The following was published in the Property Management section of the Mid Atlantic Real Estate Journal in October, 2020. Sprinkler Monitoring 2.0: More than just Tamper and Flow by Jonathan Epstein, CCIM, JTJ Tech, LLC Life safety fire sprinkler systems have been used for decades and are adapted to various building types geographies. Of all the fire sprinkler types, the majority are wet systems which are piped systems filled with pressurized water. The next most common type are dry fire sprinkler systems. These are designed for areas unsuitable for water-filled systems because they are prone to pipe freeze in areas like parking garages, loading docks, and refrigerated areas. Pipes in these freeze-prone locations are filled with pressurized air or nitrogen. Dry systems still rely on water to extinguish a fire, so the wet portion of a dry system is housed in a different (heated) area where a device called a dry pipe valve separates the pressurized water from the pressurized air. In the event of a dry sprinkler head discharge, the clapper inside the dry pipe valve releases and water pushes air out of the system before the making its way to the opened head. Buildings with fire sprinkler systems are required by code to be inspected regularly and monitored for water flow in wet systems and air pressure in dry systems. Both wet and dry systems require “tamper monitoring” of the control valves. These alerts are relayed to building owners and local fire departments via a system dialer. Flow ...
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