Mike, I totally agree with the points you make. 1. I can' tell you how many bid packages I looked at where the directive on fire protection was "Install Sprinklers per NFPA 13". Good grief, be a bit more imaginative. If you don't know how to figure it out, find someone that can.
2. Too often AE firms will dump the responsibility of determining water supplies on the contractor. At that point in the project discovering a deficient water supply can have serious impact financially and on the schedule. As the engineer of record, make sure FIRST to ask for water supply data and then SECOND, make sure it's recent. Should be no older than 6 months in some jurisdictions but the closer the date of the test to the date of your drawings being issued the better. Next thing is to look at the numbers. Here's where there's often a hang-up. Recent case in point was a water test where there was 135 psi static, 40 psi residual and 900+/- gpm. Now we knew that in an older test the supply was far more favorable and the difference between static and residual was a bit dramatic. We asked for the test to be redone, when it was, it was found that the system had a lot of sediment in it, as that was flushed out the final results were more in our favor with residual coming up to around 80 psi with over two times the flow. Don't take the report at face value, look at it and ask questions if it looks funky. Generally in a municipal situation the local water or fire departments will do the test. On a private system someone may need to be hired to do the test. Just don't dump it off because it take a bit too much work to get the information. 3. This can be a tough one, especially for most AE firms. Since the industry standard deliverable from most AE firms is a usually a concept drawing with no pipe routing and since most people producing these types of drawings have little to no hydraulic calculation experience, it might be a bit much to expect. 4. This kind of ties into 3. With the AE firms deciding not to do detailed engineering on fire protection, (why do it when the contractor is going to do it again and he does it for free, "that's usually the response when detailed design is mentioned"), it is usually left to the contractor's design team do get the necessary drawings and perform the coordination. What seems to be the issue it time. Since the FP systems often need to be reviewed by the EOR, AHJ's, Underwriters and the like, there needs to be time for all this to occur. So the FP contractor issues a layout drawing. Often but not always, the system designs are not coordinated with other trades as this becomes a field function. If you're lucky the AE firm has made space provisions for the sprinkler systems but that doesn't always happen. Please don't thing the FP guy in that AE firm didn't try, it's just that many times other disciplines don't understand the restrictive nature of fire protection system installation. But overall coordination of systems becomes a field issue. We all have to work together, AE, EOR, Contractor, AHJ, to make this work. We should all have the same goal at the end of the day, save lives, save property and NOT make the disaster section of the 6:00 news. 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 Mike Brown (TECH- GVL) Sent: Thursday, April 24, 2008 9:15 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: What is a Bucket Test? Actually, in several counties around Atlanta, the test was also required for garden style apartments up to four stories. You would be surprised that, at least in the beginning, a number of projects that had full blown hydraulic calculations failed when the bucket test showed them to be incorrect. Many times the main culprit was a water test supplied by the water company that was faulty or not up to date. Which brings me to my point that I have made over the years, the "design" of sprinkler systems really involves four major decisions by the design engineer and the rest is mostly a layout of a system within the rules of the codes. First Engineering Decision: What is the hazard and what densities are required. The project must be classified as per the fire risk. What are you protecting and how much water will it require to achieve the fire protection objective. Second Engineering Decision: What is the water supply and has there been a detailed analysis and testing of the water supply? Generally, engineers and others rely on water tests provide by others and sometimes incorrect and out of date. Often very little time is devoted by the engineer to insure that an adequate water supply at the needed pressure is available. This does not mean just throwing in a large fire pump just to be safe. Third Engineering Decision: Where is the remote area? It is easy to just let the designer decide but the selection of the remote area can change the hydraulics dramatically. Fourth Engineering Decision: Coordination and review of the plans. The shop drawings and calculations may be checked and the coordination with the other trades on the project. Often, the engineer just passes these functions to a trainee or someone else within the engineering firm. In other cases the issue is just ignored. Too often these decisions are not given the time and effort that they deserve. Michael L. Brown Manager of Technical Services The Reliable Automatic Sprinkler Company, Inc.' [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.reliablesprinkler.com (864) 843-5228 _______________________________________________ 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)
