Hi, all! I came across this forum by accident at the perfect time. I am having a dilemma with the building department.

I am conducting an annual flow test on a 500 gpm (at 100 psi) fire pump from the test header off the pump discharge with the valve closed as to not disturb the system. I achieved 100% and 150% with no issues and the curve was almost identical to the pump's design curve.

The Department of Buildings is rejecting the test because the test was conducted from the discharge manifold. I was trying to avoid flowing from the roof because it's a very high end building and did not want to risk anything. Now, this system has been recently installed and the jockey pump panel is reading 100 psi on the system.

When I tested my pump, it pushed out 168 psi  on discharge and 48 psi on suction for a net of 120 psi (the pump is rated at 124 PSI for churn). I can conduct the test from the roof with no issue as long as the building feels comfortable with their storm drain's ability to handle the flow, but I am worried about over-pressurizing the system. 

Am I permitted by code to test off the header and not from the roof? 

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I'm looking at requirements for hose valves (FHV) at exit passageways and I'm a little confused.

The code states that a hose connection is required: "in every exit passageway at the entrance from the exit passageway to the other areas of a building.

Exception: Where floor areas adjacent to an exit passageway are reachable from exit stairway hose connections by a 30-foot (9144 mm) hose stream from a nozzle attached to 100 feet (30 480 mm) of hose, a hose connection shall not be required at the entrance from the exit passageway to other areas of the building."

What is the rationale behind locating a hose valve at the entry of the exit passageway?

Is this for fighting fires outside?

I have been told it is so that the fire department can quickly locate the hose valve, but I can't imagine they would want to run their hose 130-feet in the passageway just to then have another connection in the stairwell. My passageway is about 100-feet long and it connects to a stairwell that does have a fire hose valve located at the main landing.

Why would I need a fire hose valve at the entry of the exit passageway also, which is 100-ft away?

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I have a project that is under NFPA 13R (2019) and NFPA 14 (2019). In section 7.10.1.3.1.1 of NFPA 14, it states that in cases where NFPA 13R system demand is higher than the standpipe demand, the system demand applies.

Is it ever possible to have a residential sprinkler system with a higher demand than a standpipe?

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We have a project where the contractor tied in a new 4-inch standpipe into the existing 6-inch sprinkler main riser. Now it becomes a combination standpipe/fire sprinkler riser. 

My question is - does the contractor still need to install riser isolation valves on every floor? 

Per NFPA 13 8.17.5.2.2* the following restrictions shall apply:
(3) Each combined sprinkler and standpipe riser shall be equipped with a riser control valve to permit isolating a riser without interrupting the supply to other risers from the same source of supply. (For fire department connections serving standpipe and sprinkler systems, refer to Section 6.8). 

As of now the sprinkler main riser is not a part of their scope. Thanks in advance.

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Is a pumper truck from the fire department required to do standpipe flow testing?

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We have a project where the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) is requiring zone control valves and dedicated pipe from the standpipe to any IT rooms and sprinklers in elevator shafts.

As a result, we have three zone controls for each floor: (1) the floor sprinkler system, (2) IT rooms, and (3) any sprinklers in elevator shafts.

Is there a code or standard basis for this requirement, or would it be specific to the AHJ?

We're doing the work either way for this project since the AHJ is requiring it, but I would like to know for future projects. Thanks in advance.

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We are designing a residential building that will have a manual wet standpipe in a fully-sprinklered building. The building itself is less than 75-feet high.

I need to calculate the wet manual standpipe but would like to check my approach. 

Do I need to calculate the remote standpipe at the two most remote hose valves at 100 psi, 250 gpm each, plus one more hose valve closer to the source at 250 gpm all the way back from a supply at the fire truck?

​Thanks in advance for any feedback.

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We have an existing building were the highest occupied floor is less than 30'-0 above fire vehicle access. This building is being renovated.

Part of the renovation involves the construction of a new building to be connect to the existing building. The new building is higher than 30'-0 above fire vehicle access. The exit stairwells in the new building need a standpipe system.

Does the existing building need a standpipe system since it is connected even though the existing building stairways and floors are not higher than 30'-0 above fire vehicle access?​

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We have a project where the general contractor is stating that the vertical penetration in the stairwell landing, where the standpipes are located, need to be sealed.

They are not asking for it to be a fire-rated seal, but they say some sort of seal will be required. I know on past projects this typically was never a requirement. I have searched NFPA and the IBC with no luck on finding something that would insinuate that no seal is required for the vertical standpipes openings within the rated stair.

Is a seal required for these stair landing penetrations?

Any input is much appreciated.

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Adding a new Fire Department Connection to an existing building with a 4-inch combination standpipe and 2-1/2 inch mains feeding each level. The standpipe is significantly farther from the new FDC location; however, the 2-1/2 inch feed main is located closer to the new location.

Is it acceptable to connect the 4" FDC pipe to the 2-1/2" main, or do we need to route the pipe back to the standpipe location?

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In an existing building with no fire pump test header, is it permissible to use Standpipe 2-1/2" fire hose cabinet valves to conduct a flow test for smaller pumps?

I believe NFPA 20 (2019) 4.22.3.1.3 (2) indicates that this approach is acceptable, but I would like to confirm.

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We are working on a new addition to an existing high school. Part of the addition is a new auditorium with a full stage. The stage will be the highest hazard and our calculation area, Ordinary 2. The stage will also have (2) 1-1/2" hose stations with fog nozzles, one on each end, north and south, to protect the stage. They will be supplied from the same fire sprinkler system protecting the stage.

Do we need to include the hose station(s) discharge in the hydraulic calculations?

If so, what would be the flow criteria from those hose connections, and is that separate from the outside hose allowance or part of it?

Thanks all for your input.

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We have a 5-story building with wet manual standpipes in three stairwells. A single FDC connects to the end of a manifold in the riser room that has a 4-inch dry system, a 4-inch wet sprinkler, and a 6-inch riser that supplies the three standpipes. Each standpipe has a separate isolation valve at its stair tower. One of the standpipes is a combination standpipe/riser with sprinkler floor control valves for levels 2-5.

Regarding the 6-inch standpipe riser off of the manifold:

Is a control valve required, or allowed?

Is a check valve required?

Is a flow switch required, or recommended?

This project is under NFPA 14-2013 Edition. Thanks.

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I have a covered mall under 30' tall that requires hose valve connections in accordance with the International Building Code, Section 905.3.3.

Do these hose valve connections count as a standpipe that requires a monitored isolation valve as per NFPA 14 6.3.2?

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I’m a Fire Inspector/Design Reviewer and I have a problem that I’ve been trying to tackle.  NFPA 14 systems are designed for high volume low pressure firefighting tactics, but the majority of fire departments in America use high pressure low volume equipment.  Here are the key points: 

NFPA 14 Type 1 standpipe systems provide 250 gpm at 100 psi with 200 ft to most remote location in a sprinkled building.  In the firefighting world this equates to a fire attack with 250 ft of 2.5” hose and a 1-1/8” smooth bore nozzle.  The 250 ft comes from, 50 ft to stretch to the hose connection on the floor below the fire floor and 200 ft to most remote location on the fire floor.  Fire ground friction loss calculations for 250 gpm through 2.5” hose is 15 psi loss per 100 ft.  A smooth bore nozzle requires 50 psi to operate properly.  We are stretching from the floor below so we have roughly 6 psi head loss.  So the required pressure at the hose valve is 93.5 psi.  You can see that the NFPA 14 design requirements are in line with the use of this higher volume lower pressure equipment.  

The problem is that 2.5” hose is very heavy and requires a lot of man power.  2.5” attach lines are used by large city departments like Seattle, New York, and Chicago.  Many smaller city and town departments don’t have the staffing to stretch such big lines.  We may only have a couple firefighters stretching an attack line where as the big cities would have 6 or more.  So we use smaller more maneuverable hose and more pressure demanding fog nozzles.

A more typical firefighting set up in the majority of fire departments would be 1.75” or 2” hose and a 75 psi or 100 psi fog nozzle flowing between 150-200 gpm.  I’ll use Bozeman as an example.  We use 1.75” hose, a 75 psi fog nozzle, and a target flow of 175 gpm.  In our experience the pressure loss per 100-ft of 1.75” hose with 175 gpm is 50 psi.  So if we need to stretch 250 ft of hose, we would need 206 psi at the hose valve on the landing below the fire floor.  Add in that the tallest building we have is 11 stories, and a 25 psi pressure loss adjustment for pumping the FDC, and we are up to 285 psi required at the FDC.  

There seems to be a disconnect between the design world and the firefighting world.  This poses all sorts of problems such as compromising sprinkler systems and old standpipe systems since they may have components that are not rated for such high pressures.  Even worse are systems with pressure reducing hose valves that wouldn’t even allow us to pump the FDC to get anywhere near the pressures we need with our equipment (see One Meridian Plaza fire in Philadelphia).  

I think that Fire Departments need to communicate their design needs to designers, and Fire Departments also need to look at the equipment they use, and see how they can make changes to operate more closely to what NFPA 14 systems are designed for.   

If you have any knowledge on this topic I would love to hear it, thanks in advance.

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Are isolation valves allowed to be installed after dry valve for a standpipe system?

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NFPA 1 Section 13.2.2.2, a Class I standpipe is not required in buildings less than three stories or less than 50-ft high above grade. 

If we have a huge industrial complex or storage occupancy of 60,000 square meters (645,000 sqft), should we not require a standpipe system if it is only one floor above grade with a total height of 40-feet? Looks strange to me.

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How do you see standpipes and hose valves protected from physical damage in parking garages where the area is large enough to require standpipes outside of the exit stairs? Bollards? Pipe guards? No protection?

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Would a mechanical penthouse be considered a “story” in terms of the 30-ft. standpipe threshold?

If the mechanical penthouse is not occupied, does it still apply for the 30-ft limit? Although that would be logical, I can’t the word “occupied” used anywhere except related to high-rise.  I suppose a mechanical penthouse could be considered a mezzanine, I see some commentary that a mezzanine should be no more than 1/3 of the related floor.

The project has three floors where the top classroom floor is 28 feet above fire department access.  But, there’s a mechanical level above that is much higher. It’s accessible, is it a “story” in terms of standpipe?  It would seem logical that this penthouse doesn’t count.  But I’m not 100% sure code backs me up on this.

Of course the thing that bites us, is whether or not the standpipe is manual or automatic – we have fond this to be totally up to the discretion (sometimes whim), of the AHJ.  Sometimes based on good reasoning, sometimes it has causes the unnecessary (IMHO) requirement for a fire pump.

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I'm working on a project with a very extensive horizontal standpipe; it is about 2000 feet long and in a loop, so almost 5,000 linear feet when all said and done.

Where can I find guidance on providing expansion joints?

Due to the system being so long, we're worried about providing some flexibility in the instance of extreme temperature swings (Virginia). Would seismic flexible joints be appropriate?

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During a hotel stay in NYC over the weekend I noticed the combination standpipe included a 3" pressure reducing valve just upstream of the 3" zone control assembly.

An indicating valve was not installed on the inlet side of the Cla-Val (model 90G-21 with no pressure gauges). A filler piece between the PRV outlet and the butterfly valve included a pressure gauge which was at 60 psi. The 2-1/2" fire hose valve was standard pressure and the express drain was only 2".

This arrangement is not something I would expect to see in the DC metro area, but is it typical of NYC?

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We have a combination sprinkler/standpipe riser through floor-level landings in a stairwell of our building. There is a project requirement to provide a pipe sleeve and "required clearance per NFPA 13". 

NFPA 13 gives very clear guidance on clearances in Section 9.3 (NFPA 13 2016 Edition), but that doesn't apply to this project as it is not required to be designed for seismic (Seismic Design Category B).

Where can I determine what clearance needs to be between the pipe and the hole in the concrete stairwell floors/ceilings? I'm not seeing any clearance requirement, but I surely could be missing something. Thanks in advance!

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Within stairwells, how are standpipes addressed in regards to cane detection with ABA/ADA rules? Are there any special cane-detection requirements (anything special to allow a visually-impaired person to detect a vertical standpipe)?

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Where exactly in the International Fire Code or International Building Code (or NFPA standards) does it state that a standpipe riser must be visible or unobstructed? 

Is there anything that prohibits me from sheetrocking the standpipe riser os installing it inside a wall? Of course the hose outlets will be exposed - but what about the riser?

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