FEC 100 and Fire Suppression in Concession

Welcome to the gang, there are many people here that should be able to offer you lots of advice from setting up their units.

I am looking forward to seeing pictures of the finished rig.

Hi Tom.

Thanks for the nice welcome!

I will be sure to post some pics as soon as we get the outside done. I think the plan is to move the raw trailer onto the hard tomorrow. It may take awhile before we are at the picture stage, but I promise to post as soon as I can.

Looking forward to Plenty of advice!

Thanks again for the welcome !

Kate

Welcome Kate.

You might want to call sales and ask them,as they don't monitor the forums much.

An email to Fast Eddy couldn't hurt.

Tom-Fl

Well,
My county does not require an Ansul system, but lots of other counties / cities do.

I have a 24' concession rig licensed as my comissary. I plan to put an Ansul system in there. I just figure it's a good idea; that way I have all bases covered no matter where I happen to be.

Good luck with the trailer...and keep us all posted. There is an older thread here somewhere where Prisonchef and Peggy chronicled their trailer saga. As it turned out, I was having a trailer built by the same manufacturer.

Both of us are up and running now.

hi kate,
here in florida our local county fire marshall did not require a supressor system as our rig does not have any fryers.
however after emptying a small fire bottle to put out a fire in the fec i am considering having one put in.
the fire was not the fec fault. i was smoke bombing chicken which i have done several times using flavor (not heat) pellets but this time for whatever reason i thru in heat pellets
thankfully since i always keep the fec clean the only thing that burned was the chicken and my probe and controller are fine.
i do have a new gasket set on order.
so while the supressor isnt required here i am looking into installing one
jack

Hi!

First Thanks Tom, I sent Eddy an email, so maybe he will have a take on the situation. We had asked when we ordered the unit, but he hadn't run into anyone requiring the suppression system.

Chris, It's not that I would actually mind having the system in the trailer, but the cost is what worries me. First there is the hood and then the nozzles that would need to be aimed to actually get to the source of the fire. I should explain that our FEC wll be in a room of its own too and the walls and ceiling in there will be steel. Add a steel door and that should contain any fire I would think. I have also been looking at the Ansul systems and see that they have a hand held extinguisher. After reading a lot about why the Ansul system is better for todays restaurant applications with UL listing making higher temperatures possible and the use of vegetable oils which can take higher heat, the hand held unit looks pretty good! At least to me for our application, especially just starting out with budget in mind.

In General: I have this idea that we might be able to request a variance. If I can get the Fire Department to okay our plan, and the regional inspector also endorses the plan, he can then submit it to the State for approval. He has already said he would submit a variance to exempt us from needing a base station. Last thing in the world that I want to do is get this guy ticked at us! (He has been so helpful and NICE!) So we are treading lightly here. If we have to go with the full system, has anyone priced them out? I did see one system that was priced at $6000 ! Ouch!

Jack: Well, I'm with you on NO Fryers! I played that game when I had a Fish and Chip Shop. (read that in one of your earlier posts no cleaning fryers!) Could you explain the smoke bombing please? Heat pellets vs. flavor pellets? Were you using the small packs of BBQ Delight type flavor pellets vs. a regular hickory or some other type of hotter burning pellet? I haven't actually ever smoked anything myself. My husband is the smoker, for now, I critique and research, oh and taste test too!
My husband has been smoking stuff for over 30 years in homemade contraptions though. He likes really smoky product and I like a lighter version. Anyway, we may end up getting the Ansul system, so if you find any great deals on pricing I would be interested.

Thanks for the input!
Kate

Six thousand!?! That sounds like a lot...but then I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

I will probably need an Ansul system eventually as I do have a fryer. My home county (and most of the surrounding ones too) is good with hand held extinguishers but I would like to be able to vend anywhere.

Can't help you with rules on trailers but the codes here are fairly simple for a restaurant.
If you have fire(wood, gas) or you have hot grease such as a deep fryer you must have a hood and ansul system. If you use a cooker that has electic as the heat source you do not have to have a hood or system(such as cookshack or sp)

Herman

Kate,
I'm the other greyhound of 2 greyhounds....SMOKIN!!!! Ask the inspector if you can get an ok from the fire dept. to go without the hood suppression if that would meet their specifications. Ask for the person's name to contact at the fire dept. We were ok once we had his signature on the papers. Best of luck to you.
Peggy

kate,
we have been experimenting with using the single packs of bbqers delight flavor pellets to increase the smoke flavor in our competition chicken. scores have been coming way up.but this time what i did was use a similar amount of pecan heating pellets!!!! this is not recommended by candy sue of bbqers delite and was a stupid thing for me to do!!!!!!!! so yes your assumption was right!!!!!!
the reason we have done this is the technique we are using to do competition chicken is to run the fast eddy at 400f which of course makes no smoke at that temp. if we had 2 fec100s i wouldn't do it since one would be chicken only and i would start the fec from dead cold but we have one fec and doing 4 meats so i went ahead and did this on my own.

i would like to advise everyone that if you try this
1- do so at your own risk
2- i did this without consulting candy
3- for gosh sakes never ever ever substitute cooking pellets for flavor pellets
4- on second thought don't even try this!!!!!!

my only hope is candy doesn't make me give back the banner she gave us

hope this explains my dumb move, but on a happier note jan at cookshack's service department didn't laugh at me while i was on the phone lol
jack

Hi All !

Well, the 6 grand Ansul system was on a big beauty. So I am sure there are better prices out there, I just don't have a clues as to how good they might be.

We did some fancy footwork today. We went to one of the top dogs at the State's Inspection Office and talked to a really nice and very informed supervisor. My husband explained all the ins and outs of the unit and why he thought we didn't need the Ansul System. Meanwhile I am on the computer with her email address and sent her the page with the FEC on it. I had been coming here through the about.com link and I discovered that I could come directly here, which is great, because I don't have to look at that dratted cockroach ad at the top of the about.com page! Anyway, she was impressed! Very impressed!! She saw no reason that we would need the Ansul System and advised us to send our local guy the pictures of the unit. The lady was ooohing and ahhing over the FEC. So, crisis averted, for now we think. We are going to look at some equipment tomorrow for the kitchen. So, things are lining up.

Hey Jack, not a dumb move, just a bold experiment!

Mrs. Jack, nice to meet you and thank you!

Thank you all !

Kate

kate,
that's great news!!!!!
i am curious how you are going to vent the smoke from the steel lined room which by the way i was wishing i had last saturday .
are you venting out with flex vent? the stuff is great and i can attest to the fact that holds up well to heat.
just curious because i like different ideas
thanks for being nice!!!
jack
ps. bold experiment??!! man i gotta tell peg that one lol

Hi Jack.

I'm pretty pleased! Thanks!

On the venting, Patrick, my husband, has already found himself a nice hollowed out cedar log ! The squirrels weren't too happy when he kicked their tails out, but he's happy.

Seriously, he just smiled at me when I asked. He is creative, so who knows what he has in mind! My guess is he hasn't found whatever "it" is yet. But, he did take in the flex stuff, so thanks! You see, I live with these bold experiments on a daily basis. So, when he tells me I will tell you.

The chicken adventure sure sounded like a bold experiment to me. Then again, I tend to think different then most folks. A little creative license on these things puts a whole new spin out there. Bold is good! Experimenting is good. How could it be wrong!

Take Care!
Kate

Kate,
I'm so happy for you. It sounds like you two make a great team. Best of luck to you!
Peggy