Forumites: This email intended to provide information as well as gather any insight others might have.
Two colleagues of mine and I were investigating a dry system that froze and broke recently and a waterflow signal was not sent to the fire alarm panel at the time of the system operation. The alarm test/bypass sent a signal when we tested it, but the dry pipe valve tripping did not. Confirming the lack of a signal at the time of the water loss. In-depth investigation revealed that the ¾" alarm outlet on the back of the Tyco DPV-1 actually has just two small holes in the casting for the ¾" outlet - not a 3/4" hole. Those two small holes were completely plugged, unnoticeable until we scraped a little gunk off - thus no alarm. This system was ~ 6 years old. I have pictures and most of the stuff that was removed from the two small holes. It seems to me that in cleaning the seat of this valve, if you wipe it off you'll be pushing sludge/grim into the small slot that leads to these two small holes and this will be a continuing problem for this valve construction. I have spoken with more than a handful of fitters in several different areas of the U.S. and only one is aware of the two small holes. Obviously if the valve is set and trimmed, as most are with the back near a wall, this will not be an easy location to observe or clean. Do any of you have any experiences like this? Are you familiar with the valve and the two small holes? Has anyone provided any specific training on cleaning the seat to avoid plugging the alarm outlet port? I would appreciate any thoughts or direction. Thanks in advance, Scott Futrell _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected] http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
