Brad, What I am now very clear on - is that I have stumbled into a hornets nest - with no hard answer.
*The problem being that someone changed something in the code and they "seemingly unintentionally" changed the definition (in loose terms) of a wet system:* from: a riser to: a riser, and each floor with a floor controller. Just because there is a "seemingly unintentionally" change, does that mean we change how we do business - whatever the concequence? *This only effects every 5 year inspection for every large building in the USA. No big deal. * *Implication for obstruction assessment:* X- story building with a three wet risers 1st scenario: look at 2 sprinkler heads 2nd scenarion: look at 3 sprinkler heads every 2 floors I am seeing people across the country "skipping" this part of the 5 year - and the AHJ not catching it - because it is costing in the neighborhood of $18k for a 5 year inspection because of misunderstanding. I do not have a problem with people spending money to keep the building safe, but there is another side to the coin. The commitee on the code (or wheover it is) debates each time on how often to open the system and look because when you do that, you introduce air. They are really worried about this and are trying to minimize this - because it can do more harm than good. If we look at a lot more heads just to meet the letter of the new "seemingly unintentional consequence of a code change" we: 1. get a better sample 2. charge the building alot more money 3. put the building at more risk 4. probably go against the intention of the people who write the code I dunno what to do... (insert head scratch here) And Brad - I am not a scholar on this stuff so I am probably wrong - but it is my understanding that you do this for all systems - not just wet. You look at *every* non-wet system plus *every other* wet system. The reasoning seems to be that dry systems will have a little water in there and lots of air which is a higher risk for growth. You do not do it for cpvc. It just states you are looking for "The presence of sufficient foreign organic or inorganic material", if you find enough material, then you have a field day looking all over the building because you have entered the NFPA 25 14.3 zone. *- Joe* ᐧ
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