If I recall how it was explained to me, the testing concept, among other things, is to buy time. If you can prove the heads are in acceptable condition you can extend their usable life, but not in perpetuity. If the heads are still serviceable you get another year and so on up to X years (I forget but I think 10). This gives the owner a better ability to manage the change out. If I owned a high rise I'd have started changing them out earlier than the due date and come up with a plan acceptable to the FM to stretch the cost out over several years. Failing to be proactive before the expiration date, and hopefully finding that the heads were still serviceable after the testing means I have a good start on replacement and would immediately try to cut a deal with the AHJ to amortize the cost. Maybe 20% per year for five years in exchange for no more tests.
And my opinion to your original question is that the property manager is right, at least in this case. Unless there is some change in occupancy in this high rise that would make one floor more likely to be impacted than another. Perhaps a parking garage if it's by the sea or some other potentially corrosive atmosphere. But otherwise what value is there in having a full sampling from each floor? Why would the 12th floor of an office building have more or less impact on the viability of the heads installed there than say the 14th floor, or the 2nd, or the 23rd, or...? But of course I may be missing something here. On Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 7:23 AM, Charles Thurston <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Sprinklerforum, > > Looking for a conses of how heads are picked to remove and send for > testing. We have an AHJ that has been calling a floor an "area" for > testing, Now that is being challenged by a property management co that > claims it should be per: > > 3.6.4* Sprinkler System. For fire protection purposes, an integrated > system of underground and overhead piping designed > in accordance with fire protection engineering standards. The installation > includes at least one automatic water supply that > supplies one or more systems. The portion of the sprinkler system above > ground is a network of specially sized or hydraulically > designed piping installed in a building, structure, or area, generally > overhead, and to which sprinklers are attached > in a systematic pattern. Each system has a control valve located in the > system riser or its supply piping. Each sprinkler system > includes a device for actuating an alarm when the system is in operation. > The system is usually activated by heat from a fire > and discharges water over the fire area. [13, 2010] > > They are claiming that an "Area" is everything off that standpipe riser. > Now if this is a high rise with floor controls off the standpipe, Does not > each floor control make that floor a "system" or "Area" unto itself? > > -- > Best regards, > Charles mailto:[email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org > -- Ron Greenman Instructor Fire Protection Engineering Technology Bates Technical College 1101 So. Yakima Ave. Tacoma, WA 98405 [email protected] http://www.bates.ctc.edu/fireprotection/ 253.680.7346 253.576.9700 (cell) Member: ASEE, SFPE, ASCET, NFPA, AFSA, NFSA, AFAA, NIBS, WSAFM, WFC, WFSC They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations. -Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626) A problem well stated is a problem half solved. -Charles F. Kettering, inventor and engineer (1876-1958) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
