You should know exactly what is causing the leaking before making any decision. All leaks look the same on the outside of the pipe. They don’t tell you much. Find some leaks and replace that section of piping and fittings. Then slice the removed section in half lengthwise so that you can see the entire inside surface. The information gained from those samples will say much. If anything telling is visible in that sample then more samples should be taken elsewhere where there are no leaks to see if there is something going on system wide.
Allan Seidel St. Louis, MO On Aug 10, 2014, at 10:22 AM, Douglas Hicks <[email protected]> wrote: > The copper is at least 20 years old. I can see 3 places in the riser room , > where there are leak patterns on the ceiling. The system control valve is > open. The pressure gauge is holding at 60 PSI, and the leak patterns are dry. > The leak seems to have stopped by itself, but I expect it to open again > later. > That will give me time to figure what is needed and how to accomplish the > goal of having a sprinkler system that will protect the occupants of the > house. > > The owners of the property have approximately 85 or 90 group homes, most of > which have sprinkler systems. They have had problems with the copper piping > and tried to fix only the leaks. Their experience has been it is less > expensive to replace the copper with CPVC. As to their awareness of problems > with antifreeze, that is a question I have not addressed with them. Nor have > I talked to the city FM or the State FM about this building. > > I like to have some solutions before I go to the AHJ. > > We service about 16 of these group homes, 8 have problems with the sprinkler > systems. Finally, we may be allowed to do repairs, and upgrades. > -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] > Sent: Sunday, August 10, 2014 6:49 AM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: copper pipe vs. CPVC > > After watching this thread for a week and thinking about all the collateral > issues with plastic, my next step would be to go back to the owner and > question their motivation for the copper to plastic recommendation. It may on > the surface appear cheaper to just change copper to plastic, but properly > addressing all the issues associated with plastic may swing the deal back in > favor of repairing the leaks in the copper system. How old is the system? > Where is it leaking? How many leaks? Is there an obvious cause for the > leaks? Questions are cheap. > Mark at Aero > [email protected] > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
