Posted By Ian Haylett
Chris

I'm not sure why you should be horrified. The fact that your offices have sprinkler protection mean that any fire is likely to be contained and all your staff will be able to escape from the premises safely.

There is probably nothing you can do about the presence of the sprinklers as they are likely to be a requirement of the building's insurers and will be supported by the fire officer. A sprinkler head will not activate until heated to the necessary temperature (sprinkler head are either glass with a liquid will expands through heating to break the glass or bi-metalic strips). If a sprinkler head activates only the one head above the fire will activate unless a fire spreads to activate neighbouring head (the majority of fires are controlled by the activation of one sprinkler head).

In a low risk environment like an office there is little risk of accidential damage, activation or leakage of the sprinkler system providing that it is maintained and that the temperature is maintained above 5C to prevent freezing.
Also if a sprinkler head activates it is more like rainfall than a deluge of water.

The one area where sprinkler leakage or accidential damage would be of major concern is the file server room in view of the damage that could be caused. In this area you should consider the use of a gas suppression system instead although you would need to discuss this with your insurers and the landlord's insurers.

Finally, you can normally add sprinkler leakage cover to your the insurance covering your contents and computers and you should speak to your insurance broker/company about this.

Ian

Posted By Kieran Dowling
....and to put it more succinctly, what's more important: people or property?

Kieran
Safety rep

Posted By Kelvin Hughes
Chris.

To follow on from the replies already posted, I would be more horrified to find that the sprinkler system does not operate in the event of a fire. These systems, like any other safety measure, are required to be maintained on a frequent basis to ensure that, when it is needed, it will work and save lives. I would check the maintenance requirements for your system to ensure it has been maintained and is fully functional in the event of a fire. This should be a requirement under the Fire Certificate for the premises.
As stated previously ‘bits of metal and plastic’ can be replaced, a person’s life cannot.

Regards

Kelvin

Posted By Barry Cooper
Chris,
When I read your enquiry, I was about to respond, but I would only be repeating what my learned friends have already advised.
Insurers want to protect property, and people should be out when the sprinklers are activated.
Superb answers guys

Barry

Posted By Paul Huber
Chris,

Just a final (late) note on this matter. The fact is that if the sprinklers are activated by the heat of a fire (and remember they will not all activate at once) the PC's would probably have suffered terminal smoke damage before they ever see water. More PC's end up scrapped because of smoke damage than water. Also even in server rooms water is often considered the least damaging option for fire suppresion.

As for the comment that no one has ever died in a sprinklered building they used to say no sprinklered building had ever been lost, that is until we lost one! Never say never!

Posted By Zyggy Turek
Merv, re your last comments on domestic sprinklers, there are many organisations supplying these (just enter "domestic sprinklers" into your search engine to see how many)!

I have a domestic sprinkler head in front of me right now & it would not look out of place in any home as it has a detachable white cover which is released by water pressure. The Fire Brigade had a big push on these some 3 years ago & estimates then were that over 400 lives could be saved.

Retro fits can be a bit pricey,(although what price a life) but on new builds, the costs can be minimal in comparison to the total cost.

Posted By Dale Rose
I stumbled across this discussion forum by accident -- there are some excellent comments raised. I would like to add the following points which supplement some of the statements already made:

There is a difference in the design of sprinkler systems specifically for life safety in comparison with property protection. In addition, there are further constraints to be considered with a life safety system that make it more onerous. The vast majority of sprinkler installations are designed for property protection.

The media does not help the cause of sprinkler systems by suggesting in films and TV adverts that all sprinkler heads discharge in the event of a fire, i.e., if one head activates then they all go off throughout the building -- this is nonsense! The vast majority of fires in sprinklered buildings are controlled by one or two heads activating.

Different design characteristics are applied to sprinkler systems, i.e., the sprinkler coverage for an office area and the amount of water delivered will not be the same as for a warehouse building containing flammable materials / aerosols products. Sprinklers can be overcome by fire growth if the strict design guidelines have not been followed (LPC Rules / Factory Mutual (FM) Standards / NFPA Standards, VdS, etc.)

There are separate design criterion for sprinklers protecting aerosol storage and normally the Insurer would require some form of containment in addition to prevent 'rocketing' (caged storage area or seperate contained storage area) causing the fire to spread from one part of a building to another.

Finally, the basis of the majority of sprinkler installation designs is to control the fire growth until the arrival of the Fire Authority. Specific types of sprinkler system such as Deluge, Large Drop and ESFR are designed to supress the fire.

Useful sources of information on automatic sprinkler installations is available from the Fire Protection Association (FPA) or the British Automatic Sprinkler Association (BASA), to name a few.