Raised floor

Additional structural support and lighting are often provided when a floor is raised enough for a person to crawl or even walk beneath.

[3] Offices, classrooms, conference rooms, retail spaces, museums, studios, and more, have the primary need to quickly and easily accommodate changes of technology and floor plan configurations.

Since this type of access floor is not attached to the structure it is considered to be furnishings, fixtures, and equipment (FF&E) that can be a depreciated expense or leased.

Conditioned air is provided under the floor and dispersed upward into the room through regularly spaced diffuser tiles, blowers or through ducts directed into specific equipment.

As more companies construct or renovate buildings to meet Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) underfloor air and access floor usage will continue to grow.

[5] Common Applications: Raised access flooring is commonplace in office accommodation, retail spaces, computer and control rooms.

There are two bench-marks for performance testing in the United Kingdom, These being the PSA MOB PF2 PS (spu) 1992 and the more recent, slightly less stringent BS/EN12825.

Computer and control rooms including data centers generally have a higher requirement with regards to static loadings and PSA heavy grade should be employed.

While major wiring may not be the focus, residential use of raised floors and split levels in 12-foot-ceiling (3.7 m) Manhattan apartments provides "high-performance elements" and added functionality.

Low-profile fixed height access flooring is held in place by gravity without glue or fasteners and does not require any tools to make changes.

[citation needed] Low-profile, fixed-height systems accommodate irregularly shaped rooms with adjustable border components that minimizes cutting of panels.

[7] Raised floors available for general purpose use typically do not address the special requirements needed for telecommunications applications.

[8] The general types of raised floors in telecommunications data centers include: stringerless, stringered, and structural platforms; and, truss assemblies.

There are many types of commercially available floors that offer a wide range of structural strength and loading capabilities, depending on component construction and the materials used.

The general types of raised floors include stringer, stringerless, and structural platforms, all of which are discussed in detail in GR-2930.

[1] Data centers typically have raised flooring made up of 60 cm (2 ft) removable square tiles.

Raised floors and other metal structures such as cable trays and ventilation ducts have caused many problems with zinc whiskers in the past, and likely are still present in many data centers.

can dislodge the whiskers, which enter the airflow and may short circuit server components or power supplies, sometimes through a high current metal vapor plasma arc.