Dry Systems

The purpose of this article is to impart all that I know in a few minutes of reading. Hopefully you will pay attention to the few important details necessary to decrease the chances of a major headache and expense associated with an ill-maintained dry sprinkler system.

Money Savings

The advent of the dry system has saved the expense of heating large areas, but has cost a great deal to those that don't bother to maintain their system properly.

Drum Drips

This time of the year is when many dry systems accumulate water in their low points. This "drum drips" are supposed to accumulate the water, and be drained at regular intervals. They should be monitored for moisture accumulation as often as needed. For some systems, once/week is adequate. For others, once/month will be sufficient. This should be determined every year.when your yearly inspections are performed. One of the many checkpoints of the inspection form requires the observation of sagging piping (which forms a collection point for water), and an adequate number of drum drips.

There is always the water vapor present in the sprinkler piping. This is due to the fact that water is used to prime the dry pipe alarm valve. When the system was last tripped, some water remained, laying at the bottom of the horizontal pipes. Much of this water remains in a vapor state.

When the outdoor temperature goes down, the coldest part of the piping system begins to condense the water vapor. This accumulation may eventually freeze, and burst your piping at the low points. When a small amount of water freezes in a large pipe, rarely will any damage occur. When however the piping is small, the piping can split, or crack the fittings in near proximity.

The frequency and reliability of those maintaining the sprinkler system, will determine the necessity of installing heat tape around the drum drip, so that it may be drained, even when the rest of the system piping is frozen.

Air Compressor

Another function of the inspections is to drain the air supply compressor. Especially if the compressor is located in a moist area, the necessity of draining the water out of the receiver is of utmost importance. If the compressor were to be incapable of keeping up with the demand of air, the system will trip, and fill the system with water, causing numerous problems.

Water Drips

A dry system should not have water dripping from any part of the system, other than the drum drips. If, for instance, water is leaking out of the ball drip on the side of the dry valve the seats are not set correctly.It could be dirt is under the seat. It could also be that the valve is about to trip.

Inspections

City and State codes require yearly trip tests. We can't stress the importance of staying on top of this requirement. As an owner, you should always take a proactive approach, and have an experienced professional maintain your system. Over the years, four of our customers had fires at their properties. Three of the fires were put out within a 15' radius of the fires origin. No one was hurt, and structurally, the building was not damaged. Unfortunately, the fourth customer had no sprinklers in their 50,000 square foot building; it was a complete loss.

Last Thoughts

Well, I thought a few minutes would do it. It has come to my attention that I did not run out of material, and I have come to realize the need to communicate on a regular basis with my customers. My hope is that my customers contribute by sharing some of their experiences with the rest of us. To this end, I will strive to maintain a website for the purpose of sharing ideas, especially for this type of input.

Backflow Testing

The purpose of backflow testing is to prevent any contaminants from entering the water supply. These simple devices are intended for protecting your neighborhood, and also personnel within your building. In the summer of 2003 there was a blackout that affected millions of people. The water supplies were not operating, and a back-siphonage of water from industrial plants, apartment complexes, and homes surely occurred. This would not occur if everyone had a properly operating backflow device.

Requirements

Any commercial/industrial building is to have backflow protection by law. Soon, all residential properties will be affected.

copy from literature

Community Involvement

Robotics

	For the last 4 years our company has been involved in a robotics competition, sponsored by NASA, ASME, and put on by Dean Kamen's organization, FIRST (http://www.usfirst.org/). As an advisor, I have had an amazing experience in that 12 kids, with no hands-on tool experience could design, program and build a remote-controlled robot from the ground up. Not only did they need the imagination to problem-solve very complex tasks, but the math and computer savvy was beyond the scope of most adults, especially mine. The kids were given a 2 1/2" thick manual outlining the parameters of what they could or could not do to build the robot, two boxes of pieces-parts, and six weeks to complete a working robot. The only technical help the kids got was from the school maintenance man and myself. I can assure you, it was as much a learning experience for me as everyone else. Other then the technical aspect, which I found amazing, there were specific things learned which were of immense value to all of us. Self-reliance was apparent, due to the lack of school dollars, technical support, community support. Why does so much money go towards sports teams? The lesson learned during this project will encourage these kids to strive to make the world a better place by possibly solving some of man's seemingly unsolvable problems.
Programming of robot computer
Click here to see more pictures

The spirit of gracious professionalism allowed them to be able to learn that they are on this earth to help their fellow man. An example of this was demonstrated at Epcot while in the pit. We were having a problem achieving optimal traction on one of our practice runs. A kid from another school noticed, and volunteered his advisors, engineers, and some of his crew to help us. Not only did they come up with a good idea for us, but another school supplied the parts we needed. (would you expect any other sports activity to demonstrate these attributes)

We had set out to build a robot capable of performing some basic tasks, and succeeded. We won 1st place in a regional competition at Michigan State University, and finished in the first 1/3 in the finals at Epcot.

In 2002 we built our 2nd robot. We helped promote a regional event that was based in Cleveland at the CSU Convocation Center. After the competition, all the students celebrated at the Rock'N Roll Hall of Fame. We all stuffed ourselves with pasta, toured the Museum, and enjoyed the band. My son Ari played drumset with the band during a few songs.

Heating Start-up / Cooling Shut Down

We need to think ahead of when the weather changes In order that we better serve our customers, we feel that now is the perfect time to remind you of certain procedures that should be taken to avoid problems when the snow hits, or the scorching bakes your office.

Air Conditioning

If you have a water-cooled chiller system, your towers, pumps and associated piping will need to be drained to prevent bursting of pipes, etc.
Some systems need a manual change-over, where some valves or dampers need opening, and some closing.
This is the perfect time to inspect the chiller tubes for scale, pitting, erosion, blockage, etc. If there is a problem, you have all winter to repair it.

Heating Systems

Needless to say, when you turn on the heat, it would be nice if it worked the first time. Don’t get caught in the last minute scramble to keep your employees from going home because of no heat in the office. The normal check-up should take an hour or so, and you will be ahead of the game.
Carbon monoxide, caused by leaking heat exchangers, down drafts, or flue blockage is the first thing we check out in our inspections. It is the most important safety consideration, next to fire hazards.
Lubrication of all motors, pumps, bearings, blowers will increase the longevity of your components. Many of the reasons we have service emergency service calls is that normal maintenance was never properly done.

Boiler Systems

Proper water treatment is essential to provide for non-corrosive water. In some systems, a chemical protectant can be added that actual bonds with the inside of the metal pipe.

Dry Systems (beginning of the page)