When floor space is tight and every second counts, clean chemical agents earn their keep. Gemini AMPM designs and installs Novec 1230 and FM-200® systems that knock a fire down in around ten seconds, from a fraction of the cylinder count an inert system needs. We’ll also tell you the truth about where these agents are heading.
Clean chemical agents are stored as liquid and discharge as gas, extinguishing by soaking up heat and interrupting the combustion reaction. Designed to BS EN 15004, they reach extinguishing concentration in around ten seconds — fast enough to stop a fire in sensitive electronics before it becomes an insurance claim. Both Novec 1230 (FK-5-1-12) and FM-200® (HFC-227ea) leave no residue, conduct no electricity and are safe for occupied areas at design concentration.
Liquid storage is the practical advantage. A chemical-agent system protects the same room from far fewer cylinders than inert gas, and the bank usually sits inside or beside the protected space. Where every square metre of plant room is spoken for — server rooms, comms suites, control rooms, small data floors — that compactness is often what makes suppression viable at all.
Both agents are fluorinated chemicals, and the regulatory direction is real. FM-200 is a hydrofluorocarbon whose production and import are being progressively cut under GB and EU F-gas quota regimes. Novec 1230 is a fluoroketone that falls within the broad PFAS restrictions now being assessed under UK and EU chemicals regulation; its original manufacturer has withdrawn from PFAS production, though the agent remains available from other suppliers. None of this bans your system today — existing installations remain lawful to use, maintain and recharge.
It should shape new decisions, though. When we quote a chemical-agent system we set out the whole picture: agent availability, recharge economics after a discharge, and whether inert gas or aerosol would serve the risk better over a fifteen-year life. Sometimes chemical agents are still the right call. When they are not, we say so before you spend.
No ban is in force for fire suppression, but the squeeze is real. FM-200 (HFC-227ea) sits inside GB and EU F-gas quota systems, which cut the volume of hydrofluorocarbons that can be produced or imported over time. That pushes prices up and supply down. Existing systems can be legally used, serviced and recharged, but for new installations we model agent availability across the system’s whole life before recommending it.
Novec 1230 (FK-5-1-12) is a fluoroketone, and fluoroketones fall within the scope of the wide-ranging PFAS restrictions being assessed by UK and EU regulators. No final decision has been made, and fire suppression may yet receive specific exemptions or transition periods. The agent remains available and existing systems are unaffected today. We track the process closely and will tell you plainly if the position changes.
Almost certainly not yet. A well-maintained Novec 1230 or FM-200 system remains effective, lawful and insurable, and premature replacement wastes money. The sensible triggers to reassess are end of design life, a discharge that makes recharge uneconomic, or a major refit of the protected space. When one of those arrives, we will price the honest options side by side — recharge, convert or replace.
A named engineer, not a call centre, comes back within 24 hours. Tell us the building and what you’re dealing with, and we’ll scope it properly.