When you step into a commercial or industrial building, you would usually notice a large door-like cover at the top of the roof. You might think that its only purpose is to provide easy access to the roof for workers, but that’s where you’re wrong. That’s what you would call a smoke vent, and its main responsibility is to keep the building safe.
As the name suggests, they help eliminate smoke inside the building and redirect it to the outside. It’s one of the most effective methods of eliminating smoke generated from a building fire. If you plan on installing one on your commercial building, you need to know how it works. You wouldn’t want to install something on a building without knowing its purpose.
Why the need for a smoke vent?
As mentioned a while ago, the smoke vent’s main role is to let out the dangerous smoke generated from the fire. If you have a commercial building storing highly flammable products, don’t think twice about getting a smoke vent. You will never know when a fire will happen inside your building, so it’s better that you prepare for the worst-case scenario all the time.
There are dangerous materials within a building that can potentially kill a person when set on fire and inhaled by a person for too long. The thick smoke can block your airways, which will always lead to death by suffocation. Nowadays, every commercial building should have the necessary safety features and systems, and the smoke vent is one of them.
Besides keeping your lungs free from smoke blockage, another reason to install them is it helps provide better vision for everyone who’s trying to escape the burning building. In most cases, the smoke would become so thick that you won’t see two feet in front of you. The only chance you have is to crawl your way out of the building, and that’s not the fastest way you can escape.
And when firefighters arrive, they can locate the source of the fire right away and extinguish it since the smoke vents gave them a clear path by getting rid of the smoke.
How does the smoke vent work?
The principle behind the smoke vent is simple. When you quickly open a door outwards in an enclosed space, you notice that the curtains or the bathroom door would move. That’s because the door you opened created a vacuum effect that pulled the air out of the room. The smoke vents work the same way when you open them, which sucks out the smoke out of a burning building.
Usually, the smoke vent automatically opens itself when the fuse link would melt, and it would quickly open the vents. Other smoke vents have a fuse link, but you can open them by using a control switch. As long as there’s smoke inside the commercial building, you need to let it out as quickly as possible before it blankets the inside and causes more problems.
Since you now know smoke vents, ensure you get the best smoke vents hatches on your commercial building. You need to trust your smoke vent that it’ll operate when needed.
