Hi
I am building a Residential home in Maine
I would like to find a Residential company(s) that install fire sprinkler system in my area
I did find one company but they do mostly Commercial and the price was very high to install a fire sprinkler system
This Commercial company did Recommend that i look for a residential company in my area
the house is near Bar Harbor Maine
I have a well not city water, the house has 2 floors and almost 3000 sq. ft.
Can someone tell were to begin looking
Thanks
Replies
The fact is that almost all sprinkler work is industrial, commercial, or multi-family. There just isn't enough strictly residential work in the sprinkler industry. The company you spoke with, do they use iron pipe or plastic? You want to speak to a company which does multi-family work with plastic pipe or fire rated water tube. They will probably design you a stand alone fire system, with an intergal monitored alarm. There are systems that can be installed by a plumber, using the domestic water supply piping. These are more difficult to monitor, but are cheaper.
Stand alone systems are a proven system, with almost a hundred years of installed history
Thanks
You might start looking at regular plumbers.
And check with Uponr (sp?) and read up on their system and the other new residential systems that use PVC or PEX and have the heads tied with the domestic cold water so that there are no stagnet water in the system.
And check with the manufactures to know if they have any users in your area.
Since this is new area their field rep's might be willing to do some handholding with your and or your plumber.
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
You might start looking at regular plumbers.
The problem with that, is who designs the system?
And check with Uponr (sp?) and read up on their system and the other new residential systems that use PVC or PEX and have the heads tied with the domestic cold water so that there are no stagnet water in the system.
These concerns about stagnet water are overstated. The bigger question? How is the system monitored? I do not see how these combined systems can be monitored.
what gets monitored in the monitored systems?
what gets monitored in the monitored systems?
Water flow=Fire trucks
Depends of what the intent of the system is. If it is to save lives then monitor is not needed.
But a monitored system would save more lives
And smoke/fire monitoring can be completely independent security system.
Almost always is. Life safety is much more important, and dealt with more rigidly by inspectors, AHJ, and the NEC than security systems. I have acted a superintendent on more than one jewelry store, as well as the head office of a national jeweler. Big bucks. Even there, the ADT wire men were very remedial on there knowlege.
Also my though was that the manufactures will have design information and again with the newness of the systems that their reps might do some hand holding.
Depending on the state, although if I was a manufacturer, I would not want to design something as potentially litigious as a fire system. I would leave that to a state certified designer
And I doubt that the design needs near that complicated as industrial/commercial applications.
True dat
> But a monitored system would save more livesBut, by the same token, one could argue that all smoke detectors should be wired into the FD. Why isn't that done?
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
False alarms are much easier with smoke detectors. A correctly built sprinkler system should give an alarm only when there is water flowing. Either a fire busted a head, and the FD better put out the fire, or your kid just busted a head. And the fire department will help clean that up too.
Yeah, but the whole idea is to save lives, not money, right?
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
What is your point? Is it that residential smoke detectors are not monitored? And that somehow endangers lives? It probably does, but so does having the FD respond hither and yawn bacon and burgers, and not able to respond to real fires. This question has been looked at by fire departments, the NFPA, and governments for a long time. If you do not agree, I suggest that you make it the conerstone of your run for office
My point is that everything is a tradeoff, and the cost-effectiveness of solutions must be considered. In addition, legal issues must be considered -- it's illegal in many parts of the country to have an autodialer hooked up to call the FD or police, unless you've paid a licensing fee in advance, or some such.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
And there's the simple issue of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. If, indeed, residential sprinklers are effective for saving lives (and more effective than spending the money somewhere else), it's counter-productive to insist that they be "monitored" or they shouldn't exist.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
how many lives are we talking about saving from residential (I'm talking homes and not hotels, apartments, etc.) fires annually?
I have no idea. I'd hope that the folks pushing the sprinkler proposal have analyzed that and come up with a number.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Based on 2008 numbers it'll be a fraction of 2780. A smaller fraction considering that number includes motels, hotels, apartments. etc as well as the 1 & 2 family dwellings. The new IRC covers only the 1 & 2 families. It's going to be a lot of costs mandated to benefit a very few.
This is my thinking. It would be interesting to hear the arguments on both sides.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Recall the short discussion about rural houses on wells?Well, part of the answers to some conjecture are in the this month's article in FHB & the follow up in the blog on the home page for FHB. None of us knew the water requirements for a system being supplied by a well. The blog says it's 2 sprinkler heads combined using 26 GPM for ten minutes. That's 260 gallons in a pressure tank, bladder tank, cistern or a well that can pump that much. That's one heck of a lot of water to store & deliver at pressure for ten minutes, especially using residual pressure in a tank. I have an 80 gal storage tank that hogs a big hunk of my well house - & it has no room in it for pressurized air to push out water. I'd hate to have 2 1/2 times that plus pressurized air space! Practically speaking - If my house is going to burn, I don't want to be relying on electricity to keep my pump operating - after all, the electricity runs through my house to get to the well, & if my house is burning, I may well lose power. In my book, it should all be passive for this sort of emergency - to me that is gravity feed, requiring a tank on a tower.Second issue. Do NOT put a monetary value on a human life. I know too many guys who have died saving someone else. Do any of you have the guts to look someone in the eye & say "Sorry, you are not worth saving."? Cost/benefit ratios are only valid for non-human evaluations & decision making.That being said - make sprinkled single & double family sprinklers optional W/ the owner having to consciously decline their inclusion in a construction effort. Any Spec house - they are mandatory.Third issue: stand alone vs. integrated systems & inspections. Any home owner who has to inspect something periodically will probably NOT do it! Therefore, the system must be self inspecting. The integrated system fills that bill - almost. Face it - if the water runs to take a shower, it's available to fight a fire. If the sprinkler heads leak, you'll know it. If there's enough pressure to shower, there's enough to sprinkle. A stand alone requires frequent, periodic inspections. They just will not get done by Harry Homeowner. Well, let the Gummint do it! Yep - now we are inviting the Nanny State we all love into our homes periodically. But it's just to look at the sprinkler system, they'll say. Then the rat finks looking at the sprinklers start reporting to the building inspector things they find interesting & next thing you know, they want to come invade our property.A county in Metro Atlanta tried that & darned near had an armed insurrection on their hands. You don't want that in rural GA. Armed includes pitchforks & bundles of burning fagots.Oh, yes - now we add the cost of all the inspectors to come rummage through our homes & think what that does to our taxes. Well, we'll contract it out & Harry Homeowner pays the inspecting company - another increased cost of having the sprinkler.This whole idea sucks a horrible wind - & it ain't gonna get one bit better.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
> make sprinkled single & double family sprinklers optional W/ the owner having to consciously decline their inclusion in a construction effort.<
Won't be an option under any jurisdiciton that adopts the 2009 IRC. it will be mandatory.
John: realize that. I was merely hypothesizing what ought to be.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
OK,
Now for the sake of discussion and to all the those that are proponents of the sprinkler systems, have you made plans to, or already have retrofitted your house with sprinkler systems? Becuase afterall, if you can save jsut one life, it's woth the costs, right?
John: Retrofitting my house would be a humongous PITA. It starts out nearly fireproof. The downstairs is ICF's w/ only only one wood wall 24 inches long in the occupied space. Tough for that to burn in a self sustained fashion.Upstairs is, unfortunately for fire prevention, stick construction. We have all the code required smoke/fire detectors installed No one who comes here smokes, removing that source. Ever since we have been married, we & all our children sleep w/ their doors closed. Everyone has been taught from the time they can walk to get out if the alarms go off. Amazingly, all the kids, & now our grand kids, sleep behind closed doors. It is also only a 4 ft drop from our BR window to the ground.We live way out in the woods. So far out that our fire ins co told us that to be insured, we had to have a non-combustible roof & we'd better cut down any tree that could burn & fall on the structure. We have no shrubbery that can burn near the house. We have a Gerard steel roof, warranted to 125mph sustained winds. As part of the roof structure, the underside of the deck is foamed in place Poly that will not sustain combustion. The soffit & eaves are non-combustible product & there are no ventilation inlets in the soffit to suck flame heated air into the house - Attic is closed & inside the conditioned air system. I checked an actual sample of what they put in w/ my propane torch before letting them put it in. We also have a well. You've seen my posts about that issue. Throwing in all the expense & the statistics you quote on SFD fires, plus the true PITA it would be to retrofit my house, we have made a conscious decision to not do so.Now, that being said, in retrospect, I'd fit it for sprinklers while building it if I had it to do over. At least if the piping were in, adding the rest later would be easy. I'd put in an integrated system, rather than a stand alone.Gotta go help clean house - #1 Son coming tonight to help me on a maintenance /repair project. Don't want him to see clutter!DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
I don't have the research on this, but I think that I have heard that most deaths are caused not by the structure on fire, but contents on fire.And external fire to the house rarely causes death. Usually enough warning air of time.And these kind of sprinkler won't help at all with structural damage from an external fire..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
But I believe the point was that saying "you can't put a value on human life" and then turning around and saying that you won't install sprinklers because it would be a "PITA" (even though you've previously said that sprinklers SHOULD be installed in new construction) is somewhat inconsistent.Virtually every major decision made in road construction, automobile design, aircraft design, etc, is placing a dollar value on human life, implicitly if not explicitly.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
No, I'm not inconsistent. I said that all SPEC housing should be mandatory. For owner built or contracted, should be owner option. I made a conscious decision - no one else did it for me.I believe that my house is safe enough, considering all the passive parts of the house being designed/constructed for safety AT THE TIME I BUILT IT. Unless I want exposed pipes in some living spaces, I have no intentions of retrofitting.DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
But "safe enough" isn't as safe as it could be. You're putting a value (your own inconvenience) on human life.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
But it is my choice. We all do that every day. I'm alive because I wear a skateboard helmet riding in a car. Got T-boned by a Jeep Cherokee. My head hit the window & window shattered. Helmet saved me from broken neck & head injury. Would have died from intercranial bleeding due to being on Coumadin. People laughed their Arses off at me in that helmet. I had the last laugh. No one laughs any more.I wear it because #2 Daughter, an ER Doc, told me to if I went up ladders. One ladder fall would probably kill me from head trauma. I jokingly commented that maybe I should wear it in the car. She pointed at me & said "Good idea, Dad!", so I was stuck w/ it. To my good fortune.
DonDon Reinhard
The Glass Masterworks
"If it scratches, I etch it!"
But what if the sprinker system puts the cost new house of reach of some one so that they remain in an existing home that is much less safer than current housing without a sprinker.Now I know that will never happen directly. But it does down. It those people say in there older, house. And the people that would buy that house can't move; ie until you get down to the people that are living in fire trap..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
The problem with the 'at any cost' argument is that it is primarily used to keep profit margins high, not provide safety. I am thinking of retrofitting a few heads in my upcoming major rehab of my house. Other than a head over the boiler and one in the kitchen, any others would just be to create a safe path out of the house for occupants. Getting anyone to think outside of the dollars per square foot box is nearly impossible. As for well water supply, i don't see the point in worrying, if the fire has burned the wires, then your smoke detectors as well as your sprinklers have already failed you. An unlikely combination. If one is not going after an insurance discount, I don't see the point of all the regulation of installation. If they can be done for a reasonable amount, I am all for installation in new construction. I have cleaned a head off of a sprinkler system at work, due to the garage door guys flexing the pipes out of the way to install the door. pipe creeps back, door opens, pink. Boy is there a lot of water in that systemLucky the valve was in my unit
Now for the sake of discussion and to all the those that are proponents of the sprinkler systems, have you made plans to, or already have retrofitted your house with sprinkler systems? Becuase afterall, if you can save jsut one life, it's woth the costs, right?
John,
You know that is a ridiculous argument, and not worth responding to. As far as the IBC, UBC, IRC ad infinitum, I am far from an expert. What I will say is that where I work, multi-family housing less than 15 units do have sprinklers. The smallest new apartment I worked on was a fully sprinklered five-unit. Whether this was mandated by the local or state governments, the insurance companies, or the owners, I really don't know.
Reno,
Your points are well taken, and express what I was trying to say: that the contractor(s) the OP contacted are all working under 13 or 13r. The full design and installation ramifications of 13d are far from done, and it will continue for some time to find a fully qualified 13d contractor.
I could not agree more about not putting a monetary value on human life.
Once I met a guy on a job who was a longtime member of his local volunteer fire dept. As I got to know him pretty good I asked him "what was the worst thing you ever saw?"
He thought about it for second and then said the worst was when they went to a fire and the parents got out but the kids didn't make it.
I couldn't imagine how that could happen, he said it was all the confusion, parents thought kids were out and when they couldn't find them and tried to get back in they had to be restrained.
I was never happy with the explanation, there is no way that could happen to me I thought, I would be dead too from trying to save my kids. It didn't seem to add up somehow, but nonetheless I believe the man I spoke to witnessed people have to suffer through the difficult thing of seeing their children die in a house fire.
I think that story illustrates that it might be possible, and it may well add costs to those of us who might never need it because we were otherwise responsible and practiced the drills with our kids etc. but then again kids can get scared and confused even the best of parents that had trained the kids and practiced with the kids still might have to rescue the kids when the house caught fire.
It might save those who would be unable to save themselves otherwise.
It's going to be a lot of costs mandated to benefit a very few.
But if non monitored systems are used, and the system is incorporated into the domestic water supply, the price should not be that high. It won't be like plumbing in a commercial system with 6" check valves, 200' of 4" pipe, two man-lifts, and a bevy of pipe fitters
>the price should not be that high.<
that's a good point. But what is that price going to be? The OP can't get anyone to give him one.
But what is that price going to be? The OP can't get anyone to give him one.
I would expect that is because there are no "new wave" sprinkler plumbers/fitters in the area (world?) yet. So all construction and design is having to go through the old school sprinkler companies who are set up to deal with commercial, industrial, and multi-family customers. The OP is a man ahead of his time, or with pockets not deep enough for now.
You seem like you might know the IBC pretty well or work under it. Do you know if newer versions of the IBC will be removing the exceptions for sprinklers in the smaller apartment buildings? Seem I recall a threshold of of 14 units per building not needing sprinklers as long as afew other criteria were met. (I don't know the IBC very well at all just occasional ventures into it as a carpenter sub for others.)
Point I'm trying to make/question is that if the IRC that covers 1 & 2 dwelling res units requires sprinklers then shouldn't he IBC that covers most everything else have it's exclusions removed since those structures typically hold move numbers of lives?
Just to get everyone pointed in the right direction ...
Sprinkler codes, by whoever enforces them, are nearly always derived from NFPA standards. There are THREE different standards. This is a very important point, as 99% of what has been written about sprinkler systems is based upon the industrial code.
NFPA 13 is the 'grandfather' of it all. This is the standard that was used for nearly every sprinkler system you have seen. Here you find the requirements for special pipes, all manner of alarm connections, massive water requirements, etc. It makes a lot of sense if you're trying to protect an industrial property, but came under a lot of criticism when folks tried to apply it to places where people lived.
Next developed was NFPA 13R. This 'residential' code was developed for protecting apartment buildings and hotels, and only makes the slightest modifications to NFPA 13.
Now we have NFPA 13D - think 'dwellings' - for one and two family homes. This is the standard that is being adopted. While it is rumored to have greatly simplified things, I have not yet read it. I will be meeting the guy who wrote it in a few weeks, and I expect to be learning a lot then.
A lot of the comments made in this thread are re-creating the controversies that delayed the development of residential sprinklers. It was precisely the coverage, water supply, alarm, and maintenance issues that made "NFPA 13" systems so expensive. Sure, you could argue that each detail made for a better system ... but at with every improvement the price goes up.
While I like the idea of flushing the system every time you use water in the house, I am not sure what effect household pressure fluctuations (every time you open a valve) would have on the heads. We might be creating a 'drip factory' at each head. I do not know if the heads are designed for that.
Likewise, it's simply not possible to put an alarm on a 'flushed' system. I agree with concerns about stagnant water in the pipes; I've worked with installed systems, and that water is almost as fragrant as the stuff in the grease separator of a Chinese restaurant.
I don't want to get into a discussion of 'flushed' systems, until I find out if they are allowed by code.
Depends on who is doing the selling of the idea... Insurance company.. save money
Fire dept. ... probably both ( less risk to firefighters, inhabitants plus lessons the risk of the fire spreading to adjacent structures)
Sprinkler suppliers ... either ... whatever makes the sale. FWIW my old man ( 35 year firefighter) was absolutely convinced that home furnishings caused the majority of deaths in residential fires.Inhalation of the poison gases fueled by man made substances.
Life is Good
Yeah, probably some standards on furnishings flammability would do more to save lives than sprinklers.The standard should be lives saved/dollar spent (with a secondary accounting of property value saved, of course), regardless of who is making the money, and largely regardless of who is paying.
As I stood before the gates I realized that I never want to be as certain about anything as were the people who built this place. --Rabbi Sheila Peltz, on her visit to Auschwitz
Depends of what the intent of the system is. If it is to save lives then monitor is not needed.And smoke/fire monitoring can be completely independent security system.Also my though was that the manufactures will have design information and again with the newness of the systems that their reps might do some hand holding.And I doubt that the design needs near that complicated as industrial/commercial applications..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
"The problem with that, is who designs the system?"
According to their website, Uponor designs the system. You just supply the floor plan and specifications of the water supply.
John
According to their website, Uponor designs the system. You just supply the floor plan and specifications of the water supply.
That answers that
According to their website, Uponor designs the system. You just supply the floor plan and specifications of the water supply.
I looked at the site, and didn't find that info. Probably missed it. The thing is, these new residential systems have a long ways to go as far as being accepted locally. Many states require state licensed designers, and have rigid rules involving head locations. How this will all shake out is indeterminate at this time
Hi Bill.
What IS the problem with stagnant water in a fire sprinkler system?
Regards,
Jim x 3
If it's connected to the household water supply used for drinking, their are concerns that the stangant water could be a breeding ground for things we don't want in our drinking water.
Right, and thats why they have backflow preventers and why backflow preventers have to be tested every so often to make sure they are preventing backflows.
One of my best friends is a sprinkler fitter in california, has been for over 20 years. I keep trying to talk him into getting his contractors license and doing residential sprinkler systems... residential would be a good way to get started i think, smaller scale etc. but with new construction in the toilet in cali tough time to start a new business.
I'm thinking some of the systems incorporate the sprinklers into the normal flow path of the water eliminating the stangation issues and negating the need to backflow preventers but I dunno.
I don't like the idea of mandated sprinklers in houses.
One of the systems, don't know but it might be Upnor's, heads have 5 ports on them. And regular sized Pex is run between then and the household fixtures so it forms a large web. That keeps the water flowing through everything and the large number of paths gives good flow with just 1/2 or 3/4 piping..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
If it's connected to the household water supply used for drinking, their are concerns that the stangant water could be a breeding ground for things we don't want in our drinking water.ponytail had the right idea, just have a loop for the drinking water so its always moving and tie the heads into the loop.
I did call uponor and they were very helpful
thanks
Here, sprinkler contractors are required to have a special license. If that is the case where you live you could check with your municipality/county/state to see who has the license.
Edited 9/23/2009 6:55 am ET by Matt
Thanks
i will check it out