TESTIMONY
Christopher Ruch, Director of Education at the National Energy Management Institute, on Standards for Healthy Buildings and the Efficacy of Fire Life Safety Systems
2:18:08
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124 sec
Christopher Ruch provides testimony on the importance of standards for healthy buildings and the efficacy of fire life safety systems, based on extensive field experience.
- Ruch shares observations from his career about the frequent malfunction of fire dampers and smoke control systems, which are essential for safe evacuation and first responder access.
- He cites a University of Maryland Study showing that a significant percentage of fire life safety devices in existing buildings require repairs.
- Ruch emphasizes the importance of workforce standards to ensure inspections of life safety systems are reliable, comparing it to practices for elevators, fire sprinkler systems, and fire alarm systems.
- He highlights the critical role of healthy building standards, including air filtration and accessible drinking fountains, for public safety.
Christopher Ruch
2:18:08
Chair Santos, Gerald, and members of the committee on the housing and buildings and fire emergency management.
2:18:13
I thank you for your opportunity to provide testimony regarding 882024.
2:18:18
For the record, my name is Christopher Rook.
2:18:19
I'm the director of Education of the National Energy Management Institute, other words known as Nimi.
2:18:24
When we walk into a building, Nimi promotes a healthy building, meaning that when all of us walked in today, we expected that the air was going to be filtered.
2:18:32
We were going to have drinking fountains that we could drink from.
2:18:34
And that the fire life safety system would respond as we expect.
2:18:38
The majority of my career has been proudly been the eyes and ears of the inspectors.
2:18:42
And engineers.
2:18:43
I would crawl in all the god awful places in a building that no one else wanted to crawl.
2:18:48
I would look at fire damper's.
2:18:49
We are really just doors that stop inside a ductwork, the movement of air, I mean, movement of smoke and fire.
2:18:56
Smoke control systems that control smoke and smoke removal systems that help clear smoke so people can get out.
2:19:02
As an experienced field technician, I can tell you that it's significant number of the fire dampers and smoke control systems do not operate as designed.
2:19:10
Occupants depend on these to get out of a building.
2:19:12
First responders depend on these to enter a building.
2:19:15
And I can tell you about all sorts of individual experiences I had, but I would encourage you to look at the 2021 University of Maryland Study.
2:19:23
53 percent of dampers, fire life safety dampers, and existing buildings needed repairs.
2:19:28
41% of existing building stairways required repairs or adjustment, meaning the stairways that are supposed to pressurized slightly so people can get out didn't function.
2:19:38
These are very high numbers for a fire life safety device.
2:19:42
My second comment is on the importance of workforce standards included in 88.
2:19:46
Unfortunately, inspectors do not have all of the time and resources to individually and check every part of a life safety system.
2:19:54
Workforce standards give the inspector certainty that the report they are looking at and being handed was completed by a technician that is qualified.
2:20:02
And there's precedence for this.
2:20:03
This is how we do elevators, fire sprinkler systems, fire alarm systems, the inspector needs to have a report by people they can trust.
2:20:11
Thank you for your time.