This is the perfect opportunity to practice how you and your family will get out of your home if there is ever fire, even with sprinklers. Remember to hold family fire drills a couple of times each year. You still need working smoke alarms to let you know there was smoke in your home. Try not to paint your sprinkler or the conceal plates.Įven a small amount of paint on a fire sprinkler will hamper its life safety operation, even though your home is protected with a fire sprinkler system.
Treat your sprinkler system just as you do your electrical and plumbing systems, safeguard this life safety system from tampering and children should never play with the fire sprinkler equipment. Remember, if you want to hang something on the wall, make sure your hanging method avoids the piping for the fire sprinkler system. Even a lightweight item can damage the hardware. If you want to keep your sprinkler system in working condition to protect your family and your home., don’t ever hang anything from the sprinkler piping or from the plate covering the sprinkler. That is, if you’ve had work done in your attic. If you live in an area where freezing is a concern and you have pipes in your attic, take a look to make sure the insulation has not been removed from protecting the pipe. When the heat from the fire reaches one hundred and fifty to one hundred and seventy five degrees Fahrenheit, this bulb is designed to burst.
It takes heat from a fire to activate each one. This is a pendent sprinkler and this is a sidewall sprinkler.
The sprinkler will operate shortly after that. The plate pops off first when the temperature reaches about one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit. In most cases, the pipes are hidden from view, but you may be able to see the pipes in some unfinished areas of your home.Ī concealed sprinkler is covered by these plates that help them blend into the ceiling in a fire. Your sprinkler system piping is installed behind your walls and ceilings of your home, just like your household plumbing pipes. It’s important that you notify them that you’re doing a test so they know it’s not a real fire. Typically, it’s right outside your home so the water can run into the yard if your sprinkler system is connected to a central alarm monitoring system. Make sure you know where the water will flow out when you do the test. It’s also important to close the valves slowly to keep it from causing a water hammer. If you have an alarm on your sprinkler system, it may take up to 60 seconds for the alarm to go off. It’s a good idea to do a water flow test on a regular basis. However, you may want to occasionally do some simple safeguarding to make sure your system is ready to work when it’s called upon. Your fire sprinkler system was designed to essentially be maintenance free. If you’re living in a rural area where you don’t have a municipal water supply or you have a well, you may already have a tank and a pump, this well pump and tank can be used as long as it provides enough water and pressure to supply the fire sprinklers. As you can see, the riser includes a pressure gauge and a flow switch and a test and drain assembly. The riser contains the control center for your sprinkler system. If the water main is turned off to your home, you will not have water for your plumbing or your fire sprinkler system connected to the water supply. And just like your plumbing system, your sprinkler system is always filled with water. The water supply for sprinklers is the same water supply that feeds your plumbing system. In many cases, understanding fire sprinkler systems should be easy. And burnt toast cigars or other smoke can’t set off a sprinkler, only extreme heat from a fire will cause the sprinkler to operate. In fact, sprinklers worked so quickly they often put the fire out before the fire department arrives.That gives you time to get yourself and your family safely out of the home. Then most of the time, only one sprinkler is need to control a home fire. And if the fire is large, a second sprinkler nearby may also activate. The fact is, each sprinkler works independently and only the sprinkler closest to the fire will activate. The biggest myth, thanks to movies and TV, is that when there is a fire, the entire system goes off at once. There are some basic facts about fire sprinklers that you should know. Should there be an emergency response if you are living in a home protected by fire sprinklers? I’m proud of the level of protection our great state has because fire sprinklers protect visitors to our homes, our families living in our homes, and they protect the firefighters.
That’s because every new home built in the state must be protected with a home fire sprinkler system and state fire marshal. Nationwide, more than eight out of 10 fire deaths happen when people feel safest in their own homes here in California.