Low-pressure water mist
For very good reasons, care homes in the UK are subject to stringent regulations regarding fire safety and suppression. Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, care home operators are legally responsible for conducting thorough fire risk assessments and ensuring comprehensive protection. From 2 March 2025, Approved Document B introduced provisions for sprinklers in all new care homes, regardless of height.
This requirement would never be a simple one to fulfil. However, it’s made more complicated when no two locations present the same fire risks, with hazards that include everything from electrical equipment and kitchens and laundry rooms, to multiple bedrooms, communal areas and storerooms. What’s more, residents often have limited mobility, so suppression systems must create crucial extra time for horizontal or phased evacuation strategies. Many residents in care facilities may have cognitive impairments, which will also affect how quickly they can react in an emergency situation.
Where required, sprinkler systems have been the go-to solution for care home fire suppression for many years. Their efficiency is proven, and architects, installers and approvers are familiar with their design, benefits and limitations. However, they do present some very specific problems that anyone involved in their installation or operation will be only too aware of. First, they are effective at suppressing fire because they require a large amount of water. And to be compliant, this needs to be available on demand when a nozzle is triggered by heat, which means enough storage to keep all nozzles operating effectively for a set period of time. In a large care home with multiple nozzles, that’s a lot of storage with large, heavy tanks to situate discreetly around the building.
Then there’s the nozzles. Though some can be hidden, you’ll often find the classic industrial-style sprinkler head protruding from ceilings in care homes, lending a very institutional feel to the interior. These don’t just look unsightly, but are also prone to tampering and malicious activation that can cause huge disruption.
Finally, there’s the damage caused if the sprinklers are activated. As well as dousing any flames, the water also effectively covers everything else within range of the head. If an activation lasts 30 minutes, this could mean up to 900 litres per m2 at 30 L/min per m2. The resulting drying out and clean-up costs could run into thousands, a huge inconvenience, particularly if the activation was accidental or malicious.
Low-pressure water mist offers effective, practical and compliant solutions to all these potential issues.
This type of fire suppression system controls fire by discharging extremely fine water droplets at high velocity into the fire zone. These microscopic droplets rapidly absorb heat, cool the flames and surrounding gases and reduce the oxygen available to sustain combustion.
Because the droplets are so small, they create a vastly larger total surface area than sprinkler water droplets. This allows heat to be absorbed far more efficiently.
Water mist also uses significantly less water than conventional sprinklers, so it’s perfect where incoming water supply or space for water storage is limited. A low-pressure water mist system operates at approximately 20-35 L/min, while a traditional sprinkler system can use twice this amount or more.
This means much less stored water is required for the system to meet regulatory fire safety requirements. For example, a traditional sprinkler system installed in a 15-bedroom care home may require 25 heads to provide compliant protection. This would be classed as a Category 3 system, requiring enough water pressure to run up to 4 heads simultaneously for a maximum of 30 minutes. If each head discharges 55 L/min, 1,650 litres of water is required for each sprinkler, with a total of up to 6,600 litres required for all four sprinkler heads. That’s a large volume of water to store, and also over six tonnes of weight to account for.
With low-pressure water mist, the amount of water required to remain compliant is far less, up to 80% less in some cases. So that’s smaller tanks and more compact pumps to account for, freeing up valuable room and making life easier for architects and installers alike.
What’s more, should a water mist system be discharged, either in a fire situation or accidentally, the amount of water that’s released causes far less damage, meaning less disruptive clean up and damage to furniture and personal possessions.
Plus, the iCO water mist nozzle is one of the most discreet available, sitting just 6mm below the ceiling line. When in standby mode, the head itself is recessed into the ceiling behind a small cover that conceals it from view. On activation, the head deploys, dropping from the ceiling to instantly begin discharging mist and suppressing any heat and flame. This not only makes the heads unobtrusive and sympathetic to the clean design lines of the ceiling, but it also helps prevent any damage or tampering that may cause accidental activation.
The iCO low-pressure water mist nozzle is the first to be independently tested to BS EN 14972-17. It successfully passed rigorous testing for residential buildings up to 45 metres high at up to 3.5 metres installation height. This means, as part of a fire suppression system competently and compliantly installed, low-pressure water mist is now a viable alternative to sprinklers for care homes for designers, architects and fire suppression system installers.
Approved Document B now says that care homes should be fitted with a sprinkler system throughout the building, designed in accordance with its relevant provisions. Though the wording specifies ‘sprinkler’, this also applies to water mist systems designed and installed to BS EN 14972.
Mandatory Rules: Building regulations in England require automatic fire suppression systems in all newly built care homes. Similar mandatory rules have been active in Scotland and Wales for years.
