In 1938, The Protectowire Company invented and introduced the first linear type heat detector.
Today Protectowire offers the largest digital linear heat detection portfolio on the market – with activation temperatures ranging from 135°F (57°C) to 500°F (260°C) and with a wide range of protective outer jacketing materials.
Known for its innovative heat detection technologies, The Protectowire Company offers robust and reliable fire safety solutions tailored to industrial and commercial environments where traditional fire detection falls short.
Primarily servicing the power generation, transportation, oil & gas, warehousing, industrial cold storage, mining, and materials processing markets, Protectowire continues to deliver integrated fire safety solutions to the global market.
Linear heat detection was created by Protectowire, specifically its founder – Gerald Holmes – in 1938.
Mr. Holmes experienced a tragic fire event earlier in his life and was inspired to create a heat detection solution.
In the lobby of our building, we still have his original journal documenting his experiments and ultimately the time when he perfected his concept 86 years ago.
He patented his early invention, and the product was used throughout military ammunition bunkers in World War II.
Early versions of the product were made with materials as simple, but readily available, like bees’ wax! Clearly thermoplastics and other material options have advanced a lot in the last 8 decades and today we use everything from specialty fluoropolymers to low smoke zero halogen materials to meet the needs of our customers.
Linear heat detection has been around for over 80 years but is still relatively unknown to certain facets of the fire protection industry.
Our largest challenge is educating the fire protection engineering community, end-users, AHJs, insurance companies, different industry associations, and publications like yourselves.
We have a fantastic solution for many applications requiring a reliable and robust specialty heat detector, we just need to get the word out.
I firmly believe that every detection technology in the industry today has a place, it’s the job of us as industry professionals to make sure those technologies are applied to the right applications so our customers can continue their business operations safely and without disruption.
This is a great question, and fundamentally important to understanding how and where you should use linear heat detection.
The most important thing to understand is that Protectowire is a heat detector, so it’s necessary to identify markets where heat detection is the preferred fire detection method.
Protectowire linear heat detectors have a variety of advantages over traditional spot type heat detectors, but for this article I will focus on three.
The first is that Protectowire offers “proximity” detection.
This allows the linear heat cable to be installed on or very close to the application you are protecting.
An example of this would be a conveyer belt where the detector is installed near the rollers for early overheat detection.
The second is that all Protectowire linear heat detection technologies are available with alarm point location.
We can determine exactly where the overheat condition is located on the linear heat detector.
This is important for tunnel applications, cable trays, solar panel arrays, or other applications where knowing the exact location of the overheat or fire condition is required.
The third is the simplicity of ITM (inspection, testing, and maintenance).
NFPA 72 code requires our detector to be tested once a year.
This is accomplished by finding the end of line and shorting out the detector.
This is especially convenient in applications like hangars and warehousing where you can have thousands of feet on each zone and the detector is installed on a high ceiling or intertwined within a racking system.
Being able to locate and test the end of line really simplifies the testing process.
Protectowire linear heat detectors are extremely robust and reliable.
Our detectors are often used in applications where other types of detection would fail.
These conditions include extreme temperatures (hot and cold), caustic/abrasive locations, intense UV exposure, strong vibration/abrasion, or other harsh environmental conditions.
The applications for use are abundant, we supply products to over 100 countries around the world and each of those countries could have a unique use for our product.
Within the last decade we have been very busy at Protectowire! Several years ago we released our Confirmed Temperature Initiation (CTI) detector.
This detector is a multi-criteria detector unlike the legacy style linear heat detectors.
Traditional linear heat detectors are a normally open resistive contact device whereas our CTI series detector operates using a thermocouple principle.
This is the only digital linear heat detector on the market that offers short circuit discrimination.
Basically, the detector needs to be shorted out and have heat present at the short to initiate an alarm condition.
A short circuit at any temperature below the detector’s initiation temperature is only a trouble condition.
This has gained remarkable traction in applications where you are pairing detection and suppression together.
No one wants a false alarm when you are activating a double interlock, foam system, or other type of suppression system.
This technology has revolutionized the digital linear heat detection industry.
We have also recently released a line of thermal imaging cameras.
These cameras combine thermal imaging technology and high-resolution video in a single device for overheat, pre-fire, and security monitoring.
By doing that, they protect assets and prevent the destruction of goods and loss of life by alerting personnel of abnormal heat conditions before a fire erupts.
Both thermal imaging as well as the high-resolution video can be viewed locally onsite or remotely and allow constant monitoring of material and surface temperatures.
They can be used indoors or outdoors and to monitor hazardous areas.
The market will need to stay tuned as thermal imaging cameras will continue to play a larger role in the overall industry as this technology gains acceptance from the fire community.
We are an ISO-9001: 2015 company.
We track and trace every portion of our production process; our quality is second to none.
FM 3210 and UL 521 are the two standards that address heat actuated devices.
Within the standards there are defined tolerances for manufacturing, our detectors activate with a standard deviation of less than 1% and easy conform to the tolerances of our third-party approvals.
This is a testament to the manufacturing team as they are always hard at work.
It makes all our roles at Protectowire much easier knowing we can always provide a quality product!
For anyone who is reading this and has been in the industry for a while we all know that our end-users to do not like to admit when they have experienced a fire.
This is in direct conflict with how our industry likes to learn about how and when our systems were effective! So unfortunately, due to NDAs I cannot share information about my clients.
But I can discuss a situation where Protectowire was effective at our own facility.
We have solar panels on our factory roof that help offset our electricity cost.
The solar panels have an active CTI detection circuit on the back of them to monitor for overheat or fire conditions.
This detection circuit is monitored by our building fire panel and if it alarms then the fire department is called.
We had a contractor on our roof upgrading and replacing certain parts related to the solar array.
When then framework of a panel was updated, the contractor pinched the CTI detector in between the PV panel and the framework.
With legacy linear heat detection, this would have been an alarm condition as it shorted the detector.
Fortunately, we have our CTI series technology on the roof and when the short occurred, because the short was at the ambient temperature, no alarm condition was initiated, and the fire department was not called.
We, of course, got a trouble condition on the building panel but this is an example of where the products did exactly what they were engineered to do and prevented a false alarm.
Looking toward the future we all know that industry moves faster than codes and standard development.
Our job as a manufacturer is to understand where the industry is headed and design, manufacture, and offer products that will meet the needs of tomorrow’s industry.
Ultimately those needs are then reinforced with codes that require the technology to keep people, property, and processes safe.
I see a future where integration is paramount.
More devices simultaneously interacting to provide the user with data.
Being able to provide data allows for informed decision-making which leads to a safer world.
We, at Protectowire, are specifically addressing this through new and innovative linear heat detection technologies, through our offering of our thermal imaging cameras, and through our modular environmental sensor platform.
We also have a few more products/solutions in the works but I cannot talk about those until they’re ready for release! This has been a great interview – thank you for your time.
