fire sprinkler question

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SkinnyJoe

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what's the purpose of the brown oily susbtance inside fire sprinklers? What does it mean when there is a leak?



thanks.
 
It is an anti-freeze and anti-corrosion additive. Any leak should be serviced immediately by a licensed technician. The potential consequence of ignoring it? Well... how much water do you want?
 
Gollnick said:
It is an anti-freeze and anti-corrosion additive. Any leak should be serviced immediately by a licensed technician. The potential consequence of ignoring it? Well... how much water do you want?
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When I posted this here it was my hope that you would see it and respond to it. That you did, in 4 minutes from my post.
Your responses are by far the most informative and across a wide spectrum of subjects, and about technical matters in particular. Also, thank you for providing me with the proper motivation to act.

The maintenance people looked at it couple minutes ago, and they will call the appropriate licensed personell as the next step in the process. They didn't seem too concerned, and they mentioned glycol and atmospheric changes and whatnot. However, I am glad I made the call, as my computer is sitting underneath the troubled sprinkler. Personally I could do without them (sprinklers), but this is a rental property.

Once again thank you kindly, Sir.
 
It's illegal for anyone but a licensed sprinkler contractor to work on a sprinkler system. I'd move the PC now, you'll have to so they can tighten/replace the head anyway.
 
+1
Mr. Gollnick is part of a small group that consistently provides the most well thought out answers to a wide range of topics. ;)
 
Hi,

Actually, there is no antifreeze or anti-corrosion stuff in the vast majority of sprinkler fire suppression systems. Most common systems, commercial or residential, are wet systems always filled and direct supplied with water directly from the municipal water supply. Some systems do have a separate off line water supply, but those are uncommon in an urban area. Same water you drink, so adding things to a sprinkler system could get back into the general water supply. In any case, if there is a danger of freezing the lines, a dry system is used.

There is also no need for anti-corrosion additive either since the average sprinkler head is nothing more than a hole in the pipe plugged with a heat sensitive compound holding a little cap to seal. Most often either a fusible link type or frangible bulb. I carry a couple of little wooden wedges in a pocket of my bunker coat to stick in a sprinkler head to "shut it off" if needed.

So if something is leaking like brown nasty stuff, it's just old, captive stagnant water that has been in that pipe since the day it was filled.

And rules on who may or may not work on a sprinkler system can vary widely from municipality to municipality. Some may require special licensed and bonded personnel. Others may require just a licensed plumber and still others have no rules. Where I live, you can do it yourself if you want to. So know what your local Sullivan Act requires.

Good Luck and maybe get an umbrella.

dalee
 
Well, if I get flooded without any fire, then I will be talking to an attorney as I notified the landlord.

I used to leave the AC off while at work, and even with the blinds on, the apt would get to 89 degrees. I suspect that might have had something to do with the formation of the dark droplets on the sprinkler head. Haven't had any new stuff appear since I posted the original post, and since then I leave the AC on set at 81. Maybe related, maybe not, but it seems to correlate with the story that the maintenance guy gave me about expansion due to high temps.
 
Yes it is just old nasty water. We had a sprinkler head bust in a room in a Spring Creek BBQ restaurant the other day because it got so hot here. (Room did not have AC) The water that was in there was a black/brownish color. Water should be ran through them to keep that from happening. . (Ran through the pipes, not the heads themselves). I have heard leaving water in them for too long is bad on the pipes, but I'm not sprinkler expert. I just fight fire. Building inspector messes with sprinkler systems before we do.
 
texas gun person said:
Yes it is just old nasty water. We had a sprinkler head bust in a room in a Spring Creek BBQ restaurant the other day because it got so hot here. (Room did not have AC) The water that was in there was a black/brownish color. Water should be ran through them to keep that from happening. . (Ran through the pipes, not the heads themselves). I have heard leaving water in them for too long is bad on the pipes, but I'm not sprinkler expert. I just fight fire. Building inspector messes with sprinkler systems before we do.
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Hi,

Sprinkler systems should ideally be flushed once a year or so. But it seldom gets done because no one thinks of it and it costs money to run maybe a 1000 gallons of water just to clean something out that you quite possibly never need to use. Fortunately. sprinkler systems are pretty tolerant of neglect. Barring leaks in pipes and heads, they just mostly sit there unnoticed until called into action.

Joe, I can't remember exactly, but the temps would need to hit 200F or so, if I remember what I was told for the link to melt and set off the head. That doesn't mean a head can't fail. Some have been in service for 50+ years. And the caps that seal the hole can develop leaks due to long term exposure to that universal solvent, water.

On the upside, if it should fail, alarms will go off and people, (and the Fire Department), will go look to see what's wrong. Sprinkler systems use amazingly little water. So a deluge type flood won't really happen. Things could get a wet though, so keep that umbrella close.

dalee
 
Most sprinkler heads have a colored capsule. The color tells what temperature the head should open at. The white ones open at 150F. The red ones open at 300F. There are others, but those are the common two. So, there is no danger that even on a hot summer day in Phoenix, the heads might open unintentionally.

Dry systems need electronic detectors and a system of electrically-operated valves with backup power, etc. These systems are expensive and so tend to be used only where wet systems are just not possible.

All wet systems have a backflow valve between the system and the water supply.

Some -- especially older -- wet systems don't use any antifreeze/corrosive in the pipes. The stagnant water in them tends to get full of rust and mineral precipitates and not nice stuff. But, it'll put the fire out.

But, you describe an oily substance. That is typical of the antifreeze/anticorrosive used in many newer systems especially in colder climates. The sprinkler pipes are pressurized with this water/antifreeze/anticorrosive mixture to a pressure above the water supply pressure.. They pressurize the system against that backflow valve. As long as the pressure in the system remains above the supply pressure, that backflow valve will stay hard-off. If a head opens, the pressure in the system will fall and the backflow valve will then allow clean water to flow into the fire system. Obviously, filling and pressurizing these systems is a technical operation.
 
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One might ask, "Gollnick, how come you know all this stuff?"

The answer is that I am a new-product developer. No, I don't develop fire sprinklers. But, as a new-product developer, I am vitally interested in product safety. As a result, I am a member of the National Fire Protection Association. And so I get their e-mail blasts.

In the last year of so, there have been a lot of blasts about antifreeze in fire sprinkler systems. It all started with one blast... in a kitchen in California. It started as a minor grease fire in a pan. Instead of putting a lid or large plate on the pan, the idiot homeowner pulled the pan off the stove intending to dump it in the sink to put water on it, a very wrong idea. Apparently, moving the pan fanned the flames and they erupted right as the pan moves under a sprinkler head. The head opened. What came out was not the safe 30% antifreeze mixture, but a mixture that was over 70% antifreeze. At that concentration, the water/antifreeze mixture is actually flammable. And, when sprayed into the air, it actually became explosive. One person was killed and, as I recall, two injured. This triggered a huge investigation which found high antifreeze concentrations in lots of sprinkler systems. There was a heated debate (pun intended) and the conclusion was that antifreeze should still be used in many systems, but it mus not be mixed inthe field; only factory-pre-mixed antifreeze solutions may now be used.

So, that's how I came to know about this.

Oh, and Skinnyjoe, I think you might want to suggest to your landlord that, as long as they're repairing the leaking head, they check te antifreeze concentration too.
 
No worries, the only thing that I use the stove top for is tea and on occasion, boiled eggs. No sprinkler above that unit (not directly at least).

I don't think they are intent on fixing or replacing anything. The leak has not occured since I somewhat normalized the room temp, and the one I took pics of (if anybody wants to see) in my bedroom, there is only a small amount of that dark stuff around it, nothing dripping on the floor or anything. I may have incorrectly described it as "oily", as I really have no idea (did not touch it with my hands, but q-tips). It appears brown and kinda thick. Can water present with such an appearance? I am still puzzled where the maintenance guy got glycol from.

Anyway, all is good so far, I guess. BTW, if was at home and one of those damn things went off, is there a way of stopping it?
 
SkinnyJoe said:
BTW, if was at home and one of those damn things went off, is there a way of stopping it?
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Two blocks of wood cut like a door wedge, you shove one in on each side creating a rectangle "block" so the water can not spray out.
 
The temperature theory is incorrect, I think. The difference between 89 and 81 is not much. And besides, the system is supposed to include a thing called a "tank" which takes up the expansion due to higher temperatures on summer days and the contraction due to low temperatures in the winter. If the weeping was due to the elevated room temperatures, them the tank isn't working right. There should be no leakage. I'm worried that the head in question has a problem. It has to serviced. Your landlord will try to avoid this because it is expensive. But is just has to be done.

If a head opens, the water flow is supposed to trigger a monitored alarm. The fire department should be on it's way. So, how come my company's CFO came to work one Monday morning years ago and found several inches of water on the floor throughout the facility? A sprinkler head in our compressor room had opened -- probably late Friday night -- and been pouring out water since. No alarm. The flow sensor was bad. Unfortunately, this isn't an unheard-of problem. So, if you know that this head has had leakage, insist that the system be properly serviced.
 
Stagnant water and residual oil from cutting/threading the pipe and or the manufacturing process. Glycol can be used in place of a dry system in outdoor environments but a standard indoor system is hooked up to the available water supply ... They do not put any additives into a wet system!
 
I just took some pics of both sprinklers (bedroom and living room) with today's date and apt complex name labeled. If someone can do me a favor and post them here for me, so it's a matter of record, that would be awesome.
spoiler223@gmail.com is my email.

I will be talking to the landlord again this morning.
 
Another idea occured to me: maybe the mystery material is not coming out of the sprinkler system at all but is just following the sprinkler pipes... all the way into your room?

One possibility: a dark, thick material? How about honey? Honey from a nest of bees in the attic? That would explain the correlation to hot weather.

It could be other things too.
 
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