In-Rack Sprinklers Allowed Just Outside the Rack?

5/7/2025

We are protecting a single row storage rack that is located beside a wall. The distance between the face of the storage rack and the wall is approximately 18". We are installing in rack sprinklers.

Can the line of in-rack sprinklers be installed along the face of the single row rack, between the storage rack and the wall?

Or must the line of in-rack sprinklers be located inside the storage rack?

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9 Comments

Jesse

5/7/2025 08:35:08 am

Face sprinklers are generally used differently than in-rack sprinklers (IRAS). It really depends upon your design criteria.

I had project a few weeks back protecting Class IIIB Liquids with one of the NFPA 30 design schemes. This particular scheme didn't call for face sprinklers, but for IRAS spaced 5-ft in the middle of the rack.

Another project was cold storage to >40 that had 3 tiers of in-rack and face sprinklers staggered. `

What are you protecting? And is the design criteria calling for face sprinklers?

franck

5/7/2025 09:39:40 am

I think the question is not for face sprinklers but for the “longitudinal flue” sprinklers.

Chris N

5/7/2025 08:39:09 am

In-racks are the bane of my existence (Team ESFR here). My three cents is that would you want something to come by and hit and have an activation? In racks and longitudinal and latitudinal flues are spaced to protect the system just as much as the commodity.

franck

5/7/2025 09:38:10 am

I am team ESFR as well for new installations, but in existing situations, if you don’t want to replace all ceiling’ s sprinklers (and possibly the water supply), in rack is the less expensive solution

Jack G

5/7/2025 08:53:28 am

If the distance between the rack and the wall is 2 feet or less, yes the row of sprinklers can be spaced outside the rack as if it were a loungitudinal flue snd the spacing between sprinklers would be like its a double row rack.
Be sure to check with state and local officials and the project engineer.
You may want to look at an old phamplet nfpa 231c, withdrawn in 1999 when it was incorporated in nfpa 13.
We seniors grew up with 231, 231c, in the 50 s on, and i feel they are mire explicative of the rules.
So compare them to nfpa 13 .

Jack G

5/7/2025 09:13:30 am

For a client i ve installed them on a wall bracket on the wall 6 inches off the rack like its a 12 inch flue space. Client worried about fork lift drivers.
Also on brackets off the back of the rack between the wall and the rack to get 6 inches.
And for a client that when hanging in a double row rack wanted the pipe exactly in the middle so we did it with 3/8 rod, 3/4 inch pipe sleeves, nuts and washers with a 3/8 inch rod coupling welded dead center of the sleeve. Gore industries in fairhill md was pretty oarticular about theirvracks, and paid for the over snd above.

Jack G

5/7/2025 09:17:40 am

In my opinion, face sprinkler applications do not apply here as the description of the application is best described as flue sprinklers, flu space formed between the rack and the wall.

Franck

5/7/2025 09:35:57 am

Fully agree with Jack (I also grown up with 231 and 231c) and it was still the case within NFPA 13 (with appropriate sketches for in rack sprinklers (iras) and single row racks - srr) until one of the last editions (can’t remember if it was 2019, 2022 or 2025).
I don’t know why they removed it…
There are many such installations for srr with sprinklers between the rack and the wall… and is very practical to avoid mechanical damages (on the new editions, iras are located in the middle of the rack… so you have to be lucky to locate them all in the transverse flue spaces, which is not always possible when you have more than one level of iras and they need to be staggered)

Jack G

5/7/2025 09:41:30 am

Also for a client we ran the sprinkler line high in the joist, dropped down between the rack and the wall, used a split ring double nuts and washers,to attach the drop from the above line to the rack. We felt this was easier then running ( labor) in the rack to run the line.
Always use mai iron fittings or welded pipe in racks ( which now a days, everything is I think) Only problem with mal iron fittings is , still…. A good portion of the threads are crooked.

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In-Rack Sprinklers Allowed Just Outside the Rack?

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