Water meter on dedicated fire service mains

[FFP1]

Part 1: Does anyone have any firm documentation which indicates whether or not public water departments can or cannot charge for water usage in dedicated fire service mains?

Part 2: What percentage of dedicated fire service mains in your area of the country would you say already have public water meters in place (please disregard meters on the small bypass lines for this question - I am interested in large volume rather than small leaks} ? {My experience is that >95% of the dedicated fire service mains in Georgia do not have water meters.}

I can find wording regarding water usage during actual fire instances, but I cannot find anything with regard to intial acceptabce testing, NFPA required inspections and/or water usage during repairs/modifications.

 

[cdafd]

Are you talking commercial or residental or both???

 

[chicopee]

Call fire and water departments of that region.

 

[stevenal]

No documentation, but why would a water department go to the trouble and expense of metering a line that is expected to have zero usage month after month? The cost of reading it would have no payback until that rare fire occurred, and then they would need to go after insurance or the bankruptcy court. Easier and cheaper to have a basic charge that applies regardless of usage for these connections.

 

[FFP1]

Commercial/Industrial facilities.

I have a customer who is being charged a SIGNIFICANT amount for the water usage after the intial system fill and fire pump flow testing (intial acceptance testing activities).

 

[chevy4x4trucks]

This all comes down to the local water purveyor and will vary from area to area.

 

[cdafd]

Part 1 is up to ech water district


Part 2 we do an electric transmitter on the bypass meter

Most places charge for water usage , and some chrage for the tap/ meter

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Sometimes fees can get ridiculous in my opinion.

When I did jobs around the Columbus, Ohio area we did whatever it took to keep the city tap/meter as small as possible. In a 5k sf building if you had to run 3" branch lines and 6" mains instead of 2" branch lines and 4" mains to keep the tap at 6" instead of 8" that is what you did.

And you certainly did this if out of the contract area which mostly meant outside the city limits but with Columbus water.

Next time you get depressed because the city wants to charge $5,000 for a tap fee take a gander at this.

http://utilities.columbus.gov/uploa.../Contractors/2011ServiceConnectionCharges.pdf

That is not a typo but at least they gave a break for Fire Protection Only (FPO).

Outside the city for a 6" tap you paid the cost of the tap plus 25%, plus $5,268.00 for the FMCT meter plus $33,626.00 for the capacity charge plus $22/foot frontage fee so a 6" fire only tap on a property with 200' could easily cost $50,000 or more.

An 8" could easily run $75,000.

Columbus Fire often required a fire hydrant be installed on the property which always dictated 8" the same as if you had two systems required 8" regardless of hydraulics.

To be fair the city did put all the money back into improvements and you can go anywhere and expect 70-90 static, 55-70 residual flowing 2,000 gpm or better.

More often than not when outside the city limits, Dublin for example

http://www.dublin.oh.us/building/pdf/fees/2011WaterSewerFeesScheduleA.pdf

, there would be a surcharge of $18,981.60 for a 6" fire only tap on top of the City of Columbus tapping charge. A 6" tap could run $70,000 with an 8" running $110,000.

And you thought tapping fees in your town were high.

The sad part is many buildings that should have had sprinklers didn't. Fire doors, extra walls, get the building down to 11,999 sq. ft. whatever it took so sprinklers were not required.

 

[NJ1]

Well I would like to share my input on this.

I live in one of the most corrupted states in the country.
Even if stevenal comment appears to be right by code you must flow water every quarter and every year so if you follow the code you are basically using water in a yearly bases.

How ever now in NJ we meter everything and charge you for a service line fee whether you flow or not. Then you pay for all additional water registered in the meter. LOL funny right.
We do not really enforce quarterly inspections but we require to follow NFPA 25 Standard. Funny again right.

My point is that they charge you with a quarterly/yearly service line fee plus you get billed monthly for any water used but yet not real enforcement of NFPA 25 is being made.

This country is bad, very bad. Thanks politicians!

 

[AZsprink]

I wonder how much water on average is used in a unsprinklered building to put out a fire.

I worked at a hospital where it was cheaper for the sprinkler contractor to wet tap the fire main to add 1 sprinkler than to pay the city fee to shut down and drain the system.

 

[MGXFP]

Here in OK most cities do not require a meter for fire protection however OKC does which is a large exception.

I have read that a sprinklered building requires 1/4 to 1/3 as much water on average to kill a fire vs. nonsprinklered. The argument being that sprinklers not only save lives and property but water too.

We do have cities with very high tap charges; the good is they have excellent pressures and flows so a cheaper sprinkler system can be installed.

 

[stevenal]

So if water must flow every quarter, estimate this usage and build it into the basic charge.

My experience is on the electical side, where small predictable loads (street lights, cable TV amplifiers) are un-metered. I fail to see why water should be treated differently.

FFP1, It sounds like your customer has a leak or a cross connect somewhere.

 

[pipesnpumps]

We had a facility on a rural water supply that was going to charge $280,000 PER YEAR to allow a 6" tap of the water line. The tap size was due to firewater use, potable would have required 2". This was for a federal facility that created the lake from which the water purveyor got the water.

These water utilities pass the buck on to the big customers because it's politically expedient to that vs upping residential rates.

Real world knowledge doesn't fall out of the sky on a parachute, but rather is gained in small increments during moments of panic or curiosity.