I just did a job with a UL listed smoke control system for stairwell pressrization of a 10 story hotel. It was with Trane controls but we had to put UL listed versions of the regular controlers as well as special surge supressors on the power and comunication links to the controlers. We also had to isolate this part of the control system from the rest via UL listed ethernet to fiber media converters. This was all fairly easy to deal with on the Tech and programing end but added a good deal of cost to what was essentialy only maybe 20 points. Can't coment on the specifics of your Lon based system but Trane only has 4 controllers that I know of with a UL smoke control rating but they do have a Lon based one.

 

Kevin,

Check your email.

 

TP,

Don't see anything from you, Cox's spam filter may have rejected it, please try again, also send to klrogers (at)ultimatehvac(dot)com


Thanks

Kevin

 

See if your Lon mfgr has UL864 listing. Probably not.

I believe the DDC side of the system would not need this listing if the interface to the fire system were hard-wired. You could ask the fire vendor about eliminating the comm link and providing hard-wired points instead.

 

tlp261 has it - it's UL864 you want. Whereas most agency listings you see pertain to the actual controllers, UL864 actually covers the system and the components carry a UUKL listing.

LON, by it's very nature makes this listing hard to achieve (cost effectively). Open System design can be and usually is heavily influenced by products from multiple manufacturers. As such, "your" system has never been created before meaning there's no way it could have ever been approved.

Proprietary manufactures have an edge here. Because no other product can be introduced to their networks, they can describe an engineered system as being composed of all their approved product and the system approval is pretty much a rubber stamp.

However - I highly encourage you to get into a detailed investigation on how the existing system works. These system are designed for smoke control and in a fire/smoke situation the equipment must either be run wide open or completely shut off. Some areas insist this control also be accomplished via a fireman's override panel (usually located in the lobby). This presents a whole other set of challenges for you.

BUT - chances are there are other ways around the challenge(s). Perhaps you can continue to use the existing actuators with your controls. Perhaps you can alter the system design a bit and have a fire/life safety contractor some in and make use of the existing actuators but have them controlled by his system instead of yours. Perhaps the existing system is really two systems made to look like one- a fire/life safety and an HVAC and instead of being honest conjoined twins, they're only connected a little bit in the middle - who knows. In other words - get creative in your thinking.

However - UL864 isn't something to be messed with and unfortunately, it's the one area where proprietary controls will always have a leg-up on Open Systems. If the facility is taller than seven stories or if it has an atrium, chances are good it needs this designation on the system - no getting around it. If a building was designed originally for UL864, kudo's to the original BAS salesman as he did his job and performed a successful lock-up on the controls system in the building - more often than not, for the life of the facility.

Best of luck - but in these situations I usually walk away knowing the building owner is about to get hammered - again. Not saying it can't be done, but if it can be, it'll be a huge up hill climb.

Nikko

 

Looking at a job that has existing proprietary controls that not only control HVAC & lighting but also smoke control dampers, it has a comm. link to the fire alarm system. We would be looking at putting a LON based system, with a Field Server Gateway to communicate with the Fire Alarm system, the problem is the Fire alarm company is advising us that all the components we install must meet UL Life Safety listing, apparently the present system does. I can talk to our suppliers about the listings for each of their devices, but looking for any input from anyone who has been down this road before, is it worth the hassle or should I turn and RUN!

Here's a bit of info for you to think about.... I was a tech on a job that was a 28 story bldg built in 2001. The HVAC control system was Trane Summit and the FLS system was Simplex. We had a BACNET interface to the Simplex system through a Simplex BACpac portal. The Summit system would receive fire alarm information from the Simplex system and when there was a 'fire event' the Summit system would shut down the appropriate air-handler or drive the VAV boxes wide open on the floor above and the floor below the 'fire event' to pressurize them. This is to keep the smoke from infiltrating these floors that could be passed through to escape the floor that is on fire. That sure sounds like smoke control to me.

I know the Summit BCU's, VAV boxes, etc. are not UL864 certified. Yet in the above example we are performing a form of smoke control. I am not a UL864 expert but my point is that when you are doing smoke control with the existing comfort HVAC equipment, the UL864 requirement is not always necessary. The statement that was made that said everything had to be UL864 rated is bogus. Do some research and I think you will find that in certain situations and applications that the UL864 requirement is not always needed. Interestingly enough, the BACpac portal (which was provided and installed by Simplex) is NOT UL864 rated.

By the way, I am in the process of replacing the BAcpac portal to a FieldServer like you mentioned. The FieldServer is a wonderful little device that has proven to be very handy in the past.

Good Luck!!

Knobber

 

Thanks to all the people who replied, the present system has controllers that are UUKL listed, the location is a single level mall with food court. The present network has four subnets but the smoke damper controllers are mixed in the various subnets with HVAC controllers, lighting controllers, and emergency generator controllers (mostly used for monitoring and testing). There is a manual Test/Override panel for the 30+ smoke dampers/fans.

My present thinking is that this job will be difficult to achieve using LON controls, the only LON manufacturers I found with UUKL listed controllers are Trane and TAC, neither of which we have easy access to. We will look into the possibility of removing the smoke control from this network and let the Fire Alarm guys deal fully with that, and just receive signals from them to control the RTU's, which by the way have to either shut off (close all dampers) or go into a purge mode depending on there location relative to the smoke detection.

Unfortunately the customer can not get any local service on the present control system, they have to have come from from over 400 miles away to service it, without mentioning any names, the system is an outdated line now owned by a company that has multiple different offerings.

Thanks again for the input, and further comment are welcome

Kevin

 

Can you say which control system it is?

 

**I

 

It wouldn’t be ******* Towne Center?

 

It wouldn’t be Chesterfield Towne Center?

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