Do water base hazer's set off fire alarms?
- Thread starter DJChas
- Start date
You will have to get the permission of each venue for each Gig, if you want to be on the safe side.
Yes, water based hazers can and do set off smoke detectors. There is no difference between water based and oil based as far as an optical sensor knows. That said, it really depends on how much haze you pump out and that is directly dependent on the airflow in the room. If it's cold outside and the facility has an older thermostat only HVAC system then you may not have much airflow allowing the haze to spread throughout the room somewhat evenly with not much volume from the haze machine. If you have in a newly renovated facility with CO2 detection it will either burp or strongly flush outside air into the room periodically purging all haze meaning you need to keep the machine on longer at a higher setting providing uneven haze coverage with more possibility of a sensor triggering.
Yes, no, maybe! It is possible that the small water-based particles could set some types of smoke detectors off. Usually, this is only a problem with optical type detectors (as mentioned by Scott), because they sense these particles as smoke. I always run a test with the fog machine when used indoors to see if this is a problem. Sprinkler systems on the other hand are usually triggered by heat, so the fog in the air won't active heat-activated sprinkler systems.
Yes it will... may take a little bit longer, but it will. The smoke detectors now-a-days are so accurate, that the smallest particulate in the air will send the fire department to your gig. Only way around it is to play in a room that IS NOT equipped with detectors, or you have to have a fire department member standing by (at cost) to turn off the system and watch for fire danger. That's why you see so many foggers and hazers for sale now. Everyone is getting away from using them.
You DO NOT need a person from the fire department to stand fire watch. Any person can do it, you just have to designate the person and will need someone standing fire watch the entire time the system is disabled.
I have delt with this multiple times and not just for DJ events. My family owns an environmental company in the DC area and have delt with this on job sites many times and not just for a few hours down time but for weeks even. You will be required to notify the local fire department & or the monitoring company for the system. The real question is it worth the effort. For a very large event with a fairly involved lighting setup I could see it as something worth the hassle. For a smaller gig I would either offload the entire responsibility on the Site & Client or not offer it at all.
I have delt with this multiple times and not just for DJ events. My family owns an environmental company in the DC area and have delt with this on job sites many times and not just for a few hours down time but for weeks even. You will be required to notify the local fire department & or the monitoring company for the system. The real question is it worth the effort. For a very large event with a fairly involved lighting setup I could see it as something worth the hassle. For a smaller gig I would either offload the entire responsibility on the Site & Client or not offer it at all.
The fire department bit all depends on the locality and their laws. For example, a couple of times in college we wanted to use our hazer at gigs...the campus fire department had to come to the venue and manually override the system and then one of them or a police officer had to stay.
Maybe i'm lucky to live in a great area. I just picked up 2 more hazers from Ben a month back! We use our Chauvet Water based hazers everywhere. BUT, keep in mind, we ALWAYS discuss the fire system in advance with the venue if it is somewhere we haven't been before or are unsure about what they have set-up. All precautions are taken. One concert we did recently was in a room where the Fire Alarm was optical, BUT, the sprinkler system only reacted to heat. So she got permission for us to just go ahead and blast the haze and had a campus tech standing by to disable the alarm if it ever went off. I FILLED that room with haze and we didn't even have a squeak from the fire system. This was in a new State of the art gym/workout area on the campus. You need to take precautions but when the option is there use Haze with your lighting, It makes a HUGE difference.
It's a function of state and then local codes - so, it matters where you are right down to the specific county and town.