Sprinklers

ericmark said:

It will not be long before we have auto sprinkler systems in our houses and a load more and really it is getting OTT.

Click to expand...

If you were to look into the benefits of sprinklers vs waiting until the fire engines turn up and use vast amounts of water to wreck what the fire hasn't already wrecked you wouldn't say it was OTT.

Were I doing a self-build there is not a shred of doubt that I would have a sprinkler system installed.

It depends on what the room is being used for, and although in the garage and kitchen the sprinkler system may do little damage compared with the good it can do the whole idea so some silly P in Cardiff raising the price of all Welsh housing because we now have to install a sprinkler system goes against the grain. Do we not have enough water damage as it is without having yet more things to go wrong and damage every thing. And is it written into the new law to also kill all electric power before the sprinklers start, and if it did kill all power would that be enough?

ericmark said:

kitchen the sprinkler system may do little damage compared with the good it can do

Click to expand...

Chip pan fire, the last thing you want is a shower of water into the burning oil

Fans may not start at lower than rated voltage. We make equipment using fans at low speed. The only safe way to run at low speed is to start at full speed to guarantee rotation (overcoming initial friction), then to reduce voltage to the speed required. This is probably not practical for the OP. Overheating can result if the fan doesn't start.

I remember working on a train set, there were three types of controller, one was a simple resistor and when you turned the knob the engine would start and you would need to reduce speed as it went off like a rocket, the next stage was the voltage controller, by controlling the voltage rather than using a simple resistor the engine would start in a more controlled manor but it still would not allow a realistic slow start. The final unit used pulses and it monitored the back EMF from the motor if no back EMF motor had not moved so this controller allowed a really smooth start. However there was a sting in the tail it was found the pulse type could damage the magnets in the permanent magnet motors and only motors with electro magnets for the field could be used. Clearly is the motor needed changing in order to use the train then could just as easy replace with an AC motor and control the speed by the frequency of the AC supply but this stopped one from using the engine on an older layout.

It seems odd that years ago we always used DC motors where we needed control but today we have gone to AC motors and inverters. Changing the number of poles in a motor is also used.

However as I understand it the idea was for a cheap method to adjust speed. I am assuming the fan was something kicking around and so was suggesting items found in an auto electrical workshop rather than trying to build some super speed controller. And the simple methods is to use a spring or a bulb as the resistor. The bulb resistance alters with voltage so to say it needs a 36W bulb will not always work so getting a rear lamp which has twin bulbs and using trial and error to find mixture of bulbs to give speed required seemed the easy way assuming a garage with that sort of stuff kicking around.

If he wanted a variable speed fan which was not on the cheap then you can buy one ready made.

ericmark said:

It depends on what the room is being used for, and although in the garage and kitchen the sprinkler system may do little damage compared with the good it can do the whole idea so some silly P in Cardiff raising the price of all Welsh housing because we now have to install a sprinkler system goes against the grain.

Click to expand...

Oh dear.

Would you rather that no safety improvements in anything - houses, gas appliances, electrical circuits, cars, medicines, surgery, food additives, public health etc had never been done so that the costs of these things could have been kept down?

Please tell us how much extra a sprinkler system adds to the cost of a house.

Do we not have enough water damage as it is without having yet more things to go wrong and damage every thing.

Click to expand...

Please tell us how much water is released by a sprinkler, how much is released by a fire engine when it arrives ad the fire has had some time to grow, and which does more damage.

Please tell us what does more damage to furnishings - getting wet, or getting burnt.

Please tell us how a sprinkler going off in the living room will threaten the lives of people asleep upstairs.

Please tell us how a sprinkler going off in the living room will damage other rooms in the way that smoke will.

Please tell us what the incidence is of sprinklers going off in error.

Lastly, please stop going on about what bad things they are until you have told us those 6 things.



And is it written into the new law to also kill all electric power before the sprinklers start, and if it did kill all power would that be enough?[/QUOTE]

ericmark said:

And is it written into the new law to also kill all electric power before the sprinklers start, and if it did kill all power would that be enough?

Click to expand...

No power, no lights on the escape route, or does the new law require emergency lighting to be installed as well. Consequences need to be considered far more carefully.

ban-all-sheds said:

Please tell us how much water is released by a sprinkler, how much is released by a fire engine when it arrives ad the fire has had some time to grow, and which does more damage.

Please tell us what does more damage to furnishings - getting wet, or getting burnt.
Burnt is more visible damage, saturation can damage enough make the furniture fit only for scrap

Please tell us how a sprinkler going off in the living room will threaten the lives of people asleep upstairs.
That assumes the system will be a zoned system with each room individually controlled. That can be expensive

Please tell us how a sprinkler going off in the living room will damage other rooms in the way that smoke will.
Provided it is limited to that room then rooms on the floor above will not suffere water damage

Please tell us what the incidence is of sprinklers going off in error.
I don't have that information, but have been hit by a sprinkler triggered by a vandal.

Lastly, please stop going on about what bad things they are until you have told us those 6 things

Click to expand...

Please stop assuming that every new safety regulation has been fully thought out and due care and attention has been given to the potential dis-advantages and hazards that implimenting the new regulations will create.

Do some research before you start criticising people who have seen the other side of the argument.

A sprinkler will NOT extinguish a smouldering fire in a leather armchair, the leather prevents water reaching the seat of the fire. Toxic fumes will however be produced. When the fire bursts through the leather the average sprinkler may be too small in volume to control that established fire.

Being woken to find your bed soaked in water will create panic. A child could be suffocated under saturated bed cloths.

If the stairs are wet they will create a slip hazard ( in some building sprinklers are prohibited on escape stair cases when the stairs are fire resistant construction

Sprinklers in domestic dwellings are not cost effective.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00477895.pdf

Another major problem is that they require annual maintenance, and that simply won't get done in the majority of privately owned homes.

I am not sure if the sprinklers are yet law or going to be made law in Wales. However the local news medium has been criticising the idea and local builders have threatened to stop house building in Wales if the law is passed. RedRow is the big builder who has threatened to stop building in Wales and move to England. It seems some one in Cardiff has got a bee in his bonnet and there has been little thought to the idea.

Similar to the E-Cigarettes it seems some one has said that's a good idea without really looking into all the facts, we are now told research shows people smoking E-Cigarettes are less likely to quit. But before this was published there were moves to try and get them provided by the NHS as they thought they helped people give up.

I am sure a well designed sprinkler system is really good. But I have also seem where it was very dangerous, in the building of Connah's Quay power station a blip in the power caused the sprinkler system to activate, on to a group of workers who were doing the installation resistant testing on the HV electrical system. Clearly talking in excess of 11kV and it would seem the sprinkler should have been killed in the area of the test, but although the valves were turned off so amount of water was limits it still released all water in the pipes.

I have had fires at work and at home, the latter was simply dealt with by carrying the burning item outside, and in work the fireman did exactly the same with breathing gear where a fan heater had gone on fire, the fire in the room required just wetting to ensure floor boards were not burning, the damage to building was a black patch on the floor where fan heater had been, in the house it was a black wall where the cloths had set alight on top of the eye level grill when my sister turned on the grill rather than turning off the ring.

In both cases they would have likely set off sprinklers if fitted and in both cases the sprinklers would have caused a lot of damage. In real terms there was very little in my mothers kitchen which would burn. It was built with a solid fuel cooker and many times when the water supply has failed we had to drop the grate and rake out the fire onto a shovel on the quarry tiled floor and carry the fire outside. This would set off fire alarms so I assume it would also have set off sprinklers which was clearly not required.

According to local news reports there is no real data on if with domestic housing sprinklers help, as they have to date not been installed in enough houses to gather enough data, in flats yes they have proved good, but in a flat the idea of carrying a fire outside is hardly valid, they are very different to the standard semi. With multi occupancy the sprinklers are clearly required to protect the other occupants. If Wales does go ahead then it will be the test for rest of UK. I would be interested to see insurance claim data and how may claims are made for water damage after a sprinkler is activated.

My mothers house is monitored and when she burnt the toast she was in the kitchen so did not hear the call centre calling and the fire engine arrived before she had carried the burn toast to the bin. One would hope any sprinkler system would also warn first, and allow an over ride. but to date never seen that on a sprinkler. Two over ride would involve manually turning off valves and they act too quick for that.

bernardgreen said:

A load of stuff where he simply CBA to separate his replies from my points to which he was replying

Click to expand...

So in that spirit, ICBA to address each of his nonsense points one by one.

Please stop assuming that every new safety regulation has been fully thought out and due care and attention has been given to the potential dis-advantages and hazards that implimenting the new regulations will create.

Click to expand...

Please stop assuming that sprinkler systems put as much water into a burning house as a fire engine.
Please stop assuming that a fire in room A will make sprinklers go off in rooms B,C,D,E,F,& G.
Please stop assuming that a sprinkler will make a smouldering armchair worse, and that therefore it is not a good idea to have sprinklers as well as alarms.
Please stop assuming that a sprinkler in a bedroom will drown a child, and that therefore it is better in a child's bedroom for the fire to burn uncontrolled until the fire engines arrive.
Please stop assuming that because you've seen a vandal trigger a sprinkler that people who have sprinklers in their homes will be routinely visited by vandals who will set them off.

Do some research before you start criticising people who have seen the other side of the argument.

Click to expand...

The only "other side" you have "seen" is the fabrication of your febrile imagination.

flameport said:

Sprinklers in domestic dwellings are not cost effective.
http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00477895.pdf

Click to expand...

http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0047/00477895.pdf
The same can be said of insurance. The fact that insurers make a profit shows that when looked at population-wide more is spent on premiums than is recovered in restitution.

The problem with that analysis is that it's all very well until it's you whose house has been destroyed by fire.

One would hope that any money spent on sprinklers would be a complete waste. Just like insurance, and alarms.

Another major problem is that they require annual maintenance,

Click to expand...

So do cars, and gas boilers.

So, less frequently, does painted softwood.

I fail to see what the problem is - surely you aren't suggesting that people should not have anything which requires maintenance, for that reason?

I will answer just one as an example

ban-all-sheds said:

Please stop assuming that a sprinkler in a bedroom will drown a child, and that therefore it is better in a child's bedroom for the fire to burn uncontrolled until the fire engines arrive.

Click to expand...

I DID NOT SAY "" will drown a child "" my words were ""Being woken to find your bed soaked in water will create panic. A child could be suffocated under saturated bed cloths. ""

OK - I'll apologise for that, and correct it to

Please stop assuming that a sprinkler in a bedroom could suffocate a child, and that therefore it is better in a child's bedroom for the fire to burn uncontrolled until the fire engines arrive.

As that will clearly make a significant material difference.

bernardgreen said:

ericmark said:

kitchen the sprinkler system may do little damage compared with the good it can do

Click to expand...

Chip pan fire, the last thing you want is a shower of water into the burning oil

Click to expand...

My local Fire Brigade performs a series of demonstrations in the town centre most years. The have a dummy kitchen surrounded by a wire mesh fence, and leave a chip pan on a gas stove until it catches fire. A firefighter then enters the fence and extinguishes the fire using a fire blanket. They then leave it on again, and when it catches fier, using a long pole, they tip a small amount of water - perhaps 1/2 an eggcup full - into the pan. Instantly there is a spectacular fireball, reaching 10 - 12 feet high.