UNC Fire Protection System Impairment Procedures 6 17
UNC Fire Protection System Impairment Procedures 6 17
UNC Fire Protection System Impairment Procedures 6 17
June 2017
Fire Protection System Impairment Procedures
Table of Contents
I. Purpose
A. Minor Impairments
B. Scheduled Impairments
C. Emergency Impairments
Appendix
I. Purpose
There are times when it is necessary to disable fire sprinkler, fire suppression, or fire alarm
systems on campus. The probability of a fire or explosion causing major damage is increased
whenever a system, alarm, or device is impaired. The longer the protection is impaired the
greater the probability becomes. Therefore, it is necessary to minimize the duration and scope
of any impairment or provide for an alternate protection system. The purpose of this procedure
is to provide guidance on when and how these fire systems and their components are to be
disabled and re-enabled.
Any person, and his/her organization, who performs fire system installation, maintenance,
testing, repair or other operations which requires impairment of a fire system shall be
responsible for compliance with these procedures.
It is the responsibility of the Environmental Health & Safety (EHS) department to develop and
maintain this procedure and to train the appropriate personnel on the use of this procedure.
Scheduled (non-emergency) fire system impairment permits must be approved and signed by
the Director of EHS before the system is disabled. In the absence of the Director of EHS the
AVP of Facilities Management (FM) or his designee shall approve the permit.
IV. Notification and Authorization
The person or organization reporting or scheduling fire system impairment, is referred to as the
“requestor” and is responsible for coordinating the fire system impairment.
A. Minor Impairments
Fire system impairments considered to be minor in nature include fire system testing,
maintenance and repairs which are of short duration (less than two hours), and does not
include water supply, does not impact critical operations, and does not include
substantial risk for loss of life or property.
B. Scheduled Impairments
All scheduled fire system impairments shall be coordinated and scheduled through the
Environmental Health & Safety Department, within 48 hours before work is performed.
The following shall be notified for scheduled outages that are more than two hours in
duration (or outside of regular business hours), impairments of two or more systems, or
any impairment of water supply:
Environmental Health & Safety or AVP FM will notify the following in advance:
Requestor will notify the following immediately before impairing the fire system:
EHS shall notify Global Risk Consultants (insurance) notification system when a fire
impairment permit will require greater than 72 hours of impairment. Notification should
include the following:
Login to https://grcconnect.globalriskconsultants.com/ins/app/Main/Registry.aspx?q=0
Select Report an Impairment
Fill in the appropriate boxes
C. Emergency Impairments
The requestor shall notify immediately, the following for all emergency fire system
impairments:
A. When a Fire Protection System (Listed in Section II) is impaired for testing,
maintenance, repair or other reasons, the requestor working on the system shall fill out a
Fire Protection Impairment Permit form (Appendix A). The requestor shall attach or post
the approved permit at the fire alarm control panel.
B. When a system is impaired, the Building Automation System (BAS) department shall be
notified to deactivate the alarm system.
C. All work on a fire system shall, when possible, be continuous until the system is restored
to operational status.
D. UNC Hot Work Permit may be required when conducting hot work operations.
E. Fire protection systems shall not be left disabled during off-business hours unless
approved by the Director of EHS and/or AVP FM. If approved, a fire watch system plan
will need to be implemented.
VI. System Restoration Requirements
After completing the work, it is important to assure that the fire protection system has been
properly restored. The following steps are required to assure the fire protection system has
been restored:
B. All fire protection systems shall be mechanically secured when they are placed back in
service (fire alarm system panels locked, fire sprinkler valves placed in their proper
position).
E. The requestor will notify the following when the impairment is complete.
F. Return the completed Fire Protection Impairment Permit to the EHS Department.
Fire Protection Impairment Permit
Requestor (Employee): Requestor Phone Number: Today’s Date:
Comments:
Actual Start Date: ____________ Time: _____________ End Date: _____________ Time: ______________
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