Operating Instructions

Laboratory Room Controller Owner's Manual
3-14 Siemens Building Technologies, Inc.
Using Airflow Alarms
The LRC’s primary purpose is to maintain room pressurization and ventilation in laboratories.
It is also designed to report abnormal conditions through your BAS to the people who need to
respond. A Chemical Hygiene Plan and emergency response procedures need to address
what to do when a LRC alarm is received.
The first thing to decide when using alarms is who needs the information. Possibilities include
one or more of the following:
• laboratory workers
• Safety Officer
• HVAC maintenance crew
The second thing to decide is how to get the alarm to those people. The Siemens Building
Technologies, Inc. BAS has powerful and flexible capabilities for automatically routing alarm
information to the right places. Alarm notification options include local alarm devices (horns
and lights) in or near the room, BAS terminals in control rooms and offices (these could be a
personal computers or dedicated terminals), and automatic paging. Consult a Siemens
Building Technologies, Inc. branch for more information.
The third thing to do is to develop the appropriate coordinated response procedures for
everyone involved. For example, if a pressurization alarm is received at the central
monitoring station, maintenance personnel should check the supply and exhaust flow rates
by calling up a graphic or subpoint log for the controller in alarm and notify laboratory
personnel that the room is not pressurized.
In another scenario, if a local alarm, such as a light or buzzer, indicates loss of
pressurization, personnel in the laboratory should stop any fume-producing activities (such as
pouring powders or heating liquids) and notify maintenance personnel immediately. In either
case, all operations that might produce toxic fumes in the affected lab room should be ceased
until the cause of the alarm is found and corrected.
Finally, all personnel should be trained on the meaning of the alarms and the planned
responses to those alarms. Refresher training on alarm procedures is important and
necessary.