Todd, Hope you all had a safe and Happy Thanksgiving holiday.
Are you referring to a closed loop water phase heat pump system using sprinkler piping for supply and return piping? Just finished designing one for a mechanical retrofit in an old high rise. As part of the work we were able to provide the building owner with a savings of over $500,000 in piping cost (actual bid difference) by using the combined closed loop mech/sprinkler piping system. You cannot design just like a sprinkler system you need to look at water velocity in the pipe since water is being circulated during normal operation pipe and you will need to run either a separate return or supply riser, and you have to review the systems control process. You need to develop a method of shutting off the mechanical systems circulating pumps upon sprinkler activation. I have designed three systems that have been up and running for over ten years with no significant problems, for a single tenant building everything is good, for a multitenant building you need to sit down with the building owner and look at his rental plans, you might need to install sectional valves. Once system is up and operational the building owner can see significant savings in heating and cooling cost. One building had a large computer center on one floor and the heat from the computer center provides much of the heating for the typical mid-Atlantic winter, the building's secondary heat source runs only once or twice a year. With this type of system you need to work closely with the building owner and the mechanical engineer. In two of the jobs we completed the owner had to replace his mechanical engineer since the original engineer had no clue, we had to literally do design drawings showing the "normal" operation of the system and during sprinkler operation. This was not done as a low bid job but as a way to fit both the mechanical system piping as specified and the sprinkler system piping into the above ceiling space without major cutting of the structural steel to allow the piping systems to pass each other and stay above the dropped ceiling (too much pipe not enough above ceiling space, 24 inch deep structural beams not taken into account) Good luck. Have a fire safe Black Friday. Regards Jim Jim Davidson Davidson Associates Fire Protection * Medical Gas * Code Consulting 302-994-9500 Fax:302-234-1781 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Todd Williams Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 8:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Circulating closed loop systems Ok, here's a new one for me. Sprinklers fed from a circulating closed-loop system as detailed in section 7.6 of NFPA 13 (2002). Anybody done one of these? Any thoughts? Ideas? Pitfalls? Sources for a crash course? "I may not have seen everything, but I've seen enough." Todd G. Williams, PE Fire Protection Design/Consulting Stonington, CT 860.535.2080 www.fpdc.com _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://fireball.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum
