Mark hit half of the problem on the nose. If we are going to spend time and money on improving the industry, should we get hung up on tweaking the water supply in an attempt to fix other deficiencies in the process or addressing the lack of engineering responsibility (part of which is defining the water supply and the adequacy thereof) and the adequacy of oversight by the AHJ (not an issue in a FEW areas but overall, a challenge)?
SO now that everyone has had a chance to pontificate upon the outcome of the NFPA floor action, let’s move on. Roland Roland Huggins, PE - Senior VP Engineering American Fire Sprinkler Assn. Dallas, TX http://www.firesprinkler.org <http://www.firesprinkler.org/> Fire Sprinklers Saves Lives > On Jun 18, 2018, at 8:34 AM, Mark Sornsin [FAR] <[email protected]> > wrote: > > All of the horror stories in the world do not change the fact that requiring > a specific safety margin for calculations is difficult to justify in an > internationally recognized standard. I could see Annex language offering > pros for a margin and maybe giving examples of when one might be considered. > > In my view it’s the responsibility of the person engineering the system to > make this call. In this industry 99% of the time that is the designer working > for the low-bid contractor. The designer who may or may not be NICET > certified, depending on the rules of the jurisdiction in which they are > working. The point is the person with the most knowledge of the local > conditions should be making this call. In an ideal world, when you have > someone specifying the design parameters for a bid project, it would be the > specifying engineer. I also realize that this is fantasy 98% of the time, > which is a stain on the engineering profession, but that’s a different rant. > We can’t expect to codify a requirement like this in a standard that needs to > apply throughout the world. It would require specific numbers and these will > vary on local conditions. Instead it is the engineer/designers responsibility > to become familiar with local conditions and adjust accordingly. The example > of reduced water levels in municipal water towers is a great one. Not all > cities engage in this practice, but where they do the designer needs to know > what the minimum static pressures can be. Or the local reviewing authority > needs to adopt specific requirements to match their local conditions. > > But the real problem comes when a contractor is bidding on a job with no real > engineering guidance and no local amendments to account for special local > conditions. The low-bid contractor or will be the one who assumes their water > test is valid despite having taken it at the highest possible pressure of the > day/season. And a specific safety margin requirement in NFPA 13 cannot > guarantee proper correction for this error. >
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