The reasons, procedures, and tools for draining a fire sprinkler system
Without water, most fire protection systems are empty pipes fastened within walls and ceilings. We’ve routinely emphasized the importance of supplying adequate water to your building’s fire sprinkler and standpipe systems. But today, we tend to explore the alternative goal: Why would a fire protection system ought to be drained?
In this article, we’ll discuss the four primary reasons why you will ought to drain a fire sprinkler system. Then we’ll dive deep into the various varieties of drain valves, NFPA’s perspective on the location and usage of these valves, and conclude with some useful recommendation regarding the signs and decals required to spot drain valves.
Fire Sprinkler System Overview
Before we tend to dive into draining a fire sprinkler system, it's crucial to grasp where these drains fit into the system you will have in your building. It's additionally vital to understand where the water to be drained is held before and when the system is activated.
As a quick refresher, there are four basic varieties of fire protection systems. Each has its own manner of doing an equivalent job; controlling or extinguishing a fire threat.
Now that we've got refamiliarized ourselves with the various varieties of systems and the way the system holds an extinguishant, let’s think about why you'd ought to drain a fire sprinkler system.
Why would a fire sprinkler system need to be drained?
There are many events that might warrant the requirement for a fire sprinkler system to be drained.
New rules for fire protection may initiate regarding the age of the pipe, the kind of pipe, or the kind of valves. Each of those would warrant drainage of the fire sprinkler system to form the mandatory changes to the existing system.
Each fire protection system will need to be drained at some point. NFPA 13: Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems specifies that all systems must have the ability to be drained when needed.