Fire Suppression System

[Sharpseadog]

I have a 2007 Mariner Seville Pilothouse 37 (Hellmsman 38. I have been considering installing an engine room fire suppression system. Due to the irregular shape of the engine room, I am not sure how many cubic feet of space I need to protect. Also wondering about expense. I know that engine and blower cut off is needed and that will affect installation costs. Can anyone advise on sizing and costs. Boat is located in Bellingham WA. Any recommendation for installer?

 

[TJM]

Are you gas or diesel ?

 

[Sharpseadog]

Diesel. To the best of my knowledge, the Mariner/Helmsman Yachts have never produced anything but diesel. All but one have been Cummins. The lone exception was one with a John Deer/Lugger.

 

[Nick14]

I’m installing a Fireboy fire suppression system in my new Helmsman 38 Sedan, same hull as your boat.

Helmsman spec’d a 550 cu ft extinguisher bottle. All the parts for installation will cost about $3,000 (sourced from some place like Defender).

Installation costs will vary widely. Most of the quotes for labor I’ve gotten are in the $2,500-$3,500 range.

 

[Mambo42]

What type of batteries do you have ? AGM or Lithium ?
You may want to take a look at this company www.firepro.com
Pretty impressive what they can do.

 

[grnelson98]

Attached is a picture of my installation. It is a 40lb fireboy bottle mounted on a starboard panel bolted to the forward bulkhead in the engine room, rated to protect 1100 cubic feet. The electrical piece which "pulls the lever" remotely and turns off the blowers, AC etc is mounted underneath the lower helm seat in the area behind the AC/DC panel in the pilot house. There are remote monitors and manual controls at the upper and lower helm stations.

It would do a good job of protecting the engine room and batteries, not sure how it would do for a fire in the generator area below the salon. The temperature sensor is on the bottle, so a fire in the generator room would have to get the bottle to 140 or something before it would activate automatically.

If I were doing it from scratch, two smaller bottles one forward and one aft in the engine / generator space seems like it would be better, or a single bottle more centrally located, although not sure where it could be mounted, not a lot of room behind the main engine and forward of the generator.

 

[Skip Vail]

I’m installing a Fireboy fire suppression system in my new Helmsman 38 Sedan, same hull as your boat.

Helmsman spec’d a 550 cu ft extinguisher bottle. All the parts for installation will cost about $3,000 (sourced from some place like Defender).

Installation costs will vary widely. Most of the quotes for labor I’ve gotten are in the $2,500-$3,500 range.

Hi Nick, My spec sheet shows the 38 comes with one standard in the engine room. Are you adding something different? Skip

 

[KMAL]

I show the same on a new 43 under construction (Std with engine room fire suppression system).

 

[rgano]

I have a SeaFire system with auto shut-off feature for engine and genny as well as the alarm and bypass button at the helm all of which came with this Mainship 30 Pilot II.

My old woodie Grand Banks 42 came to me in 1986 with nothing; so I was starting from scratch. For ER volume I simply used beam, length of ER, and dept to keel from ER overhead. I could have subtracted a percentage for the two engines and genny, but I like overkill. Based on the slightly exagerated volume, I then inslalled a suitably sized Fireboy bottle and wired in audible alarms at both helms. No, I did not bother with all of the complexities of engineering and installing automatic engine/gen shutoff figuring that I would shut the engines off from the helm stations if I heard the alarm. Relatively cheap compared to what was put in the Mainship.

 

[Steve DAntonio]

Make certain the installer agrees to install the system in a manner that complies with both the remanufacturers installation instructions (all of them, especially and including mounting as high as possible, this is frequent violated), and ABYC A-4 Firefighting Equipment.

ABYC guidelines specify that the volume calculation assumes the engine room is empty of equipment, the only item that is subtracted is tankage. These systems should not be oversized, doing so removes the non-lethal component of gasses like FM200 and Novec. Even though this is not considered a normally occupied space, and thus it is not required, in my opinion you should be using a gas that is safe for people.

The system should include a manual discharge, and ideally an auto-shut down system, both of which are required for ABYC compliance.

You cannot install multiple bottles to collectively cover the volume of the space unless it is an engineered system, which includes plumbing the bottles together, with a common discharge nozzle. Most vessels with engine rooms up to about 1500 cu ft. utilize pre-engineered systems, which use single bottle.

More here...

And here...

https://stevedmarineconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FixedFireEx125_03.pdf

 

[Retriever]

Make certain the installer agrees to install the system in a manner that complies with both the remanufacturers installation instructions (all of them, especially and including mounting as high as possible, this is frequent violated), and ABYC A-4 Firefighting Equipment.

ABYC guidelines specify that the volume calculation assumes the engine room is empty of equipment, the only item that is subtracted is tankage. These systems should not be oversized, doing so removes the non-lethal component of gasses like FM200 and Novec. Even though this is not considered a normally occupied space, and thus it is not required, in my opinion you should be using a gas that is safe for people.

The system should include a manual discharge, and ideally an auto-shut down system, both of which are required for ABYC compliance.

You cannot install multiple bottles to collectively cover the volume of the space unless it is an engineered system, which includes plumbing the bottles together, with a common discharge nozzle. Most vessels with engine rooms up to about 1500 cu ft. utilize pre-engineered systems, which use single bottle.

More here...

And here...

https://stevedmarineconsulting.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/FixedFireEx125_03.pdf

Steve, have you seen examples of trawlers or similar fiberglass boats experiencing fires and utilizing the installed fire suppression system? I'm curious what things actually look like when it's hot enough to trigger the system and how quickly/effectively the extinguisher works. Assuming the system functions correctly, what other damage does the heat and "clean agent" cause? In your experience, are boats left afloat-but-crippled until they get to a boatyard, or are they total write-offs? How often do they continue cruising for a while before visiting a boatyard?

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

 

[N4061]

In addition to using a reputable company to perform the installation you may want to talk with your insurance company for any requirements (size of system) they may have with this being installed after the boat was built. Just to be safe.

JT

 

[Steve DAntonio]

Steve, have you seen examples of trawlers or similar fiberglass boats experiencing fires and utilizing the installed fire suppression system? I'm curious what things actually look like when it's hot enough to trigger the system and how quickly/effectively the extinguisher works. Assuming the system functions correctly, what other damage does the heat and "clean agent" cause? In your experience, are boats left afloat-but-crippled until they get to a boatyard, or are they total write-offs? How often do they continue cruising for a while before visiting a boatyard?

Thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Steve, have you seen examples of trawlers or similar fiberglass boats experiencing fires and utilizing the installed fire suppression system?
SDA: Yes.

I'm curious what things actually look like when it's hot enough to trigger the system and how quickly/effectively the extinguisher works.
SDA: It varies a great deal from vessel to vessel and by how long it took the system to discharge.

Assuming the system functions correctly, what other damage does the heat and "clean agent" cause?
SDA: Again, it varies, in some cases, especially if the engine room door wasn't closed, the smoke and heat damage totals the vessel. In other cases, heat damage in the ER is limited to the overhead and some smoke, but it is fixable.

In your experience, are boats left afloat-but-crippled until they get to a boatyard, or are they total write-offs?
SDA: I have been involved with half a dozen examples where the FFE system discharged and the vessel survived, and of those two were totaled.

How often do they continue cruising for a while before visiting a boatyard?
SDA: Only one that I was involved with, there was an electrical fire in the ER, the owner manually discharged the system, it extinguished the fire, he repaired the damage and kept cruising, so yes, if caught early, this does happen.