Have you ever seen the movie Arnold Schwarzenegger Kindergarten Cop ? In a scene near the end of the film, a school was evacuated due to a fire. Although fire is contained in a small area of the building, sprinklers throughout the whole building go off. As someone with a little knowledge sprinkler, I can tell you that the scene is certainly fiction!
A common misconception about sprinklers is that water is discharged from all sprinkler head when the system is activated. However, if this were true, sprinkler systems would only damage, not help prevent it. Each sprinkler head is activated individually by a sensitive device integrated heat in the head. There is a sprinkler system type called a deluge system in which all sprinkler heads are working at once, but this type of system is quite rare. It is usually located in a building where there is a risk of rapid spread of flame.
The sprinkler head is the central nervous system of a sprinkler system. Although there are many different types of sprinkler heads, they have all of the following:
- an outer shell that is screwed into the tube called a
- a plug that plugs the hole with water
- a heat sensitive device that connects the cap to baffle
- a deflector that diverts the water to make a spray cone shaped
heat sensitive device is either a glass bulb or a metallic bond in two parts, that is fused together. Both types operate in the same manner. The liquid in the glass bulb will boil at a given temperature. This causes the glass bulb to break that removes the cap from the sprinkler head, allowing the water to flow through the hoses to the deflector. The metal link in two parts will melt at a given temperature causing the same result.
deflectors can be straight or a pendant. the vertical heads are located above the hoses and are designed to divert water from an upward position to a downward spray. The pendant sprinkler head is at the bottom of the hose and is designed to divert water so it makes a cone-shaped jet in the area below.
The most important element of a sprinkler system is water, of course! Water is introduced into the irrigation system from a public water line or a private water source. The size of the tube from these sources vary depending on the amount of water necessary for the system to work. Water is fed into the sprinkler control valve, which is the "brain" of the system. The system can be shut on and off the valve that you usually find in the basement or utility room of the building.
Although there are several types of sprinkler systems, they are all either wet or dry systems. With a wet sprinkler system, the pipes are filled with water at all times. Pipes in a dry sprinkler system are filled with compressed air, and the water is maintained in the irrigation control valve. Water is blocked by a valve which is maintained by the compressed air in the spray lines. These systems are equipped with a jockey pump to keep the air at a PSI higher than the water level below to maintain the trigger system.
Although this is just a "sprinkling" of facts about sprinkler systems, I hope it gives you a better understanding of how they work. The more you know, the more effectively you can use in your business. Contact the loss control representative of your insurance company for more information on sprinkler systems.
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