Fire Safe Life – A Fire Protection Collective

Archive for the ‘Fire Protection Equipment’ Category

This is a guest post by Nick at Guardian Fire Protection. If you would like to Guest Post, check out the Guidelines here.

There’s nothing more important than having well-maintained fire extinguishers in your building – the keyword being “well-maintained”! It’s important to have your fire extinguishers professionally inspected once a year, but it’s arguably MORE important to inspect them yourself every month! Fortunately, it’s hard to go wrong with your monthly fire extinguisher inspection – it’s actually pretty easy.

Monthly Fire Extinguisher Self-Inspection

Monthly fire extinguisher inspections don’t need to be exhaustive – just a quick check over should be fine. And while they should not take the place of professional fire extinguisher inspections, they should definitely supplement them. The important things to check during your monthly fire extinguisher inspections are:

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In the beginning there was brass and it was good. Brass while a good metal for use in water, is was not suitable for corrosive atmospheres found in some industrial facilities.

I live near the coast in Florida and have seen many sprinklers installed in areas such as parking garages, apartment breeze ways, etc. All a nice shade of green. My company makes good money replacing heads in places such as this. Early on in the sprinkler industry they discovered this and worked to develop finishes and coating to protect against corrosion.

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The Water Flow Switch is mounted on a wet-pipe system only. The water flow in the pipe deflects the paddle. The deflection of the paddle produces a switched output. All detectors will activate on a continuous flow of water greater than 10 gallons per minute (gpm) but will not in subtle surges of less than 4 gpm.

Information from Potter Electric Water Flow Alarm Switch Installation Guide:

“The units should not be installed within 6″ (15cm) of a fitting which changes the direction of the water flow or within 24″ (60 cm) of a valve or drain.”

The Water Flow Switch should be mounted 6 to 7 feet above the floor to minimize the switch from being damaged.

Below are two pictures of a Wet Pipe Sprinkler Riser, One was installed properly and the other is “WRONG”.

Incorrect Installation

Correct Installation

I’ve been in the fire protection business for many years and when I see something like this it makes me mad. I cannot believe that a fire protection contractor can let this happen, then the AHJ approved it. I hope by showing the correct and incorrect ways of installation of fire protection equipment will help us all.