Thom, I believe there exists a misunderstanding of exactly what codes and standards represent. From a municipal enforcing agency standpoint codes and standards represent some level of adequacy with regards to public safety and firefighters. From an Insurance and Owners standpoint some level of property and mission preservation. Theres a distinct difference in goals.
Frankly I think some have come to rely on public safety codes and standards as universally adequate. On the other hand I have first hand experience with stakeholders who exceed adopted codes and standards simply because that's the level of protection they deem adequate. Intrestingly our state construction code contains public school educational enhancements that exceed the requirements of the IBC. The moral to the story is stakeholders must be educated to understand the difference between public safety goals and property and mission preservation goals. John Drucker Fire Protection Subcode Official (AHJ) Red Bank, NJ -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Thom McMahon Sent: Saturday, December 13, 2008 4:21 PM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Hi Rise Secondary Source ... again As a friend of my keeps telling people, "The Code is always 100% clear in its intention and meaning,---Until the second person reads it." I really believe that while the codes and standards we use are the minimum, what we really are seeking is a "Comfort level" at which we have done a reasonable amount to reduce the hazard while admitting that we could do more at some additional cost. That comfort level must be felt by all share holders. The Owner, Design team, AHJ, Insurance company and the contractor. Sounding them out before making an assumption of what they think is good enough, before design usually saves many wasted steps. How much stored water for a secondary source, will always have a different set of guide lines for every share holder than what the only source might have. As I ended the last post on this, Ask the AHJ and insurance underwriter what they require. (Their requirements may be different than yours or the codes.) Thom McMahon, SET Firetech, Inc. 2560 Copper Ridge Dr P.O. Box 882136 Steamboat Springs, CO 80488 Tel: 970-879-7952 Fax: 970-879-7926 Thom, I checked IBC after posting. It says the tank is to be sized for 30 minutes of the "hydraulically calculated sprinkler demand, including the hose stream allowance". There is no mention of standpipe demand. I might be wrong, but I have never seen "hose stream allowance" used in context of anything but sprinkler calculations. Is it? Please let me know. Could it be that the code writers know that a hose stream allowance is part of a sprinkler demand calculation and that it might be confusing if they did not flat out say standpipe demand if that is what they really meant? I think that is a fair assumption, of course sometimes it seems like the code committees conspire together over drinks and with rousing laughter to, "make'm scratch their heads for hours over this one." Allan Seidel St. Louis, MO _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
