Auger pipe through a 4-hour fire wall?

[Trickster]

Hi,

I have been dealing with the city for a long time with my mill room and they are making me put in a four hour fire wall and door. I have been planning all along to send my auger pipe through the wall that is now a 4 hour rated wall. This would compromise the 4 hour wall and my architect says that this is not possible to get around.

What about sending the grain out the mill room wall with a steel pipe? Or under the wall and concrete and back up again? Has anyone had any experience dealing with this issue?

Is this something to deal with prior to city inspection and do it right? Or should I just do this after the city inspection (without approval) and try to conceal it really well behind the brewhouse or something.

Cheers,

Matt

[Natrat]

Can you go through the ceiling?

Failing that, cut a trench, and put the pipe under the wall, and 'crete it in.

In fact, a box of cement going through the wall may be considered foundation...that might be a way out of your mill kerfuffle.

Nat

[Dough In]

inpection

wait until inspection is done and signed off. then run the auger through the wall.
Simple

[Rosie]

wait until inspection is done and signed off. then run the auger through the wall.
Simple

I like your style

[chaser]

wait until inspection is done and signed off. then run the auger through the wall.
Simple

yep. thats what i would do. I had ours ran already prior to inspection and had no issues, but i might have gotten lucky.

[Trickster]

City Meeting Tomorrow

I have been backed into a corner regarding this issue. I discussed this with a my architect and he told me that the city I am setting up in right now is running around like code police trying to get fine revenue. Seeing how my first plumbing and electrical inspections were nit picked to death I am expecting to see these guys on a pretty frequent basis. Making me not want to risk putting the auger line through the wall without their approval. My architect and I have a meeting with a few building inspectors tomorrow regarding this issue and was wondering if anyone has any good ammo for me.

The situation is a 4 hour fire wall (4 sheets of sheetrock) and everything in the room including the mill and auger will be explosion proof. The auger line itself will be steel until it hits the wall. On both sides of the wall we have proposed putting a metal damper that can be move down when not in use (they probably will never be in the down position after inspection). We will also have a metal "lid" that goes over the opening over the hopper for the mill.

Thanks

[BonedaleBeer]

Are they making you sprinkler the room or any other area? Could be a way of getting around it, although at added cost. The fact they they are making you do a 4hour wall is a bit ridiculous anyway. Every building inspector in the country has the ability to deviate from code IF a good enough solution is found for their concerns. You may need to go up the chain of command before you find someone who will work with you.

You might need to put in a 4 hour duct damper between the mill room and the outside space with a removable piece of auger and pipe that can be inserted when needed. Not sure if something like that even exists for the auger, though.

Another option could be to mill into a hopper in the mill room, then move the hopper and auger out into the brewery and auger it into the MT. More work, but would solve the problem until they get off your back.

[rudge75]

There is a sticky backed 1/2 inch thick heat expanding foam tape that can be purchased from the same people you might buy your heat/fire rated red caulking from for your boiler room.

Essentially, you wrap it around your auger pipe tight to the wall on both the inside and outside of the wall. If a fire occours and your auger pipe starts to melt, the heat tape expands to 20 times it's original size and will close off any opening. And since it's fire proof even when it's expanded, there should be no problem running your line thru a 4 hour wall.

[mmussen]

I don't know if this will help in your case but this is what we did when we had to run our auger through our boiler room.
The auger was enclosed in a 8 or 10" black stovepipe. The city had no problems with that here.

[Trickster]

There is a sprinkler already going in this room with the whole deal to call the city fire department as soon as possible after a fire starts. I have also been up the chain of command, I deal with him tomorrow with my architect.

In previous meetings we have heard, "well we just don't know how other municipalities do this." Then we say something about how there are already establishments in town doing this to get a response of "they are grandfathered in, and we can't change anything." They guy at the top has been ignoring this issue and I have been bugging the crap out of him to set up a meeting, now we have it and I hope he is more receptive this time around.

They are looking for more than just fire rating around the auger line. The city is looking at the auger line as a big giant fuse going to a bomb (grist case) because the auger line starts in the mill room, ***if something were to happen it could*** travel through the screw aguer and the auger line.

They have classified this room as an Explosion Hazard. Is this even true, I know grain dust is flammable but is it really explosive?

Thanks

[mmussen]

Grain dust can explode if it builds up and you have a spark.
I don't know if this will help any but we opened about a year ago in New Mexico and this is how our mill/auger are set up.

Mill room is 2 hour fire rated - with no sprinklers. The room is explosionproof. We then have a high powered exhaust fan to suck most of the dust straight out of the mill room with a fire damper both on the exhaust vent and the make up air.
The auger was no concern until the city realized it would be traveling straight through our boiler room - then they got worried. So the auger is surrounded in chimney pipe with about 3" of air space between the auger and the pipe. The ends of the chimney pipe are sealed up with expanding nonflammable insulation.

I hope that helps you.

[Trickster]

Problem Solved

Hey everyone just wanted to let you know the city has agreed to let me penetrate the 4 hr fire wall. We basically had to prove that grain is not flammable unless it is suspended and at the right ratio. Pretty easy just took a pile of grain crushed it and stuck a lighter to it, nothing. Thus proving that it is impossible for a fire to be transmitted through an auger line packed with grain.

Thanks for your input everyone.

[yap]

Hey everyone just wanted to let you know the city has agreed to let me penetrate the 4 hr fire wall. We basically had to prove that grain is not flammable unless it is suspended and at the right ratio. Pretty easy just took a pile of grain crushed it and stuck a lighter to it, nothing. Thus proving that it is impossible for a fire to be transmitted through an auger line packed with grain.

Thanks for your input everyone.

Wow, that's all it took. They were worried about flammability and not explosivity? They should have already known that....

Doesn't it make you feel good when it turns out that you know more about fire hazards than the people in charge of regulating fire hazards?

[Trickster]

pretty much

Yeah that and explaining what the solution was for if they did not allow me to do it. Basically I would have to open the door to the room they want closed and drag grain out and get grain dust in an area not designed to deal with that, basically in the auger its a closed controlled system whereas without it becomes an open system that will get grain dust everywhere.

Another regional brewer called me this morning and told me that he had to go to the state fire inspector to set his town straight. That would have been the next step if they had said no.

And yes it gives me a nice and toasty feeling inside knowing I know more about fire hazard than the local fire inspectors. Very comforting.