George, do you have concealed heads in the house? QR may or may not activate faster or even much faster. I would be careful to rely too much on the UL testing when compared to actual installations.
The plunge test identified below is one test that UL uses (or did use) for concealed sprinklers as well to get the QR listing. How do you take a sprinkler that is not in the air stream in its normal installation and place it in the plunge test to get the listing? It doesn't make much sense to me. Do you think that QR concealed sprinklers will react faster than standard response pendents? I seriously doubt it in most cases. Why are there no QR concealed FM approved sprinklers? For the smoke/sprinkler discussion, and interesting proposal was made to NFPA 101. The Boston Fire Marshal (I believe) submitted a proposal to mandate photo-electric or combination photo (plus another detection type) smoke alarms in place of ionization smoke alarms. It was argued that one shouldn't install an ionization smoke alarm in a space where you are trying to detect a smoldering fire since ionization detectors react best to flaming fires while photo electric detectors react appreciably better to smoldering fires. It was argued that many lethal fires have occurred where ionization smoke alarms were present that did not go off as the public is lead to believe. Since sprinklers and ionization detectors react well to flaming fires, why place two devices (ion detector and sprinkler) in a space that are relatively good at detecting the same fire type (flaming)? Why not install a photo for early warning of smoldering fires, with a sprinkler to handle the flaming fire? The proposal was rejected, but it has merits. Given that the codes are written and state that the protection is for occupants not intimate with the initial fire development, you can argue that no sprinkler in the room of origin is intended to save that occupant. Having said that, why not place a sprinkler in the room that will give you the better chance? For me that would be a QR head that is FM approved. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all. Peter Larrimer VA -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of George Church Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 10:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: RE: both QR & SR sprinklers "The fire is going to activate any head" is a poor argument when considering the listing requirements of SR vs QR in the plunge test. The "plunge test" is an oven that has hot air circulating through it. The sprinkler is placed in a panel of the oven and "plunged" into the hot air. The QR sprinkler must activate in 14 seconds. The SR sprinkler has an astounding 100 seconds to activate when you do this test. These are UL requirements and FM varies a bit. It is amazing how much the mass of the element matters here. But if you can't see an improved life safety factor when sprinklers will activate that much sooner, there is no use continuing the discussion. As for me and my house, we have QR and residential heads installed to protect us while visions of sugarplums dance in our heads. Fortunately we had the opportunity to upgrade since one of our suppliers offers us the evolving continuum of new technology as it becomes available :) Have a firesafe and enjoyable Holiday, all ! George Church Rowe Sprinkler -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Thom McMahon Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 12:10 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: both QR & SR sprinklers Craig: Take in a Residential fire Demo Trailer next chance you get! Volunteer to be inside, you'll then know what we're talking about. Thom McMahon Firetech, Inc. 2560 Copper Ridge Dr Steamboat Springs, CO 80488-2136 Tel: 970-879-7952 Fax: 970-879-7926 ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 9:28 AM Subject: RE: both QR & SR sprinklers Chris, I'll take your word for it. (Although I'm a bit disturbed at you and Matt's repeated setting of things on fire.) LOL _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
