YES! 13 has always allowed the use of QR instead of res. Sprinklers in 13 Res. Occupancies. As 8.4.5.1 says "Residential sprinklers shall be permitted in dwelling units."
They are not required by 13. We usually try to go that way, because of the 4 head design, but you could use room design instead just as easily. The problem I always see with room design is the automatic/self closing door. Without that you pick up additional heads in adjoining spaces. See 11.2.3.3 The other catch I see is the wall rating must = the required water supply. Because we're "Sprinklered", IBC allows reductions to "Unrated" for many walls, and 1 hour for required separations. You'll have to prove that the "Un-rated" walls are = to 30 min water supply. We as an industry always seem to jump to residential heads for residential occupancies without consideration to any other method of protection. We have built this ingrained response that residential occupancy requires residential sprinklers. It doesn't! There are QR dry pend out there. On a dry system you could use the QR DP in a residential occupancy. Is that the best protection? I prefer AF like Chris, but the other option is still available. Is 4 head residential the best possible protection for all residential occupancies? I don't think so. Any building that uses TJI's or Composite wood joist should be a min. 3000 SF design area, regardless of what heads or design we use. See the TYCO white paper on Composite wood joist construction, or the Canadian wood products board testing. Is that in the standard? NO! But it should be! IMHO. Thom McMahon, SET Firetech, Inc. 2560 Copper Ridge Dr P.O. Box 882136 Steamboat Springs, CO 80488 Tel: 970-879-7952 Fax: 970-879-7926 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of ParsleyConsulting Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 12:20 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: RESIDENTIAL OCCOPANCY DRY SYSTEM Thom, Does that mean that in a hotel protected by an NFPA-13 compliant system that I could design the system using only quick-response (non-residential) sprinklers, and thus change the minimum number of sprinklers flowing in the calculations? My thinking is that the guest room would certainly be classed as light hazard, and as long as self-closing doors were present, I would be allowed to use the room design method. Based on that, I could provide calculations for only those sprinklers in the room flowing, and because it is a "small room" as defined by 3.3.15, I would only have to provide the density of water times the area of the room divided by the number of sprinklers in the room for minimum flow from each sprinkler, per 8.6.2.1.2. That would certainly allow me to use smaller orifice sprinklers in the room, and reduce the total water flowing in the room. Of course, I'd also have provide a corridor calculation based on five sprinklers flowing, per 11.2.3.3.6, but using SxL I could also 4.2K sprinklers in the corridor, reducing the water flowing and still keeping the density provided at the required level for light hazard. Interesting possibilities. -- PARSLEY CONSULTING Ken Wagoner, SET 760.745.6181 voice 760.745.0537 fax [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> e-mail www.ParsleyConsulting.com <http://www.ParsleyConsulting.com> website Thom McMahon wrote: > Just as a follow up: > > 8.4.5 Residential Sprinklers. > 8.4.5.1* Residential sprinklers shall be permitted in dwelling units > and their adjoining corridors, provided they are installed in > conformance with their listing. > 8.4.5.2 Residential sprinklers shall be used only in wet systems > unless specifically listed for use in dry systems or preaction systems. > > "Permitted" not required. > > Thom McMahon, SET > Firetech, Inc. > 2560 Copper Ridge Dr > P.O. Box 882136 > Steamboat Springs, CO 80488 > Tel: 970-879-7952 > Fax: 970-879-7926 > > > > _______________________________________________ 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)
