Plant room doors.

[conny]

Not sure where to put this so here might do.
At the college where I work we have a plant room containing various equipment such as gas fired heating boilers, cold water storage tanks, electrical distribution boards etc.

Today we have had a gas engineer in checking/testing the main pipeworks and he has removed some 'fly-mesh' we had on the inside of the louvre doors, which were fitted by the builders 2 years ago. His claim is that it is against regulations. Builders are saying it complies.

Anyone know who is right? (in the hope someone can pointto a regulation and we can avoid a long drawn out argument between them. We just want a building that complies with the rules).

 

[IT Minion]

If the Gas engineer says it's outside regulations shouldn't they be able to explain which ones?

 

[The Samaritan]

If the Gas engineer says it's outside regulations shouldn't they be able to explain which ones?

You beat me to it.

 

[denso13]

4.3 on page 24 of https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/m...ituations-procedure-april-2018-amendments.pdf

Not saying he followed procedure though.

 

[Ihavenojob]

An air vent should have openings between 5 & 9mm, so the mesh would not be classed as a vent in domestic gas regulations, it may be different in commercial regs.

 

[The Samaritan]

An air vent should have openings between 5 & 9mm, so the mesh would not be classed as a vent in domestic gas regulations, it may be different in commercial regs.

No guess work required as the qualified engineer must be right and its not worth the risk

 

[bernardgreen]

If there are no open-flued and no flue-less appliances in the plant room then one could consider 4.3 to be irrelevant in this case.

 

[RandomGrinch]

Silly question! I'm assuming it's an external door?
Any ventilation we have through internal doors in our buildings has to have an inventoried, intumescent filter on it.

 

[albaPhenom]

Is the plant room like an isolated structure accessed from a door at the roof level?

If so, why worry about fly mesh on it?

 

[securespark]

My only guess is that the mesh is restricting airflow.

 

[denso13]

No guess work required as the qualified engineer must be right and its not worth the risk

Who knows, none of us has seen it. The diynot way though is to brand tradespeople as cowboys until proven otherwise.

 

[conny]

The plantroom is part of the main building and situated at the end of the right hand side of the front of the building. There are no windows in the room which, at a guesstimate, is about 12m x 12 m x 4m high. Access is via 2 metal louvred doors at the side of the building. There are no other acess or egress routes and the doors have a triple, tempered roller mortice style lock fitted. The louvres are large enough to get a persons fingers through, (based on an average persons hand size so I would say 20-25mm gap), and the mesh that was covering the louvres has 10mm squares in it. There are 4 boilers and their flues are fed up to the roof through 4 ceilings which are concrete slabs. Where any pipework or electrical cables pass through walls, floors, ceilings etc they are encased in fireproof cement with a minimum fire resistance of at least 2 hours. The room has a number of smoke/fire detectors, both thermal and optical. Obviously all lighting is flameproof enclosed.

Does any of this help to shed any light on it?

 

[conny]

View attachment 261997

If there are no open-flued and no flue-less appliances in the plant room then one could consider 4.3 to be irrelevant in this case.

What is classed as 'open flued'? The boilers have 2 large diameter exhaust/extraction 'pipes' going all the way up to the roof with cowls on them.

 

[denso13]

The boilers have 2 large diameter exhaust/extraction 'pipes' going all the way up to the roof with cowls on them.

Open flued.

 

[transam]

Fly screens / mesh can become blocked

stopping or restricting the air supply to any fossil fuel burning appliance

10 mm gaps ( ?) would not imo constitute a fly screen mesh

so imo is ok

if it opens to out side u may require it to stop vermin ingress into the room

mice ect ect