To hijack part of George's fine hi jack. I was at my first sprinkler class
given by NFPA in Seattle. The fire alarm went off. Of all the AHJ's,
contractor's, designer's, engineer's, only 1 or 2 left immediately. An
announcement was made from the podium and the rest of us left. When the all
clear was sounded, a person who had immediately left went to great detail to
tell how disappointed he was that the rest of us sat in our chairs like
fools. He was right, we were fools.
-----Original Message-----
From: George Church
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 11:05 AM
To: sprinklerforum@firesprinkler.org
Subject: RE: History Lesson - Spray Sprinklers become the Standard
In our specialty freezer systems, we have less than 30 seconds to bring the
four most remote sprinklers up to their operating pressure. Once they catch
fire, the commodities in a freezer- and the freezer itself, depending on
integrity of sheathing and interior insulation components, burn quite well.
It would be tough to expect we'd be able to meet this performance-based
design criteria with a manual system, BTW we've got trip time on the
preaction valve down below 4 seconds.....
Thom is fine, he routinely calls/emails to check my output. Its still
strong.
I'll tell you why I don't trust manual systems. On the eve of 9/11 my wife
and I were finishing up dinner at about 10 PM when the FA sounded. Now you'd
think on this particularly day, we'd have the most awesome awareness of
death and destruction, and maybe it would sink into people's heads that if
you understand there could be a fire, it might be a good idea TO GET THE
HECK OUT OF THE BUILDING!!! (or as Roland puts it, RUN LIKE HELL!!!)
Nope, we were the ONLY people to get up and walk out. Further, we were
alone, from what we could see, in the area surrounding the hotel tower that
was atop the restaurant. Granted, the resort was about empty since the
incoming AFSA convention had been cancelled- or was about to be, not many
had shown up when transportation became difficult-but nobody reacted except
us and the maintenance dude we saw running one way, walking briskly another
way, and when we settled down to a plain old walk we returned to our table
and finished up, shaking our heads. It was tempting to discuss the situation
with the other diners, but somehow, I refrained from frustrating my spouse
and self. It taught me that you can NEVER rely on anyone doing anything
when an alarm or light or electric shock is presented as a stimulus.
I might relent and allow a cold-weather valve.....maybe. Don't think I've
ever designed one into a system in 37+ years.
I wonder if any of the fitters screwed up and pointed what had to be an
obviously pendent hole toward the deck by mistake? That was way before even
NASFCA.
George L. Church, Jr., CET
Rowe Sprinkler Systems, Inc.
PO Box 407, Middleburg, PA 17842
877-324-ROWE 570-837-6335 fax
g...@rowesprinkler.com
-----Original Message-----
From: sprinklerforum-boun...@firesprinkler.org
[mailto:sprinklerforum-boun...@firesprinkler.org] On Behalf Of
bcasterl...@fsc-inc.com
Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2012 4:59 PM
To: sprinklerforum@firesprinkler.org
Subject: RE: History Lesson - Spray Sprinklers become the Standard
Fascinating stuff! The very first sprinkler had a pendent orientation- it
was a hole in the bottom of a pipe ;). It might be that the value of a
simple manual system is over-looked these days. (especially freezers where
you have what, 3 or 4 days b4 the combustible even thaws out?)
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