What doesn’t make the news, for some reason, are instances where fire sprinkler systems spare lives, prevent injuries and minimize property damage. And if reported,
the existence of a fire sprinkler system barely makes it into the storyline.
When
designing a fire sprinkler system for a new or existing building, all kinds of
fun little words seem to jump right off the page into the eyes of a fire
protection engineer. Words like: rubber
tires…plastics…petroleum…inks…nitrocellulose film…process vessel…oxygen
tank…roll paper…propane…
Pete Lazdins, SET, provides fire protection license assistance and sells fire pumps as president of Compufire.us Inc., based in Seminole, FL. In this exclusive interview, he talks about his long career and his views on the changes and trends taking place in fire sprinklers.
Held March 6-10 in Germany, ISH Frankfurt had 2,392 exhibitors from 58 countries showcasing
products and technologies in 10 buildings, occupying almost the entire Messe
Frankfurt Exhibition Center. Of those exhibitors, 20 were from the
United States.
Previously, there have not been any readily available methods for predicting the time required to deliver water to the test connection of a dry sprinkler system. A designer could never know whether his or her system met the 60-second water delivery criterion for dry systems with a capacity greater than 750 gallons until it was installed and actually tested.
For years, the gravity tank has graced urban skylines,
housing water and harnessing an energy known as simple gravity. Prior to the proliferation of
fire pumps, the wooden rooftop water tanks were long considered the first line
of defense against high-rise building fires. They ensured both an adequate
quantity of water and adequate pressure.
The
first meeting of the IAPMO Plumbing Technical Committee and Mechanical
Technical Committee will take place the week of April 23, 2007, in St. Louis,
MO-the first meeting that the changes to the 2009 Uniform Codes will be
discussed. Equally important, the ASPE Legislative Committee proposed a series
of code changes that would dovetail into the code changes proposed by the DWV
task group.
Every year around this time, the temperatures begin to increase. Simultaneously, the important events of the plumbing engineering industry tend to do the same.
Last month, I finished part one of this column with a section called “The Code Compliance Debacle.” In there, I noted that, as the traditional healthcare landscape changes, the odyssey of code compliance becomes a never-ending journey. It’s a code-saturated playing field.
Fire is an actuality of very low probability, but one of severe consequence. Once it starts to spread, fire moves quickly, producing an abundance of blinding toxic smoke. And smoke kills. If you think long and hard about each and every building in your town, the very last place you would want a fire to start is in your local hospital.