Uhhhhh, no. Heat shoots right past the sprinkler an collects at the top; depending on the size of the well, it will log down to the sprinkler at some point, but unless you do a fire model that can reasonably predict response time, it's not a conforming condition. I cannot say how many times I've seen a sprinkler 3', 4' and more below the lens of a skylight. That the GC produced an approved plan from another jurisdiction is actually pretty funny and I wonder if they have a bag of tricks where the can pull out "evidence" of acceptability for other errors, omissions and discrepancies. "Look, we did this in 2003 in Dry Gulch County, why can't we do it here?"
Several years ago, I got a plan review correction (I can't even remember what it was now) from City of SD that was based on an NFPA 13 requirement to include something in the plans that we never had done as a regular practice in this city. And it was an inconvenience at the time - it was probably to put the restrictor settings for every PRV hose and control valve on the plans for a high-rise, or calculate every seismic brace instead of the lazy man's worst-case scenario approach that only entailed doing a single detail for all the lats and longs on the system. Anyway, our plan review section at the time wasn't known for its strident enforcement of every nuance in the standard, so I asked the section supervisor why they were requiring it because, "...we've never been asked to do that before." And his answer was a gem, "Just because we've been doing it wrong all this time doesn't mean that we should keep doing it wrong." So that "other" jurisdictional approval means nothing except that the engineer who stamped the plan and AHJ that approved it don't know the standard. In terms of advice for Todd, I would pull out the book and try to teach them that such a large skylight is a feature that warrants its own complement of sprinklers, spaced to the extents of the well, from headwall to headwall both ways, and that sprinklers must be positioned per the deflector distance provisions of whatever type of sprinkler you're using. It's pretty clear in the standard, methinks. Steve L. From: daren welborn <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2026 7:02 AM To: Sprinklerforum <[email protected]> Subject: [Sprinklerforum] Re: Sprinklers in skylights. I would assume the theory is that the smoke plume or heat would riser along the edge of the opening up to the skylight, therefore setting off the sidewall sprinklers??? ________________________________ From: Fpdcdesign <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Friday, February 13, 2026 9:04 AM To: Sprinklerforum <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [Sprinklerforum] Sprinklers in skylights. I am fighting, yet again, old sprinkler in the skylight battle. The skylight is about 60 ft long, 12 ft wide and 4.5 ft from the bottom of the skylight opening to the peak. I showed a single line at the peak with uprights. Obviously to GC doesn't like that. They have a plan from a building in another state with sidewalls in a soffit several feet down from the peak. This was stamped, approved and installed. Is there any justification (Code, fire test, etc) for the sidewall arrangement? If not, why is this still getting approved? This has been going on for a long time. Todd Williams Fire Protection Design/Consulting Stonington, CT 860-608-4559
_________________________________________________________ SprinklerForum mailing list: https://lists.firesprinkler.org/list/sprinklerforum.lists.firesprinkler.org To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
