Our experience with PA American Water is similar to Steve's; they do maintain hydrant flow data and share for locales where they do have historical data, they are consistent in the application of their policies, and they fully meter all combined services with no requirement for separate fire main taps. Can the local fire marshals help you overcome the dilemma by noting the reduction in reliability when unnecessary pumps are required?
We are adding a booster pump due to a degradation model by a local city's water bureau, however, in an area where it shouldn't be allowed. This city has adopted a local amendment that requires use of the degraded supply. However, absent a local amendment to the state Uniform Construction Code the surrounding townships that get water from this city water bureau are not bound to comply with the degradation model, and in fact are prohibited from enforcing it since application of the degradation model would be introducing a requirement without a law to require it. The local township BCO agrees. However, our customer's lawyer said he'd spend $100k to maybe beat the water bureau in court, lose a year of schedule, to save a $30,000 pump. THAT is along the lines of political clout strong-arming customers into submission that Alan described. George L. Church, Jr., CET Rowe Sprinkler Systems, Inc. PO Box 407, Middleburg, PA 17842 877-324-ROWE 570-837-6335 fax [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Leyton Sent: Monday, October 31, 2011 1:04 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: Is there an 8000 lb gorilla in your area influencing fire sprinkler systems? Allan: Your question, and Joel's reply are not consistent with my experience here in San Diego County with American Water's local service company, which was formerly known as Cal-American Water. Here, they serve the City of Coronado, and portions of Imperial Beach and an annexed area of San Diego, as well as three Navy bases (more or less). They are not the biggest player in the market in California by a long margin, and here in SD they're visible, but not a gorilla. And they have been very, VERY easy to work with, including provision of flow data, based on models that determine the residual pressure at the back of curb, where they leave off after installation of a new fire service lateral. Have never had to deal with the issues you describe regarding pumps and so forth. If I had to pick one district to hold up as a customer service model, based on my experiences only, I would probably consider them along with a couple others, ironically. SL ________________________________ From: [email protected] on behalf of AKS-Gmail-IMAP Sent: Sun 10/30/2011 3:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Is there an 8000 lb gorilla in your area influencing fire sprinkler systems? The subject of this question is American Water based in NJ that sells 90% or more of the water in the USA and Canada through its subsidiary local water companies that it has been buying up for some time. A water company here is one of these. Except for a couple of systems, it controls practically all the water in the St. Louis metropolitan area on the Missouri side of the Mississippi river. Another such company controls the water on the Illinois side of the Mississippi river. It is common knowledge the water company managers will not provide historical hydrant test information even though the company is present at every hydrant test made on their system. Fire sprinkler systems around here are usually designed based upon recent hydrant tests with some debating over the required safety factor applied to the available water energy. The local Fire Marshall reviews and approves the final design and water supply basis. The local water supply networks vary from place to place in supply quality and their hydrant test results are predictable. Such is how it has been. Recently the water company has added the fire sprinkler system to its water tap application documents. They now hold a project's water tap in ransom if the sprinkler system design extracts more water energy than some value that they determine based on the tap's location. A 20% safety margin has been mentioned in this forum as excessive. That is nothing compared to a 35% to 40% margin ransom value. The water company refuses to make the tap unless the fire sprinkler system design is changed to require no more energy than a value they dictate, regardless of the AHJ's prior approval and historical system knowledge. Is that starting to happen in your area? If so, is the tap ransom a function of the project's construction cost? One might say the water company is looking out for our safety. I suspect they are intentionally trying to decrease the liability of extracting more profit from their customers that results from not properly applying water sales fees into maintaining water supply systems. There have been a few reports of dramatic water supply failures during fires. These have been on American Water owned systems. If a fire pump goes into a project as a result of the water company mandate, then the water company's expected failure responsibility cost is reduced by the added probability of fire pump failure and electrical system supple failure and so on. Maybe this kind of profit optimization adds up to big money when you supply 90% of the water and you control every tap. Maybe it means even more if you also had a stake in the pump business. I don't know if they do, but if you supply water it might help to make your own pumps. Allan Seidel St. Louis, MO _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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