements for Halon, none as ruthlessly efficient, but mostly cheaper and all better for the environment.

        the AC

  • Halon in the home? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TitaniumFox ( 467977 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:05PM (#6411559) Journal
    Last time I piloted an M1A1 Abrams tank, great stress was placed on the oxygen-displacing effects of the halon fire suppression system. I would have the same concerns about a household halon system that I had in the Abrams. ex. You're in the most central part of your household and the halon system goes off. You're now [however] far from your front door and have what air you had in your lungs. Considerations for what might happen if it went off at night. Kids in the house? Hmmm..

    TiFox
    • I've seen the M1A1 fire supression system fire! Impressive to say the least. I'n a previous thread I talked about testing military electronics. One of the other customers of one of the test houses we used made the hallon system for the M1 -M1A1

  • Masks? (Score:5, Funny)

    by poity ( 465672 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:06PM (#6411566)
    Sorry, my knowledge of halon systems comes only from Terminator 2.

  • Sprinklers.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wowbagger ( 69688 ) * on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:21PM (#6411638) Homepage Journal
    I have one word for you:

    Sprinklers.

    Actually I have many words for you, but that is the most important.

    You must understand why server rooms use halon rather than water. Remember the fire triad: fuel, oxygen, heat. Rob the fire of any of those and it goes out.

    Halon robs the fire of oxygen. Water robs the fire of heat (and to a lesser extent oxygen).

    Halon is used in server rooms because you don't want the water damage to the servers. Otherwise water is MUCH better at putting a fire out, because you can use LOTS of it.

    Now, if you are building a new house, and you want to reduce the risk of a fire burning it down, put in sprinklers everywhere in the house - it will be a LOT cheaper to set up and maintain than Halon, and it will do a better job.

    Now, if you are going to build a dedicated server room in the house, then maybe you put a halon bottle in it, but not for the whole house.
    • Water in a room full of electrical equipment? I hope you're using gravity feed because the pump's going to stop working when the earth leakage detector kicks in.

      My suggestion: normal old fire extinguishers around the house, insurance and off-site backups. If a fire starts when people are in the house they can grab an extinguisher. If no one's in the house everyone is already safe, just use the insurance to replace the equipment and the backups to replace the software/data.

    • I mentioned this early, but want to bring it up again. The parent post is absolutley correct about Halon, water, etc. Residential sprinklers are not there to put out the fire, but to contain it from spreading. They only dump about 15 gallons a minute per head. And contrary to popular belief only one head goes off at a time. If one goes off the rest do not.

      Now, about Halon. First, you have to seal the room before it is released. Otherwise more Oxygen is going to come into the room. Secondly, keeping several

      • They only dump about 15 gallons a minute per head. And contrary to popular belief only one head goes off at a time.

        That sounds like a lot of water to me. Not enough to snuff a major fire, but enough to prevent it from becoming major.

        I recall seeing a demo of how a typical house fire starts. They buried an ordinary book of matches in an ordinary couch, and set the matches off electrically. (Very few fires start anything like that, of course, but the magnitude of the first ignition is typical.) It took m

  • Uh-oh (Score:3, Funny)

    by GuyMannDude ( 574364 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:27PM (#6411672) Journal

    Dear swmagazine:

    Your recent posting to the underground hacking network "slash-period" regarding Halon has been detected by our information bots. Halon is on the list of 638,931 chemicals maintained by the Ministry of Homeland Security as potentially lethal to Americans. Please report immediately to our facility in Guantonimo Bay for processing while we investigate your interest in this chemical. Do not inform friends and co-workers of your reassignment.

    Sincerely,
    Thomas Ridge
    John Ashcroft

    • P.S. (Score:3, Funny)

      by GuyMannDude ( 574364 )

      P.S.: Upon your arrival at our Guantonimo Bay processing center you will be required to provide five (5) forms of identification. You must also provide them with your assigned processing identification code. Your identification code is

      swmag_4638391_chemweap_983

      Failure to provide this information upon check-in will extend the duration of your processing by approximately 6-18 months.

    • Please report immediately to our facility in Guantonimo Bay for processing while we investigate your interest in this chemical.

      If you manage to find the location-not-public Guantonimo Bay, you will be assumed to be willfully hostile to God, Freedom and American Oil Assets, and will be immediately transported to the US military installation at Guantanamo Bay for reprocessing.

  • Inergen, not halon... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Shoten ( 260439 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:32PM (#6411688)
    Ok, you can no longer (I'm assuming you're in the USA) get halon, as it is harmful to the ozone layer. What's now used for this purpose is called Inergen [inergen.com]. Furthermore, despite all the howling by everyone about the risk of suffocation, keep in mind that it will take a bit of time for an entire home to become filled with the stuff, and the fact that any professionally installed system includes alerts to let you know when the system is activated. Between the warning you get, the air in your lungs and the air that has not been displaced yet, you can be just fine. This kind of system has been put in many types of facilities in all sorts of different ways, and unless it's done incredibly wrong, by no means will it turn your home into a big gas chamber :)
    • Ok, Inergen, not Halon. Got ya. But I'll be it's more expensive than sprinklers. Probably more expensive than the computers you're wanting to preserve! Insurance, offsite backups, and let it go at that.

      I can believe how many people seem to think hand held extinguishers are any kind of option. Yeah, it's a good idea to have them around, especially considering how cheap they are. But they're not going to replace an automatic fire suppression system. You basically have to be standing right there when the fir

      • Actually, an Inergen system might not be more expensive at all; the prices of these things have come way down, and sprinklers have an enormous engineering cost associated with the layout of the pipes. The challenge is to ensure that if a significant number of the sprinkler heads along each pipe run are triggered, all the active heads will get the same water pressure. This is done with variations along the plumbing route of that pipe run. Obviously, this has to be engineered on a case-by-case basis, and i

  • Treat the cause not the symptoms (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ratso Baggins ( 516757 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @09:35PM (#6411700) Homepage
    Forget fire control for a moment, you have a construction material and/or site layout/placement problems.

    If you are building in a fire prone area consider partially or majorly covering the building in earth. (A side benefit is your heating energy provider will hate you.) If the fire was an "accident" then you most definetly have a materials problem. Wood, while very attractive and cheap to buy & work with, is fuel. eg: Would you use compressed "fire retarded" straw or paper as a building material? (I wouldn't) It is supposed to be more fire-resistant than wood.!?

    Consider naturally inert and fire resistant materials like concrete & bricks.

    Then high risk/expense/maintainance fire suppression systems like halon become pointless. Ordinary smoke detectors can then be sufficient.

    Using halon is such overkill and may even accidentally kill one of you loved ones. It's like having loaded 9mm handguns at convienent, accessable places around the (wood & paper) house to combat a roach problem when all you had to do was clean up your filth.

  • You should only install a halon system in your house if you value your property more highly than your family's lives. If you don't have a problem with causing your family to die by suffocation, go for it.

    • No. Halon does not work by displacing oxygen. Read practically every post in this thread explaining how Halon actually works.

      It works by breaking the burning cycle. From another poster:
      The halogens (bromine and chlorine) in Halon preferentially glom onto free protons without releasing much heat, thus breaking the burning cycle. It only takes a low percentage of Halon to do this.
  • Apart from the awful English in the post (why didn't Slashdot edit it?), Halon works by EVACUATING AIR!

    (1) Take one lab mouse, evacuate air from surrounding area watch mouse die.
    (2)Repeart with Halon and your family.
    (3) See you on the other side

    If you're seriously looking at doing this, look at more modern solutions such as FM-200.

    BTW...if you can truly afford to do this housewide (and why would you?), please drop me a note with the name and number of your insurance company. Last time I built a data cent
    • (4) ???
      (5) PROFIT!!!

    • Halon works by EVACUATING AIR!

      Nah. In most fires, a large fraction of the heat comes from the reaction 4 H + O2 = 2 H2O. The halogens (bromine and chlorine) in Halon preferentially glom onto free protons without releasing much heat, thus breaking the burning cycle. It only takes a low percentage of Halon to do this. Of course, the halides that are formed are toxic, so you still want to leave ASAP.

      AFAIK, it only works for hydrogen-containing fuels. So you disgruntled mainframe operators need to grab an

  • Fire Retardation (Score:4, Funny)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:04PM (#6411855) Homepage Journal
    Okay dudes, I got a buck that says his machines are all Athlons.

  • wha? (Score:4, Funny)

    by resignator ( 670173 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:05PM (#6411856)
    Halon is perfectly breathable. As a matter of fact, I'm huffing some at this verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrsadfffaa
    • Halon is perfectly breathable. As a matter of fact, I'm huffing some at this verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrsadfffaa

      Told you he was hardcore.

  • Check your local fire and residential codes. (Score:5, Informative)

    by muonzoo ( 106581 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:08PM (#6411875)
    In a great many jurisdictions, Halon systems are not permitted in personal residences. They are a hazard to life and limb. The old server rooms we protected with Halon systems required 'life support' equipment in case you were in the server room when the system discharged.

    Halon displaces the oxygen in the environment it is released into. This is NOT something you want to be doing in your house without sufficient research, and compliance with ALL local ordinances. Failure to do this could jeopardize you and your family. However, I'm sure your machines would survive.

    Your insurance company would likely be less than thrilled at the prospect of you having an automated mechanism for discharging a gas that can asphyxiate you and yours.
    • The old server rooms we protected with Halon systems required 'life support' equipment in case you were in the server room when the system discharged.

      I can attest to this fact myself. At my employer's old building, there was a Halon system still in place. As far as I know, it was still useable by some sort of grandfather clause or some-such, but that's not the point.

      If a fire broke out in the server room, first a very bright red light would turn on in the room, followed by rapid beeping -- this is phase one of the warning, which you had about 15 seconds to heed until the next phase.

      After 15 seconds of THAT warning, a ear-piercing alarm would sound off in the room, and I mean ear-piercingly loud and high-pitched. A light would also turn on over the door to the server room with a sign reading "DO NOT ENTER -- HALON IN USE" near it. That's phase two.

      At phase three, if you're still in the room, you're either now burning to death or suffocating, or both.

      Sorry, but this has to be said... I realize that there are a lot of geeks/nerds reading this site who just love to play with the newest/oldest technology, either because it's cool, retro or hip, or because they want to actually learn something by doing. When I read an Ask Slashdot like this, I can only imagine the poster doesn't have their head screwed on straight and may be thinking this is the hip/cool thing they can install in their home server-room (home server room with ten systems?! WTF?!), and maybe call it a conversation piece here on Slashdot the next time someone brings up insane home setups. The fact that Halon was brought up -- something several people already pointed out as illegal and harmful to use -- just shows that this just seems like some Wahoo who did zero research into such a dangerous project.

      Anyway, after that bit of Trollbaiting, I understand that a catastrophic event has happened with your original home, but please just remember that something like Halon is made to protect computer equipment. Use something that will protect people, for Godsakes.

      • I learned about halon fire systems from the BFOH [theregister.co.uk]. He describes their utility to the full potential.
      • > The old server rooms we protected with Halon systems required 'life support'
        > equipment in case you were in the server room when the system discharged.

        I can attest to this fact myself.

        Oh, nonsense. This is clueless, not insightful.

        If a fire broke out in the server room, first a very bright red light would turn on in the room, followed by rapid beeping

        Main reason for this is so you can abort the discharge in the event of false alarm. Every halon system I've ever been around (three of 'em)

        • I have stood in the middle of a computer room during an inadvertent halon discharge[...], and it's a total non-event (except for being very loud, and every single loose dust particle and piece of paper in the room flying around!).

          As a couple of people have pointed out in other postings, it's not the pristine halon that's the threat to people ... It's the combustion products of halon that are extremely nasty.

          (and, yes, halon does combust, but it appears to be an endothermic reaction, which robs the fire o

      • (home server room with ten systems?! WTF?!)

        startup spam farm?
    • > Halon displaces the oxygen in the environment it is released into.

      No it doesn't. What it does do is decompose into some truly nasty chemicals that will irritate the hell out of your lungs and possibly kill you.

      What it also does is eat the ozone layer like mad. It's like opening up a thousand old-fashioned air conditioners at once. That is why it was banned.
      • Actually, lemme amend that: it does displace the atmosphere and lower the oxygen to where it's unbreathable. This it does to greater effect where it hits the flame, it for sure doesn't "suck all the atmosphere out". If you get exposed to a "halon rich" atmosphere, you've got enough residual oxygen from holding your breath to be just fine in order to get out. The smoke would probably kill you right good anyway if not for the halon. It's definitely not like stepping into a vacuum.

        In order to be effective
  • Am I the only one here that suddenly got a mental picture of all the "accidents" involving Halon, Simon and the (l)users tresspassing into his server room? [grin]

    Don't play with Halon, it's much too dangerous.

  • Let the Servers Burn!!! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jayrtfm ( 148260 ) <jslash AT sophont DOT com> on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:35PM (#6412009) Homepage Journal
    You've got insurance? Then let em burn, cause a computer safe fire surpression system will cost more than the computers.
    But the *DATA* is important to save. I'm guessing that since you're building a house, you've got a backyard. Why not build a seperate little shack for a server or two as an off site backup?

  • The house my family is building just burn down 2 weeks before competition. Now that the insurance is paying out some money, I am seriously considering installing Halon system at home because the house comes with a server room and I will be having at least 10 computers running in the house. I would like to know if anyone has experience with Halon system as well as the feasibility of installing such system at home.

    You don't need to consider the feasibility; just consider the economics. It's far cheaper

  • Yeah, Halon (Score:5, Informative)

    by the eric conspiracy ( 20178 ) on Thursday July 10, 2003 @10:46PM (#6412059)
    I love it.

    Halon is -

    A trade name for a class of halogenated alkanes. Other trade names for these materials are Freon and Genetron. It is one of the classes of materials that has been proven to attack the ozone layer, with persistance in the atmosphere measured it decades. Manufacture of many types of Halon was banned by the Montreal protocol in 1987. Further legal restrictions were subject of the later Kyoto protocol.

    The particular Halons used in fire extinguishment applications are 1301 and 1211. As of Jan 1 2003 refilling existing halon systems is banned in most of the world, and dismantling of all Halon fire extinguishing systems (including safe disposal of their contents) is required by Dec 31 2003.

    Halon works by displacing the natural atmosphere in a room, reducing the concentration of oxygen to levels below that which will support combustion. Since the human body metabolizes sugars to sustain life by a controlled form of combustion, human metabolism will cease under the same conditions.

    Halon, when exposed to fire or similar high temperature conditions will decompose into a variety of toxic gases that will generally cause traumas such as pulmanory edema.

    It is illegal to install new Halon systems except in certain 'Critical' applications, mostly in aircraft fire supression systems.

    For home applications involving electrical systems a good ABC fire extinguisher containing a dry chemical like monoammonium phosphate available at your local hardware store is the best choice. Use of fire resistant materials, elimination of clutter and especially adherance to electrical codes in your server room are also recommended to prevent fires in the first place.

    Your most important fire control steps are prevention.

    • Ugh. Once again:
      HALON DOES NOT WORK BY DISPLACING OXYGEN

      It was banned because it's bad for the ozone layer, not because it's bad for humans.

      Read this post [slashdot.org], this post [slashdot.org], and this post [slashdot.org] to get the low-down on what Halon really does.
  • Halon systems are interesting to you for the same reason trogdor is funny. They sound cool. They are not cool. They are in fact dangerous, expensive and not very smart. As others have pointed out. 1) Halon systems are illegal. and 2) Sprinklers, fire extinguishers, monitored alarm systems will all serve the same purpose for less money.

    I personally think that monitored alarm systems are what you are looking for. They can monitor for fire, and get the firemen to come if there is a problem, real fast.

  • Halons do NOT primarily work by O2 Displacement (Score:3, Informative)

    by bigsteve@dstc ( 140392 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @12:41AM (#6412600)
    ... according to this [h3r.com] quote from the H3R website.
    Halon is a liquefied, compressed gas that stops the spread of fire by chemically disrupting combustion. Halon 1211 (a liquid streaming agent) and Halon 1301 (a gaseous flooding agent) leave no residue and are remarkably safe for human exposure. Halon is most effective for flammable liquids and electrical fires (rated B:C) and is electrically non-conductive.

    Actually, this is common sense. If you wanted to damp combustion by excluding oxygen, it would be cheaper (and more environmentally friendly) to use an inert gas like nitrogen or carbon dioxide.

    There is no doubt that Halon does replace oxygen to some degree and therefore does present a potential danger of asphyxia. However, there is another problem with Halons. When they come into contact with a fire, they breaks down, releasing breakdown products that are extremely dangerous, even at low concentrations.

    • Re:Halons do NOT primarily work by O2 Displacement (Score:4, Informative)

      by Dahan ( 130247 ) <khym@azeotrope.org> on Friday July 11, 2003 @01:00AM (#6412660)
      Right... I don't know why everyone likes to say that Halon fire supression systems will kill you if you're in the room, or that they work by removing oxygen. It's reached urban legend status...

      There is no doubt that Halon does replace oxygen to some degree and therefore does present a potential danger of asphyxia.

      A 7% concentration of Halon 1301 will put out a fire... that leaves plenty of oxygen for breathing. Sure, you'll have problems if you flood the room with the 50% or so that an inert gas like CO2 requires (up to 75% CO2 for dust fires), but Halon is/was expensive--there's no point in releasing that much Halon.

      Halon is banned due to it being an ozone-depleting fluorocarbon, not due to it being a health hazard. BTW, Halon 1301 means 1 Carbon, 3 Fluorine, 0 Chlorine, 1 Bromine--CF3Br.

  • Idea (Score:2)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) *
    Here's an idea: Put your machines in airtight fireproof enclosures full of somethign other than oxygen - Nitrogen or CO2 woudl work fine. Deal with the heat problem with heat exchangers or closed loop A/C. If you only have ten boxes, it'd definatley be cheaper than a gaseous supression system such as FM-200. Itsenclosures.com sells products suitable for this purpose.

    For the rest of the house - sprinklers, buddy.
    • I wish I had mod points, the parent [slashdot.org] definitely makes some good points. Enclosing the computers in fireproof boxes would be relatively cheap and safe. And like everyone else in this thread has said, sprinkler systems, insurance, and offsite backups are the way to go.

  • A question (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tuxinatorium ( 463682 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @02:57AM (#6412998) Homepage
    "The house my family is building just burn down 2 weeks before competition." Was that before or after completion?

  • It's Argonite you probably want, not Halon (Score:4, Informative)

    by forged ( 206127 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @04:20AM (#6413198) Homepage Journal
    Argonite is installed in the labs hosted at my employeer's, I think it's illegal now to use Halon 1301.

    Search Google for Argonite and you will find such great links as this one [fm200.biz]. Transcript below for the clicking-impaired or just lazy :-)

    Argonite - fighting fires nature's way
    More and more companies are today ensuring that environmental considerations play a major part when selecting a fire fighting system. So much so that Argonite, which consists entirely of naturally occurring gasses, has long been the solution of first choice for many industrial and commercial building occupiers.

    Not only has Argonite zero Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP), it also contributes nothing towards global warming, thanks to a complete absence of hydrofluorocarbons-HFCs. At the same it is a gaseous fire suppressant that has an enviable 50-year track record.

    The environmental answer:
    Argonite is a leading environmentally-friendly replacement for Halon 1301. An equal blend of nitrogen and argon, it produces no secondary combustion products and is particularly suitable for fighting fires in confined spaces. Because its molecular weight is close to that of air, it lingers longer when discharged to extinguish a fire. This reduces the need for hermetic sealing of a protected room - a process that can be very expensive and needs to be repeated every time structural changes are made.

    Argonite is not prone to fogging, is non-toxic, non-corrosive, leaves no residue and is electrically non-conductive. This has led to it being successfully specified in applications where there is a need to avoid secondary damage by the fire fighting agent. Popular applications include computer and control rooms, tape and archive stores, electrical cabinets and switchgear compartments and around telecommunications equipment.

    How Argonite Works
    Should a fire start, Argonite is injected rapidly into the room, reducing the oxygen level from the normal 21% to between 11% and 13%. This is too low for further combustion to take place, yet high enough to allow essential safety personnel to operate.

    Argonite is suited to either total flooding or local application. When more than a single room or compartment is protected, GIELLE normally recommends that a central bank of Argonite cylinders is connected via diverter valves. This frequently proves to be the most cost effective and efficient solution. As a permanent gas working under high pressure with single-phase flow characteristics, complicated pipe networks can be installed.

    • Use Hydrogen!

      Now that is a way to overclock your house fire!
      You uncork a scuba tank full of hydrogen on a house fire and you won't even need to call the city fire department. Insurance claims would be easier also.

      Black Hole Fire Suppression : Hydrogen, the wondergas.
  • Halon has been banned AFAIK (at least in Europe). Old installations are allowed to exist, but you can't install new ones. Use a CO2 solutions. But beware that if you have children around, this might be very bad!!!

  • Build an escape pod instead (Score:4, Funny)

    by smoon ( 16873 ) on Friday July 11, 2003 @05:52AM (#6413386) Homepage
    Rather than screw around with chemicals, making the server area airtight, etc. a much better solution is to bolt all of the computers into a spring-loaded rack instead.

    When fire is detected you could have some conventional CO2 fill the server cabinet for 1-2 minutes while your UPS software does a 'safe' shutdown of all equipment. Then either a large CO2 blast or strong spring or possibly an explosive charge launches the equipment rack through a hatch out into the yard -- safely away from the burning house.

    Make sure to mark the area well so firefighters, family members, etc. don't stand in the way, and also make sure to not point it at the pool -- wouldn't that be ironic?
  • As a member of staff formerly working in a dinosaur pen and one time something did go bang, we were all sent on a fire fighting course.

    The primary extinguishing system in our room was Halon - we were advised breathing was theoretically possible, but get out quickly, because there may not be enough if you were stressed out and fumes from combusted plastics could be a problem. If we were in a situation where we could fight the fire (no automatic system), we were advised to use BCF (dry powder). The temperat

  • I have a friend who has some sprinklers in part of his house (the garage and basement), and when they trip, the home security system sets off alarms, calls the fire department, and cuts electricity to that part of the building.

    Computers and water aren't terrible enemies IF the machine's powered down -- most computers can be dried out and used again. It's the short circuits that come from water hitting a live circuit board that cause problems.
  • At my school, they've even got Halon in one of the public computer labs. Of course, you have to have a research account or a EE account to actually use the Ultrasparc II workstations, but any idiot could walk in and pull the alarm. Given some of the stuff in there, I'd say they had the system in place a long, long time ago. While it might make sense in the university's main server room, where you can break a million dollars worth of equipment with a cherry bomb, now that even high-end workstations are pr

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