Quite honestly the percentage of total losses and damage to facilities where no sprinklers were installed has to overwhelmingly outweigh any actual or perceived loss from "leaking" sprinklers. So since there are no verifiable stats comparing those two scenarios can we just say that the incidents related to leakage of sprinkler systems is of such insignificance that there is no conclusive data available?
As a contractor the calls we got for "leaking" fire protection systems almost always ended up being some other disciplines piping. New installs did have some leaks at first but were usually drips due to an installer not tightening up a fitting or head completely or some goober using sprinkler pipe for lunchtime chin-ups or for safety harness tie off or someone manhandling of a head prior to or after installation. I have seen more water damage from overflowing drain pans on HVAC units and overflowing toilets than from sprinkler piping. Any stats on those two? Doubt it. So if anyone brought this up as a reason not to install sprinklers I'd ask him where he got his data and has he verified that against industry information. Might be fun to see what kind of response you'll get. Same deal with all the electrocutions that occur in sprinklered electrical rooms. Craig L. Prahl, CET Fire Protection Specialist Mechanical Department CH2MHILL Lockwood Greene 1500 International Drive PO Box 491, Spartanburg, SC 29304-0491 Direct - 864.599.4102 Fax - 864.599.8439 [email protected] http://www.ch2m.com -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joe Hankins Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 3:47 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: leak statistic Sorry for being overly emphatic. The chances of coming up with a reasonably realistic failure rate are very, very low. The reason is simple. We don't know how many sprinklers there are in service. We don't even know how many have been installed, much less how many are still in service. We don't know how many have failed because, historically, a lot of leakage incidents went unreported. They were just cleaned up. More recently, there have been more leakage claim because of things like mold, etc. That doesn't mean more failures, though. It means more reports. Also, the cause of leakage incidents is not documented in any consistent way. I know that the vast majority of leakage incidents that were reported while I was at FM were due to mechanical damage or fitting failures due to improper installation of fittings. Most importantly, there is really no need for a hard statistical number. It is not "throwing our hands up" when we say what we all know, which is that the failure rate is very, very low. Is that not a good pulse? I guess my point is that it is best not to use statistics the way a drunk uses a lamp post - for support rather than for illumination. Joe å... .... wrote: > All due respect Joe, I know > you forgot > more than i ever will know. > but to say > "there is no way" > sounds a bit... > well, too absolute. > > i don't believe in ever's, never's and forever's with most things. > > even if we developed a zero-point-one order model it would be better > than simply throwing our hands up, again. > > > just thinking out loud, but that 0.1 order model could begin with > insurance company claims that were made and substantiated. > sampling is a common tool of statistics. Statistics is as much an art > as some geotechnics and fire protection, yet statistics has got us to > leptons and hadrons. > One need not inventory the entire population, to get a pulse on what > is happening. > > > i won't believe, but i still want to hear, what the numbers are that > are out there. > > scot deal > excelsior fire engineering > > > And yes, > i thank you and Steve and Thom and all > for keeping me honest. but I am not > trying to cheat on ya. > _______________________________________________ > Sprinklerforum mailing list > http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum > For Technical Assistance, send an email to: > [email protected] > > To Unsubscribe, send an email > to:[email protected] > (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > -- > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.0.237 / Virus Database: 270.10.25/1958 - Release Date: > 02/18/09 08:57:00 > > _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field) _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [email protected] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[email protected] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
