Ventilation

[thebottle]

Can anyone break down in simple terms of what is required for safety in an aging room?

Very small room, about 50 SF with a 12 foot ceiling, single drain in the floor 2 windows, one waist height and one ceiling height.

The room has a sprinkler, 1 light switch and 1 light.

[indyspirits]

Did you say 50 SF?? As in 5' x 10'??  OK, well, whatever...

At one time I knew the answer to this. On the interwebs there's a presentation by Dalkita that lays out the rules and regs. Most important is the fact that spirts in barrel  do not count toward MAQs. Of course if your local inspector has their knickers in a twist your situation could be quite unfortunate. I'd start there -- talk to your local fire marshal / inspector / permitting group and then get the federal facts and politely share it with them.  There are also regs around stacked height.  

[Silk City Distillers]

Local authorities are going to have more to say than us, but..

When talking to my electrical contractor about classified environments and being "explosion proof" - he made a point to me that made so much sense, I was embarassed to not have thought of it.  Easiest way to manage electrical classification in an area?  Remove all the electric, deal with only essentials, not optionals.  A window or skylight is cheaper than approved lighting.  Pneumatics will be cheaper than electrics.

The floor drain might represent a problem, since if you have major spillage, it may feed into the sanitary sewer.  It might be a liability and not a benefit.

[3d0g]

I went with a physically separate warehouse for aging. No electric, except in the sprinkler riser room. Made achieving H3 quite affordable.

[jeffw]

11 hours ago, 3d0g said:

I went with a physically separate warehouse for aging. No electric, except in the sprinkler riser room. Made achieving H3 quite affordable.

Would it still even be H3?  I am looking at going offsite for barrel storage now too, but I would think since you are exempt from MAQ, you would not necessarily even be H3.  This is up to the fire marshal of course.  They might consider you a liquid storage (NFPA 30) warehouse which is H3 and has a 300 ft setback requirement, so hopefully not.

[3d0g]

1 hour ago, jeffw said:

Would it still even be H3?  I am looking at going offsite for barrel storage now too, but I would think since you are exempt from MAQ, you would not necessarily even be H3.  This is up to the fire marshal of course.  They might consider you a liquid storage (NFPA 30) warehouse which is H3 and has a 300 ft setback requirement, so hopefully not.

H3 is how you get exempt from MAQ. Setback (at least in my locale) is 35ft which was easily achievable on my lot. My fire marshal was a BIG fan of the separate building and we placed it so she could get her trucks at it from any angle. 

[indyspirits]

4 hours ago, 3d0g said:

H3 is how you get exempt from MAQ.

Contents in barrel are exempt from MAQ calcs.

[thebottle]

Why is it that barrel contents are exempt? I thought that the evaporation (angels share) is what would be the concern.

[3d0g]

2 hours ago, indyspirits said:

Contents in barrel are exempt from MAQ calcs.

Better make darn sure every drop is in a barrel - no totes, no stainless, no poly drums. Oh, and you'd better pray you never need to modify your storage space as new IFC/NFPA codes will be in place that you'll have to meet (read install sprinklers). Doing a smart H3 now avoids all that pain. Separation between F1 and H3 is only 1 hour (standard construction, basically) so it doesn't need to be a budget buster.

Here's the proposed revisions that say goodbye to the famous barrel exemption: http://www.iccsafe.org/wp-content/uploads/00-CompleteGroupB-MonographUpdates.pdf

Also note the IBC has no such exemption. More and more AHJ are getting savvy to distilleries and are disallowing this loophole. 

[Ross Topliff]

Here's the proposed revisions that say goodbye to the famous barrel exemption

Actually this exemption was retained in the 2015 version of the International Fire Code (IFC), so everyone is OK, at least for now.

The MAQ only applies to liquid that is over 20 vol. % ethanol (alcohol). As stated above, once you have this is wooden barrels, it is exempt from the MAQ calculation according to the IFC. If you are expanding and concerned about exceeding the MAQ, you can segregate you distilling/blending areas within fire walls and stay within the F-1 classification for your facility.