DCHASers,

During a recent lab renovation, the contractor presented to us wall mounted shower/eyewash stations that have both an audible alarm and visible strobe when activated.  The unit also has the ability to communicate back tot he BMS system upon activation.  While this all sounds fine and dandy, it has raised a few questions on my end.

1.  Is this a new standard being used for installations?  I definitely see some practical purposes for this in order to alert others that an emergency has occurred, but I have not come across this before. 

2.  This raises some design dilemmas on our end.  

A.  We are installing these as flush mounted systems, so the units strobe and audible alarms would be above the drop ceiling (or we would have to relocate the alarm indicators). 

B.  For obvious reasons, the contractor was originally spec-ing out installation on walls without electrical just for cost and ease of plumbing.  If alarms are necessary, power must be ran to the units, thus increasing scope and cost. 

In general, I was just curious as to what kind of new installs other universities were currently putting in place.