Jim,
I am a little curious about the "walk test" function on alarm systems you
are referring to. Could you elaborate on the term. I am not familiar with
this one but I am always looking for ways to make things easier to maintain
and test.
Thanks,
Tom
Thomas Patz
Environmental Health & Safety
Franklin College of Indiana
501 E. Monroe St.
Franklin, IN 46131
(317) 738-8178
-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Robinson [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2001 7:28 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Sprinkler Installations
IACFSO & Ed:
Here's some information on the University of Maryland
experience. Some
background first -
This is a large campus with 46 resident halls (3 - 10 stories;
~10,000
residents @ 30 - 550 per bldg; many designs like garden style apts,
traditional
double loaded corridors, apartments & suites, and highrises,
constructed
between 1912 - 1973), 22 university owned fraternity & sorority
houses leased
to private corporations, plus 20 or so off campus greek houses.
Like most public universities, our resident halls are 'self
support',
receiving no state or university funding. Our fire experience in the
70's was 1
or 2 complete room & contents fires every semester; rarely did they
go beyond
the room of origin. In 79, we installed single station smoke
detectors in every
sleeping room. These dramatically reduced the size of our fires due
to the
early warning we (the occupants) were getting.
In 1983, we removed all fire extinguishers from residential
spaces (still
have them in maint shops, elevator rooms, other 'hazardous areas',
etc. where
required by 101). When they know there aren't any extinguishers,
they tend to
leave faster and call the FD quicker. Our # & size of fire incidents
has not
increased, our $$'s damaged has decreased, our injuries are down,
and the FD
gets on the scene earlier.
Besides the res hall fires, we experienced several R&C fires in
adacemic &
service buildings, enough so that our Facilities VP declared that
all new
construction & major renovations would incorporate auto sprinklers.
At this
time (late 70's), we had about 100,000 sq ft of sprinkler protection
campus
wide, no fully sprinklered resident halls.
In 1980, we embarked on a program of gutting & renovation of 17
older dorms
which started with the construction of 6 garden style apartments
that were our
1st fully sprinkler res halls. In 1985, we started the retrofit of
resident
halls that were not scheduled for renovation under the above
program, doing
50,000 - 100,000 per year. Although the retrofit program stopped in
91, at the
beginning of a recession, renovations have continued, adding older
halls to the
original 17. This was funded by bonds paid back by self support
funds and
resident fees.
In the early 90's we started the renovation of 14 of our campus
greek
houses, a program similar to the resident hall renovation program
but funded by
per-bed assessments to the greek organizations. These corporations
were given
the option of joining this program. Those that didn't were given a
deadline to
have certain utility & life safety upgrades including sprinklers
completed.
Only one house has completed this so in the next few years, the
others are
being pushed into a renovation program.
About a month ago, our student affairs group (they oversee the
resident
halls & greek houses) announces a $10.8 million four year plan to
retrofit the
remaining 9 resident halls & 6 sorority houses with new sprinkler &
fire alarm
systems, funded by a resident fee increase of $81 (I can't remember
if this is
per year or per semester). Though this translates to more than $10
per sq ft,
more than half of this is going to cosmetic stuff, not
sprinkler/fire alarm.
I've imbedded some responses to your questions below.
"Ed Comeau, Publisher" wrote:
> I am working on a story for an upcoming issue of Campus Firewatch
on
> sprinkler installations in residence halls and Greek housing, and
I am
> looking for some assistance. I would be interested in people's
experiences
> with the following:
>
> -Convincing the administration for the need and getting funding
You need to have a couple of 'good' fires on your own campus or
keep
hammering them with the experiences of other campuses like Chapel
Hill, Seton
Hall, Bloomsburg, etc.
>
> -Design methods/tips/strategies
Follow NFPA 13 (basement mechanical, storage, shops office & meeting
spaces) &
13R (for sleeping spaces) and hire a good sprinkler contractor to do
the design
stuff.
>
> -Cost issues
There are lots of things that need to be considered that can be
broken down to
descrete components for estimating purposes -
1) the incoming water line (from the street to the building) may
be old
(tuberculated) or too small to support the sprinkler system - try to
figure out
a unit price per linear ft for estimating purposes
2) for estimating fire pumps, get some unit costs for packages
that include
the fire pump, jockey pump, and controllers for various sizes of
there - 250,
500, & 750 gpm for instance.
3) there are lots of sources for sq ft estimates of sprinkler
systems, both
new installation (which is generally less per sq ft) and retrofit
from the WWW.
4) don't even think about attaching a new sprinkler system to a
30 year old
fire alarm system and don't let them install a sub panel to monitor
the tampers
& flows and activate an old system. you really should replace the
fire alarm
system if it's more than 10 years old and particularly if it's not
an
addressable system.
5) be sure that the fire alarm has the 'walk test' feature so
the system
can be tested with minimal personnel.
>
> -Installation design/tips/strategies, especially regarding
installations that
> minimize downtime and disruption
I have lots of these, probably too many to list in an email
response. Simple
things include using existing standpipe risers, adding spklr valve
connections
on each floor; use concealed heads in corridors (less prone to
damage by
freshmen, frisbees, & footballs; if you don't have enough space for
concealed
heads, line up the struts of exposed heads in the direction of the
hall to
protect the fusible element; don't specify steel over CPVC because
the plastic,
if installed right, will last as long (or longer) than steel; avoid
fire pumps
if you can, if you can't, use the smallest you can get away with but
a minimum
of 250 gpm (they're not special order items, 150's usually are);
look at
DecoShield with CPVC and SoffitSteel to conceal piping where space
is at a
premium; and the list goes on ....
Inspector's test valves should be piped to an express drain line
that
discharges outside the building or to a big sump pit. This will save
time
during testing and makes emergency drain downs easy to execute.
>
> -Success stories where sprinklers have played a role
Over the last 21 years, we've had numerous successes in our
sprinklered halls
and several 'boy, were we lucky' in non-sprinklered halls. We also
had one
'failure' in 1976, a fire death in a fully sprinklered building. The
reasons
for this were 1) it was before smoke detectors were installed, 2) it
was before
residential heads were on the market, and 3) the fatality had an
extremely high
BAC and couldn't respond appropriately when he set his mattress on
fire.
>
> -Unforeseen difficulties encountered during installations
Hydraulic calcs showed need for a 150 gpm fire pump. Since this is
not an off
the shelf model, it took more than 3 months to get one. Students
were moving in
for the fall semester as the pump was being installed. Spec 250 gpm
as a
minimum.
With lots of good planning and some experience, most problems can be
avoided.
Networking with those who have been there can prevent reinvention of
the wheel.
>
> -Experiences with sprinkler ordinances
We haven't had success in getting mandatory retrofit ordinances,
only where
required in new construction/renovation. Ours has been primarily a
voluntary
retrofit program.
>
> -Anything else related to sprinklers!
>
> If you would like to share your experiences, I'd really appreciate
it. You
> can contact me at
>
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
>
> Thanks, everyone!
>
> Ed
>
> -------------------------------
> Ed Comeau, Publisher
> Campus Firewatch
> PO Box 1046
> Belchertown, MA 01007
> http://www.campus-firewatch.com
> mailto:[log in to unmask]
> 1-413-323-6002 (tel)
> 1-413-323-5295 (fax)
> -------------------------------
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