Looking at this stuff is an occupational hazard. It's like when safety is your company's #1 priority and you're trained to look out for the hazards. I see stuff all the time and harp on family members about things they do. I look at fire protection stuff too, some of the things leave me with concern over installation issues, inspections, code official reviews, etc........ Somehow no one with any knowledge caught some of this stuff.
But it's like trying to explain to a committee that they can't place furniture in the main egress hallway for an assembly occupancy that has no sprinklers and impedes the path to exit. The answer: "but it looks nice" (building was built before sprinklers were required). You see things all the time that make your skin crawl but unless there is a legal reason for fixing it, most people will just ignore you and most local AHJ's don't have the time to revisit something they've already signed off on plus how would that make them look? Craig L. Prahl, CET Fire Protection Group Mechanical Department CH2MHILL Lockwood Greene 1500 International Drive PO Box 491, Spartanburg, SC 29304-0491 Direct - 864.599.4102 Fax - 864.599.8439 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ch2m.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Cahill Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2008 1:29 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Do you look up? I imagine, like me, you all (ya'll for some of you) on the very rare occasions you are not working look around at sprinkler systems where you live, shop and play. It's a very rare occasion I don't see something that appears deficient. For example, in a grocery store the one head on the back side of the main is missing over HPS and a mess of piping creating a ceiling without heads under them, at a Home Depot 190 psi on the wet side of an auxiliary dry valve, or the local high school with sidewall heads about 15-20' down from the peak of the very large skylight. This is all in the last two days as an example but see similar all the time. The sad part is I'm not really trying. What if I had the plans and calcs, how much more would there be? Or really looked at the whole building instead of a casual look at where I happen to be? Or the scary part what if I actually considered the hazard vs. the design? I also realize two issues - most times what I see probably won't cause the system to fail in a fire IF that is the only thing wrong. There is a "probably" and an "if " in the last sentence which means there are cases that will fail, just not many IMHO. And second we make mistakes too. The heads at the peak - just because an AHJ didn't call it a deficiency doesn't mean it's OK. Certainly it is possible there is a documented and proactively approved alternate method out there on this but I strongly doubt it. Now I'm sure the missing head has a perfectly rational explanation of how it got like that. The W.O. is there and it must be plugged or the system is off. It's not a TI thing long after the original construction; this is a very new building. Can't rationalize how you get 190 psi by accident or approval. MN is more regulated than most (but not all) areas. Do you see this stuff too? What if anything can you really do about it? Chris Cahill, P.E. Fire Protection Engineer Sentry Fire Protection, Inc. 763-658-4483 763-658-4921 fax Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mail: P.O. Box 69 Waverly, MN 55390 Location: 4439 Hwy 12 SW Waverly, MN 55390 _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
