Bryland Fire Chemical Cylinder Re-Certification

Project: Chemical Cylinder Re-Certification

Client: AT&T / Higgs & Sons Solicitors

Bryland have their history and a lot of their current work in Cylinder Re-Certification, with a very large ongoing contract for one particular nationwide internet, telephone and TV provider.

After 10 years in the field, all Fire Suppression Cylinders whether FM-200, NOVEC 1230, Inert gas and even CO2 have to be Hydrostatically tested according to current Fire Industry Association guidelines.

This process involves taking the cylinder away, discharging, pressure testing and re-charging with gas prior to re-delivery to their original site and re-commissioning. A process which is not only costly in money terms, but can leave a Fire Suppression System down for two weeks or more.

This is where Bryland Fire’s “Service Exchange” cylinder programme come in. The cylinder is simply “exchanged” for an equivalent refurbished one, which is much faster and comparable to the old cylinder off-site refurbishment in cost terms. Bryland are sure to be able to complete the job with the minimum of cost, fuss and downtime, with typical system downtimes of about an hour.

To this end, Bryland were asked very recently to take on two re-certification projects of vastly contrasting sizes. The first was for a A,T & T, the Blue Chip multinational telecoms supplier, they had 15 x FM-200 cylinders, in three data halls, containing over 3350 Kg of FM-200 media. It was all done with “Service Exchange” cylinders in less than three days with no one system left inactive overnight.

The second was Higgs and Sons, a medium sized Solicitors office which has a small Comms Room protected with quite a rarely found 42 Bar FM-200 cylinder type containing 43 Kg of media, which again needed a “Service Exchange”. Bryland Fire’s engineers combed the country looking for an equivalent cylinder (which wasn’t easy to find!) and one was eventually found. The system was only down for less than an hour while the cylinder was swapped.

Chris Wright, Bryland Fire’s Project Engineer in charge of the Higgs and Sons contract commented: “This cylinder presented a bit of a challenge for sure. It was from one of the less popular manufacturers and was also charged to 42 Bar instead of the normal 25 Bar which made finding a replacement very difficult. We didn’t want to change the cylinder pressure as that would mean extra cost and downtime for the client, and they didn’t want to have the system down for any longer than is absolutely necessary.”

With nearly 50 years’ experience, Bryland Fire Protection are based in Dudley in the West Midlands and are specialists in all things Fire related from Alarms and Extinguishers through to Fire Suppression, Servicing and Training.

They can be reached on 01384 573350 or at sales@brylandfire.co.uk

With Nationwide coverage, Bryland Fire is a one-stop shop for all your Fire Protection needs.