Oprah had an annual favorite-things list. I've always thought that would be fun to do - except I can't offer everyone a Pontiac G6. Sorry about that. My wife says the kids need to eat. I will however continue to make lists of my own. This one isn't necessarily a "favorite-things" but rather interesting topics and tools I plan to keep an eye on for 2020. A Long-Awaited Computer-Based PE Exam The Fire Protection Principles and Practice of Engineering Exam (PE Exam) will finally become computer-based in 2020. This has been discussed for many years and will bring Fire Protection in line with several other disciplines and the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE Exam). Likely a much bigger change to the 2020 Fire Protection PE is replacement of the treasure-trove of references (over 9,000 pages) into a single exam reference guide which is being developed by SFPE. This single resource will be all that is allowed in the exam room. While the exam focus and content should be relatively consistent from past years, preparation for 2020 will be a different challenge than in years’ past. Around here, I’ve already been contacted by numerous people seeking the publish date on both the 2020 MeyerFire PE Prep Guide and the PE Exam’s Reference Book. The 2020 MeyerFire PE Prep Guide will follow the official reference book by a month (which is rumored to debut sometime in Spring 2020). I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the official reference book will be early enough to give everyone ample time (including instructors) to study and absorb it. At least for 2020, the Fire Protection PE will only be given on a single-day (October 22, 2020). Going computer-based might someday afford year-round testing availability like the Mechanical PE Exam is starting this year. That will certainly be another interesting change when it happens. The Fire Protection PE Exam's joining the twenty-first century with its first computer-based exam in 2020. Viking’s New Window Sprinkler Viking just released a new listed Specific-Application Window Sprinkler. Use of window sprinklers have long been a strenuous and often misapplied technology, but the new Viking lineup could offer additional options in this space. I'm very interested to see how the new sprinkler gets used in the market. The brand-new window sprinkler is only the second entrant to a complex & niche application. If you haven't checked lately, it's already in our live Sprinkler Database. Nitrogen’s Rise Have you seen it? I have. Nitrogen inertion is becoming more and more commonplace each year. This year is the first I’ve seen a project specify a nitrogen-inertion system upfront with a dry-pipe sprinkler system. Finally! As an industry I feel like we're all slowly learning and educating owners on the major cost-savings these can have, but until recently I've yet to see them specified on a project. It's good to see other consultants getting traction with owners on the topic. Projects under the United Facilities Criteria (UFC 3-600-01) allow a hydraulic c-factor of 120 in dry systems with nitrogen included, which are now mandatory for dry systems. This is a great benefit I hope the NFPA 13 continues to consider adopting. It can be difficult enough to convey to owners the cost/benefits of avoiding corrosion in sprinkler systems with a higher upfront cost, but if we get a hydraulic kick-back for inclusion of nitrogen systems then the conversation could be made substantially easier with owners. Depending on the system size, a hydraulic benefit might help contractors to voluntarily provide nitrogen systems and save on pipe sizing throughout. New & Better Tools for Revit I live entirely in BIM (Building Information Modeling), so I’m always on the lookout for great Revit families, tools and workflows. The past couple years have really ramped up the race for fire protection tools in BIM, including Victaulic’s Revit Add-In, AutoSPRINK’s RVT lineup, HydraCAD for Revit, and a few others. I’m very encouraged that there is finally interest in this space and that the developers in it seem to be doing very well. Revit Add-In productivity-boosts have made even small projects like this home design I completed in 2019 possible at a very reasonable time and cost. I just started using the RVT platform in 2019 and have found major productivity boosts by doing so. If you use Revit and haven’t checked out these platforms, 2020 might be the year to check them out.
Why This Site Exists I don't (usually) just write to entertain myself. I put together this site to help start the conversation on fire protection. If you're relatively new around here - I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Joe. I'm no an end-all expert in the field, just a normal guy who loves being in fire protection. I worked for and learned under a couple engineering consultants before starting my own practice in 2019 where I now write, build tools and design full time. This site is all about bringing together experts from the different corners of fire protection to discuss and share best practices. We're all about improving your workflow and your knowledge with resources and ideas - plus giving a medium for you to share your expertise to everyone's benefit. Thank you for hangin' around and I look forward to sharing in a great 2020 with you! This time of year is just the best. I feel extremely fortunate to have three young kiddos at home, a supportive and all-around great family, and an extremely rewarding career in fire protection and doing what I do here at MeyerFire.com. Whether you subscribe, dabble occasionally on the forum, or just stop in to use tools here and there, THANK YOU for a really wonderful 2019. One of the tasks of wrapping up a year is revisiting what resonated the most in 2019 of all the content here. If you just joined in this year or know someone who would benefit from this content, please consider sending a link.
While we're at it, here are the Top Ten Tools & Articles of 2018 and the Top Ten Tools & Articles of 2017. Hope you have a relaxing and rewarding holiday week wherever you call home!
I've been on a bit of a tool creation kick lately. Sorry, I just get excited sometimes.
This week I'm introducing a small portion of a much larger programming effort - this tool helps determine an adjusted fire sprinkler remote area based on the system type and density/area curves of NFPA 13. It can factor in the quick-response area reduction, sloped ceiling adjustment, double-interlock pre-action or dry increase, and high-temperature sprinkler decrease. I'll probably only have this up as a free version for a month or so before adding to it and incorporating the full tool in the Toolkit. At the bottom of the tool you'll see a schematic remote area drawn with the parameters input. I'm using it when mocking up hydraulic calculations for estimation or when I'm first setting up a hydraulic calculation. Give it a shot and let me know what you think! This week I'm pulling back the curtain a little bit and showing a tool that is very much still under development. It's a water-storage tank sizer that incorporates a handful of decisions that go into water storage tank sizing. I'd like to get it in front of you this week as I'm looking for feedback on how to improve this tool. There's not a lot of great documentation on how to size water storage tanks, but there are plenty of variables that impact proper water storage tank sizing. With that said, check out the tool as part of our Toolkit package here: If you're in the water storage tank space and have tips or feedback, please email me at [email protected] or comment here. I'd be very much interested in ways to improve this one (or any tool for that matter). On a side note, this and many other recent tools are going to be included with a major MeyerFire Toolkit update here in the next few weeks. We've been working quite a bit on improving the activation/subscription process which has been no small task. When that gets cleaned up I'll be happy to send out the major update for the Toolkit. Hope you have a great rest of your week! Occasionally, as part of the upfront engineering work I do, I'm asked to identify the quantity and approximate size of clean agent storage tanks. The final calculations and actual clean agent system design is to be completed by a specialist at a later time, but my role is to make sure they have room allocated specifically to them early in the design process. As part of that effort in determining quantity and sizes of tanks, I'll estimate about how much agent the project will actually need. For that purpose, I've built the Clean Agent Quantity Estimator. It's built on NFPA 2001 and its' own agent weight formulas for FM-200 and NOVEC-1230. With a few parameters and assumptions you can very quickly get an estimate of the amount of clean agent your project would justify for a space. It's important to note here that these are estimates - actual agent weight will need to be fine-tuned once the pipe network has been laid out and sized. Do you see this tool being useful for what you do? What would make it better? Feel free to comment below here with ideas or feedback. Don't get these free tools? Subscribe here. Thanks & have a great week! Occasionally I come across projects where the contractor (my client) is looking to use listed anchors or attachments that are listed, but have various strengths associated with them. NFPA 13 lists the maximum spacing for hangers, but this maximum spacing doesn't always address these alternative hanging methods. NFPA 13 addresses these by requiring that any hanger assembly be able to support five times the weight of water filled pipe, plus 250 pounds. Based on this, I've created a calculator that reverses this process and calculates the maximum spacing for hangers depending upon the pipe size, type, and strength of a hanging element. As this is the first week out I only have I-P units (sorry international friends, I'll continue to work on this), but let me know what you think in the comments section below. Thanks and for those in the US have a great Thanksgiving week! “What’s the advantage of a wet-pipe fire sprinkler system over a dry-pipe fire sprinkler system?” If you’ve been in the industry a long time you might scoff at the question, but I’ve been asked a couple times from different non-fire protection clients. Grab a pen real quick. Identify all the reasons why we don’t do dry systems everywhere. Seriously – see how many you come up with. If you only said cost – you hit the big one. Dry systems are more expensive than wet. But there’s more to it than that. A lot more. Here’s my reasoning why dry-pipe systems are more challenging than wet systems. Compare it to your list and post your thoughts below in the comment section here. 1. Cost The biggest driver (as is with much in construction) for wet over dry is the cost. Cost is impacted by - the inclusion of a dry valve, - air compressor (or nitrogen generator) - potentially different pipe types - additional labor to design and install sloped pipe - inclusion of a remote inspector’s test - potentially additional low-point auxiliary drains with drum drips, and - use of dry-pendent style sprinklers in unheated areas 2. System Configuration With wet systems, we’re able to design tree, looped, or gridded sprinkler systems. Dry systems are limited to tree or looped systems (NFPA 13 2002 7.2.3.5, 2007-16 7.2.3.10, 2019 8.2.3.10). Gridded systems specifically can be great for bringing down branch pipe sizes by distributing the flow across mains and gridded branches. With more pathways to flow, there’s less overall friction loss from supply to sprinkler. Looped systems can benefit from a similar premise, but looped systems don’t benefit from flow down gridded branch lines. Looped systems with long branchlines can still have larger branch pipe diameters. 3. Slope Dry systems must slope to a drainable location (NFPA 13 2002 8.15.2.3.1, 2007-16 8.16.2.3.1, 2019 16.10.3.1). All dry system pipe must be sloped. For large or complex areas, these slopes can add up over time and result in big differences in pipe elevation. I worked on a pre-engineered metal building once which was several hundred feet long. We originally planned for a dry system due to a large exposed material storage overhang at the end of the building. The three pipe slopes that appear in NFPA 13. Non-refrigerated mains require 1/4-inch per 10 feet slope, while branches and any refrigerated locations require 1/2-inch per 10 feet slope (NFPA 13 2002 8.15.2.3.1, 2007-16 8.16.2.3.1, 2019 16.10.3.1) The slope on the main from one end of the building to the other resulted in a difference of about 8-inches in height. Even splitting the difference and sloping to a high-point in the middle of the building was too much height difference for the building. We were trying to stay tight to structure and above wide overhead doors. The pre-engineered building had such little elevation tolerance (it was intended to house commercial trucks) that the slope on the dry mains were causing issues. Long story short – the slope of the pipe caused enough issues that the design of the building was shortened by six feet to accommodate dry sidewall sprinkler throws and not need a dry-pipe system. Keeping the entire system wet allowed level main runs and reduced overall cost to the project. It may be the only project I ever work on where the building size was adjusted to accommodate sprinklers, but it resulted in a much more cost-effective solution. See more about pipe slope in a prior article here. 4. Corrosion Dry systems suffer accelerated corrosion compared to wet-pipe systems. Those who inspect or replace dry systems know that their expected lifetime can be as short as a few years to as long as about a decade. Why do dry systems corrode faster than wet? They have more oxygen molecules introduced to the interior pipe network than wet systems do. A combination of water vapor (from originally filling the system, trapping water, or introducing moisture through air compressors) and oxygen will corrode the system. Wet systems suffer the same, but in much smaller quantities. In wet systems oxygen is only introduced from trapped water when the system is drained and refilled, or within the fresh water to the system. 5. Pipe Types Some specifiers differ in pipe specifications between wet and dry systems. Many do not, but some do. While galvanized pipe is no longer a standard for dry systems in the industry (and for good reason), dry systems may necessitate schedule 40 pipe to slow the progression of corrosion in the system. Pipe wall thickness not only affects cost and time to install, but it affects hydraulics too. 6. Hydraulics Speaking of hydraulics, dry systems require a 30% increase in the remote area (NFPA 13 2002-16 11.2.3.2.5, 2019 19.3.3.2.5). The system essentially must accommodate a larger fire because a fire has the ability to be larger in size before the sprinkler system can introduce water. This 30% increase in the remote area results in significantly more water and often larger main size than a similarly designed wet system. Additionally, NFPA 13 requires that dry-pipe systems use a Hazen Williams C-Factor of 100 in lieu of 120. While this may change in future editions of NFPA 13 when paired with nitrogen inertion (as UFC criteria has), it’s still currently only 100 (NFPA 13 2013 Table 23.4.4.7.1, 2016 23.4.4.8.1, 2019 27.2.4.8.1) for black steel. This higher friction loss can also result in larger pipe sizes. 7. Dry Pendents Not all sprinkler types are allowed to be used in dry systems. If a pendent sprinkler is located in an area where the return bend is not kept above 40-degrees, then it must be a dry pendent (NFPA 13 2002-16 7.2.2, 2019 8.2.2). Dry pendent sprinklers are significantly more expensive than a traditional pendent sprinkler, and introduce other manufacturer requirements (minimum shaft length, insertion into tees and not elbows). 8. Remote Inspector’s Tests & Drum Drips Wet systems can locate inspector’s tests (included to show water flow and test the waterflow switch) just past the flow switch as a riser. Dry systems, however, require that an inspector’s test be located at the most remote point of the system (NFPA 13 2002 8.16.4.3, 2007-13 8.17.4.3, 2016 8.17.4.2, 2019 16.14.2). This accessible valve at the most remote portion requires more pipe & coordination than a test at the riser often does. Remote Inspector's Test (and drain shown here) come with an assortment of requirements. See a full detailing and breakout of the Inspector's Test here. Summary
We use dry systems when we need to accommodate temperatures less than 40-degrees (F). Much of the time there isn’t a choice between a wet and dry system. Some applications, though, could go either way. Early in design is often a great time to discuss heating options for spaces throughout a building. While the difference between 30 and 50 degree setpoints may not have major ramifications mechanically, it can have a major impact on the design of the suppression system. Your Thoughts What impacts have affected your projects the most? Comment below here. If you've found this helpful, consider subscribing here and sharing with a colleague. Thanks & have a great week! In my regular code calls I used to include a specific question on the use of clean agent systems in server rooms.
Building Owners & Sprinklers Many building owners provide clean agent systems to extinguish fires in high-value content areas, such as server rooms, data centers, archival storage, and many other applications. When the owners voluntarily pony-up for extra protection in these areas, they often ask whether sprinklers have to be installed in those spaces at all. My Code Call Question On my code calls, my question would go something like: “does your jurisdiction require sprinklers to be installed in rooms which are protected by a clean agent system?” I would get a mixed response. Some jurisdictions considered clean agent systems to be an equivalent for sprinkler protection, others would not. A couple years after asking this question on every applicable project I had a fire marshal shoot me straight. “If you don’t have sprinklers in the room, you don’t have a fully-sprinklered building. Check the IBC.” This was news to me. I was under the impression that use of clean agent systems could be used as a substitute for fire sprinklers and still be effectively “fully-sprinklered”. Back to the Book There is a path for this approach – the International Building Code (2018) Section 904.2 states that: “Automatic fire-extinguishing systems (ie: clean agent) installed as an alternative to the required automatic sprinkler systems of Section 903 shall be approved by the fire code official.” This was the foundation on which I had been asking the question. The big kicker was the code section just a paragraph later: “904.2.1 Restriction on using automatic sprinkler system exceptions or reductions. Automatic fire-extinguishing systems shall not be considered alternatives for the purposes of exceptions or reductions allowed for automatic sprinkler systems or by other requirements of this code.” Outside of the lawyer-phrasing, this section simply states “no sprinklers in the room – no sprinkler reductions or exceptions for your building.” The commentary by the International Code Council goes further, stating that while the authority has the ability to approve alternative systems in lieu of sprinklers, doing so invalidates the “fully-sprinklered” status of a building. Why Does this Matter? Why is this important? There is a long list of code kickbacks that sprinklers offer a building. A couple months ago I diagramed a cheatsheet for all of the major code benefits a “fully-sprinklered” NFPA 13 fire sprinkler system offers. You can download it free here. Code benefits include allowable building heights, building areas, number of stories, egress benefits, passive rating reductions, Draftstopping reductions, fire alarm reductions, and a handful of other benefits. I realized after that code call that the question affected well more than just my isolated “fire sprinkler” silo. Omitting sprinklers in just one server room would have code implications throughout the complex. Now, should building owners ask about omitting in these rooms we often look at other strategies – such as concealed sidewall sprinklers, use of dry sprinklers, drip pans, use of pre-action systems, or piping without joints and heavy-duty cages. Some of these solutions can be painless, without great cost and satisfy code as well. Want more like this? Subscribe to the blog here. Already subscribed? Send to a friend. Thanks for reading!
I was asked recently for a specific project how much flow the owner should anticipate coming from a building's main drain.
There's just a few factors that play into exactly how much water to expect. Is the drain serving as the main drain for a system? Is it only serving an inspector's test? Is the drain off a 1-inch pipe, or 2-inch? How much pressure is on the system? These aren't often difficult to answer if you're familiar with the job, but each of these answers plays a role in determining how much water will come out of an open orifice. This week I've simplified a few of these parameters to come up with a quick inspector's test and drain calculator for fire sprinkler systems. With it, you can estimate the amount of flow that will come from an inspector's test (use the k-factor option) or from a drain (diameter option). For our international audience I have incorporated real units from the get-go this time. It's a free tool that's now live on the site, here. Give it a spin and let me know what you think in the comments here. Know others that might find this helpful? Send them a link or tell them to subscribe here. Thanks & have a great week! Over a year ago I released a Thrust Block Calculator online.
It that takes a small handful of inputs and offers sizing and dimensions according to NFPA 13. The tool has been a reasonable hit except for one repeated request from the field – the thrust block weight. Until now designers and engineers using the tool still had to convert the minimum required volume into the minimum weight based on the density of the concrete. Hand calc no longer! Special thanks to Sinisa who offered the reminder after I asked for pet peeves or upgrade requests in last week’s post. If you’ve never used the tool and would like to check it out, here’s the link to it. It's free and available now. Last item for this week - I'm circling back to a call for water storage tank experts. If you're experienced in this space and would like to review a new tool I'm working on, please shoot me an email at [email protected]. Would be happy to set up beta testing. Thanks and I hope you have a great rest of your week! |
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