American Fire Sprinkler Association
12750 Merit Dr., Suite 350 Dallas TX 75251
Ph: (214) 349-5965 Fax: (214) 276-0908
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TECHNICAL UPDATE
July 23, 2008
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"A building has a ceiling slope of 3.5 in 12 that has Class III
storage to 12 ft high. The 1999 Edition of NFPA 13 allowed
miscellaneous storage to have sloped ceilings and the 2002 Edition
does not since 12.1.7 applies to Chapter 12 where miscellaneous
storage is located. Are sloped ceilings allowed for miscellaneous
storage?"
We have reviewed the 2002 Edition of NFPA 13 as the applicable
Standard. Our informal interpretation is that miscellaneous storage
is permitted to have a sloped ceiling greater than 2 in 12.
The general requirement of 12.1.7 in the 2002 Edition indicates that
the criteria apply to buildings with ceiling slopes not exceeding 2 in
12. There are no overriding statements in 12.1.10 for miscellaneous
storage indicating that the ceiling must not exceed 2 in 12 slope.
This was not the intent of the committee from the information provided
in the 2006 Report on Proposal and Report on Comments. This was
corrected in the 2007 Edition in Section 13.2.2 to clarify that the
design criteria and modifiers of Chapter 11 shall be applicable. Thus
a slope exceeding 2 in 12 is permitted for miscellaneous storage. As
you indicated in your question, the 1999 edition in Section 7-2.3.2.2
for miscellaneous storage permitted a ceiling slope greater than 2 in
12. Section 7-3.1.3 indicated that the sprinkler system criteria
specified in Section 7-3 is intended to apply to buildings with
ceiling slopes not exceeding 2 in 12. Since Section 7-3 does not apply
to Section 7-2, the ceiling slope limitation did not apply to
miscellaneous storage.
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Technical Update is prepared by the Technical Services Dept. of the
AFSA: Vice President of Engineering and Technical Services Roland
Huggins, a PE registered in fire protection engineering; Phill Brown,
a NICET IV certified automatic sprinkler technician and NFPA Certified
Fire Protection Specialist (CFPS) and Tom Wellen, a degreed fire
protection engineering technologist. This is provided with the
understanding that the AFSA assumes no liability for this opinion or
actions taken on it and they are not to be considered the official
position of the NFPA or its technical committees.
Copyright (c) 2008, American Fire Sprinkler Association. All Rights
Reserved
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