Covering paint spray booth sprinkler heads, tested? 1

[tom krupica]

Does anyone know of a test that measured the response time of a covered or 'bagged' sprinklerhead in paint booths? I found a 1993 test done in sweden and it was a very comprehensive test that showed the response time to be 2 to 5 times longer than without covering. Even painted heads had a close to normal response time. The paper bags were the worst with up to 5 minutes response time, and the cellophane was still bad with 2 minutes. The uncovered heads went off in 42 seconds.
This next link demonstrates that a sprinkler head will respond in under a minute if uncovered, then they demonstrate what a fire will look like at 2 minutes.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VEXav_iBEZ8

If a covered sprinkler head takes longer than the designed 1 minute or less, then covering them is not a good solution and is very dangerous.



file:///C:/Users/Tom/Downloads/Response_Characteristics_of_Glass_Bulb_Mounted_Sprinkler_Heads_Mounted_In_A_Paint_Spray_Booth.pdf

 

[cdafd]

I kind of read NFPA 13 as "SHALL" be protected

 

[LCREP]

Tom

I would advise the following as someone who worked on the insurance side as a loss prevention representative for 36 years.

Get your insurance carrier (not your insurance agent) to sign off on your plan IN WRITING, if your insurance carrier changes, get them to sign off too. Why because they MAY use the NFPA requirement to not pay a claim for property damage, liability, etc. Be prepared to defend yourself to your management when a claim occurs and they are not reimbursed and or OSHA issues a violation to your company and the negative press should you have a fire. Make sure management has your back, believe me I have been down this road before from the insurance side.

Good luck.

 

[tom krupica]

cdafd, what do you mean? Shall means 'must'. Thats not in question. The ambiguity comes in what is the protection? I can have some person stand in front of the head and block the spray, thats protecting it. I can keep anyone from spraying paint on it, thats protecting it. I can install pop ups that are out of the line of spray and thats a form of protection. Placing them in a good location is the best form of protection because you actually still get the protection of the water spray in a suitable amount of time. Or a survivable amount of time. We agree to protect them, and we agree to replace them if we ever put paint on them. We just dont agree we have to cover them.

 

[tom krupica]

LCREP , I appreciate the advice. And that's what we are in process of doing. I attached a Hanover Insurance write-up, it talks about the poor response time. The thing about Insurance companies not wanting to pay is they would have to explain their reason in court. And the code is very clear if you understand english language words and their meanings. If the code actually said something different it would be a different story.

9.4.7 Sprinklers shall be protected against overspray residue, either by location or covering, so that they will operate quickly in event of fire. 9.4.7.1 Sprinklers shall be permitted to be covered only by cellophane bags having a thickness of 0.08 mm (0.003 in.) or less or by thin paper bags. These coverings shall be replaced frequently so that heavy deposits of residue do not accumulate. 9.4.7.2 Sprinklers that have been painted or coated by overspray or residues shall be replaced with new sprinklers.

The code uses the word 'or'. 'Or' means either . Or also means 'in preference of'. So in sentences the word you put before 'or', is preferential, then the next word after 'or' is the second preferred. These people that write these codes are very smart people. They have a commanding grasp of the english language and choose these words carefully. My problem is for some reason I have a Fire Marshal that is substituting words. He says they meant to say and. He says they should be protected both ways.

Then he says the meaning of 'shall be permitted' is 'must be'. he has even gone as far as to say he actually talked to the committee members that wrote nfpa33 2016 and that 'she' concurs with him.

 

[cdafd]

Read NFPA 13 2016 edition

6.2.6.4.1

No OR in that section

Keep fighting if you want

It has been industry practice for years.

Good luck

 

[TravisMack]

Tom:
Again, what is your agenda? Are you a worker in these areas that is looking to have the protection changed because you do not feel safe? Are you an engineer in the design of these systems? Are you the owner of this facility?

The standard of practice has been the paper bags or cellophane, and that is indicated in NFPA 13 - The standard for the installation of fire sprinkler systems.

I think you will be hard pressed to find an engineer or contractor that will back moving the sprinklers so you are protecting them from overspray in that manner. Also, do you have enough spacing left to move them? Sprinklers have a given area of protection and max spacing for spray booths (just like any other occupancy has a given criteria).

I have not heard of an epidemic of people being injured in spray booth fires because of the bags in place.

This seems to be a very strong passion of yours. You may want to consider funding full scale fire tests to provide data to back up your requested changes to the standards. If you can provide evidence from full scale fire testing that there is a significant danger with the bag method of protection, then you could get the standards changed. Remember though, these standards are generalized to apply to all spray booth conditions. You may have a unique situation where other protection methods are viable. If you are a fire protection engineer, maybe you could provide the client with a full performance based design for the area.

Best of luck in your endeavors.

Travis Mack
MFP Design, LLC

http://www.mfpdesign.com

"Follow" us at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/MFP-Design-LLC/92218417692

 

[tom krupica]

TravisMack, I am the owner and a worker at our facility. I am the one to teach the other workers about the equipment also. So in the past I have shown the employees how effective sprinklers are and also told them not to get any paint on them. If you show someone a video of a sprinkler head popping at 40 seconds and putting out a fire in close to a minute. And then show them what a 2 minute fire looks like or god forbid a 3 or 4 minute fire, then they understand that the code is correct in saying they want the head to respond in the quickest time possible. They wont ever get paint on those heads. A fire with a 40 second response is survivable, a two minute is not. This is why they have these devices in the first place. Its not just to protect equipment, its first and foremost to protect me. We are looking for these tests that they keep refering to. If they are referring to the swedish tests and there really has never been any US tests then the code has no right risking peoples lives like this. In the seventies we would just coat the heads with wax and any dust or particulate would hose right off. These are paint booths that are cleaned after every car. The superior finished product depends on a clean booth. We clean the booth from top to bottom. The heads are on the ceiling, no paint ever gets near these heads. These covers are not tested nor approved by any testing company. Its a jerryrigged unneeded device, for a non-existent problem. It must be some old carry over from when paints stayed wet longer and were shot at much higher pressures.

Look at the swedish tests, they were very comprehensive. I attached them.

 

[cdafd]

The other problem is how Fire reacts and how fire sprinklers activate.

The demos are not real life and every fire is not the same

 

[tom krupica]

The one constant that the swedes proved was that insulating the head with a bag, and trapping air in the bag , caused the head to heat up slower causing it to respond slower. This happpened every time. The code should just call for replacement of heads if paint gets on them and leave it at that.

There will be differences between the demos and real life also, because the fan will be on feeding the fire with fresh air. It will grow faster and the head will respond faster if its uncovered.

 

[TravisMack]

Tom:

I think everyone on here is going to say keep the bag protection as that is in the standards. The standards are what we have to live by every day. If we deviate from the standard and , God forbid, there is loss of life and property, then we are fully liable. You appear to have your mind made up on how you want to handle this. You can do whatever you want in your own facility. That is, until you get caught. Then you will have to deal with government entities that have the power to deny your occupancy permit.

So, in your case, I would recommend hiring and FPE to do a performanced based design to determine if you can get what you want. Otherwise, you may have to abide by the decision of the local official. You may find that the cost of all of this is prohibitive, though.

Again, best of luck to you.

Travis Mack
MFP Design, LLC

http://www.mfpdesign.com

"Follow" us at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/MFP-Design-LLC/92218417692

 

[tom krupica]

Someone from the NFPA just agreed with me that its either and not mandatory. Ill let you know if I get more results. Common sense would tell you that an uncovered head is preferable especially since they were designed that way. I told the inspectors that and they seem to be terrified to make a judgement call.

 

[cdafd]

They made the same call I would make

Bag it.

 

[MatthewJWillis]

Damn Tom,

I am impressed. Thanks for your knowledge and passion.

I feel compelled to say the "test-data" you are searching for is empirical real life data. Yes, blanketing a sprinkler WILL delay it. Painting it will prevent it from opening. Big difference. If you fully involve a car, the little baggy will no longer exist.

I encourage you to think of how many booths are in operation. You will know far better than any of us. Out of the numerous ones I have done, You are an absolute anomaly. The standards are there to recommend the minimum for all of them.

I have also inspected them. Care to guess what was on EVERY sprinkler when I arrived? You got it, paint.

I was called in to takeover an inspection of an assisted living facility. I had written like 84 painted sprinklers. I noticed the little UL tags throughout the facility. The sprinklers were not old enough for testing. I asked the maintenance guy why they were tested. He indicated that a unit had a fire a couple months before and a lady had died. The sprinkler did not operate. To hell with the money. I wonder if the guy that had been doing the inspections all the years previous had any change in his sleeping patterns....

R/
Matt

 

[LCREP]

Tom,

You have a very unique problem with sprinklers with no paint overspray, in the 1000's of booths I have inspected using paint I can not recall one booth that did not have a painted sprinklers. It is great you called NFPA the only problem is if you call back and talk to another person you will get a different answer. NFPA will provide a written response but that usually takes weeks to get. The Hanover Insurance document you included is similar to what we had. The purpose was to explain the need to cover the sprinkler when we encounter the problem. I would have then with me and handed them out when I knew they would have a paint booth, because like I said the ones I encounter had paint on them.

Let us know how this all ends.

 

[tom krupica]

Sounds like a money maker for the towns, just fine the slobs.

 

[tom krupica]

There are 45000 paint booths with someone in it spraying all day. Thats a lot of people going without decent protection. Not even the same protection as any office worker. Anyone else is protected better.

 

[cdafd]

You can change to a dry chemical system and get rid of fire sprinklers

http://www.pyrochem.com/pdfs/monarch/PC98231.pdf

 

[TravisMack]

Tom:
Did you read the posts on 5/26/27 above yours. LCREP has inspected THOUSANDS and 99.999% had sprinklers with paint on them. The standards are written so as to be applied across a broad range of projects. As stated, you have a very unique situation. It is not going to be covered by any standard. If this is so important to you, then you as the owner, can hire a fire protection engineer. Pay them to do a performance based design of your unique facility. Then, provide the data to the AHJ so you can be granted the ability to do as the FPE you hired has determined is appropriate in your unique situation.

I'm really not trying to be argumentative. I just wonder why you haven't gone down the route of a performance based design, as the recognized standard methods do not meet with your approval.

I wish you the best of luck in having your FPE get you the results you want.

Travis Mack
MFP Design, LLC

http://www.mfpdesign.com

"Follow" us at

https://www.facebook.com/pages/MFP-Design-LLC/92218417692

 

[tom krupica]

the code already says you are to replace the heads if you get paint on them. Putting a cover the slow down the response is not a good remedy. Someones grandpa came up with the best solution years ago, replace the heads.

 

[tom krupica]

Im perfectly happy with a 40 second to 60 second response, like the 155 degree heads will give me if they are left unadulterated. Im going to film the response so you guys can see. The cellophane melts and wraps the head with a thick plastic shrinkwrap. Ill do it with 4 digital thermometers and timer.

This video shows a fire in a small room like a paint booth with no sprinkler head responding, and its flashed over in 2 minutes. So to me that demonstrates how my booth will react, if the heads are covered. Then they show a single head responding and its all over in 45 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEXav_iBEZ8&t=381s

There is no need really to do a performance based design because Im happy with my old design. The code is written in english so its easy to decipher. 9.4.7 Sprinklers shall be protected against overspray residue, either by location or covering, so that they will operate quickly in event of fire. Normally if you are writing a sentence and you put a word before the word 'or' it means 'in preference of'. So location is best choice, followed by covering as least desired. I got a reply from the NFPA on this and they said they didnt intend to put location as a preference, they say there is no preference between the two. So hence 'either' is allowed, and either does not mean 'and'.