Integrated Systems Testing (IST)
Integrated Systems Testing of Fire Protection and Life Safety Systems (CAN/ULC S-1001), often referred to IST, is a building code and fire code requirement. It is required by the BC Building Code 2018 and VBBL 2019, to complete IST at occupancy. Per the CAN/ULC S-1001 standard, and referenced in Fire Code, the test is also to be done 1 year after occupancy, and then at frequencies not exceeding 5 years after then.
The intent of IST is to provide a final test after all life safety systems are individually verified. All fire alarm and life safety verification reports, start-up reports of life safety systems, and balancing of life safety systems are to be completed prior to IST.
Kane has developed significant experience in delivering IST for numerous municipalities and AHJs. Our expertise in building commissioning gives us a solid foundation to develop an IST plan and carry it out to completion. This can be added to our scope when we are engaged as Commissioning Authority or Commissioning Agent, or it can be a standalone scope.
Through our delivery of IST, we have found unique problems which would not be observed during the individual verifications. Some examples are below:
1. Laboratory building, where we found that on transfer to and from generator power, the laboratory high plume exhaust would be quick to turn on, but the make-up air supply would be slow. This caused issues, even causing the make-up air unit to trip. This caused egress issues where door push forces exceeded 90N. We worked with the team to re-sequence the start-up of equipment to avoid these issues.
2. Emergency distribution panel main breaker was found to trip every time the emergency power system would transfer to emergency power. While the transfer switch and generator were individually verified, when the actual building load was operational, it caused these problems. Kane worked with the team, as the electrical engineer and contractor had to come up with solutions to address this.
3. Low voltage lighting controls and fire alarm sequence. During the initial occupancy walkthrough, low voltage lighting controls were not fully ready and lights were all on. We maintained a follow up test as part of our IST to check the low voltage lighting system integration with the fire alarm, to illuminate egress paths. Once again, as both fire alarm and lighting controls were individually verified, we found a conflict, as the fire alarm would turn off the egress lighting. We identified this IST deficiency for resolution by the team.