Maintenance for Jockey Without Main Fire Pump?

6/25/2020

Does anyone have any pressure maintenance pumps installed on their sprinkler systems without having a fire pump?

In other words, having a pump on the sprinkler system that is only there for the purposes of preventing a false alarm (due to pressure ebbs and spikes in the water supply) instead of boosting the water pressure like a traditional fire and jockey pump combination.

We have some legacy jockey pumps installed like this and it runs into a grey area for maintenance as they don't affect the performance of the sprinkler system they are connected to. Any thoughts?

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8 Comments

Connor Ross

6/25/2020 10:09:31 am

On legacy systems, I've always seen this handled using a retard chamber in between the sensing line and the water gong. In modern systems, a delay can be programmed in for a flow switch to prevent nuisance alarms from pressure fluctuations. If you can put in a new flow switch, wouldn't it be easier than maintaining a jockey pump?

6/25/2020 10:17:42 am

We have a client with a lot of these (on a campus of multiple buildings). I'm not sure what they are doing for maintenance, but they are working on changing them out to flow switches with a delay as Connor suggested.

Matt

6/25/2020 10:27:12 am

Are you sure what you've got is a jockey pump and not an excess pressure pump? It's very common for pressure maintenance of wet systems. Most common setup in USA and Canada in my experience is an Albany 1/3HP with a pressure relief valve. They can be set up to run both automatically off a pressure switch and manually.

6/25/2020 10:34:23 am

The only time I have ever seen them is in a older mall with an 8" lead-in for each building serving pipe scheduled systems. As far as maintenance, as long as the excess pressure pump works how it is supposed to we leave them installed.

This mall is in an area where the water purveyor booster pumps take a while to kick on. So if we walk away from a system with whatever city pressure is available, we may have an alarm hours later after the booster pumps fire up and add the 20psi(rough guess). With that being said, replacing with a time delayed flow switch isn't an option.

Cliff

6/25/2020 12:34:01 pm

We used to call that a Watchman. It was made by Gamewell and was common 20-30 years ago. Haven't seen too many installs lately though.

http://firealarmresources.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Gamewell-Sprinkler-Watchman.pdf

Matt

6/25/2020 01:52:21 pm

I swear I'm not a crazy person! I've installed quite a few in the last few years, and replaced a bunch of them too - I didn't do the one in the one photo - but it's the standard automatic setup I mentioned above with a low pressure switch connected to the fire alarm system (Potter PS120) and a pressure switch to control the EPP (Potter PCS300)

Hopefully the photo link works!

https://imgur.com/a/M9XS9D1

Not sure if this is what the OP was referring to but here it is!

Jonathan Joseph

6/25/2020 05:23:31 pm

I would treat the pumps as a pressure switch and an alarm device and would inspect the pumps quarterly and test annually. If impaired I would replace it with another pump that is rated the same so it is restored to its original design.

Bruce Verhei link

6/29/2020 07:28:43 pm

Excess pressure pumps are the gold standard for preventing unwanted alarms caused by pressure surges in wet sprinkler systems.

Excess pressure pumps are required for wet systems in Vancouver B.C. (and the rest of B.C?) and New Zealand. They are sometimes used throughout on campus water systems that are based on pumped systems. You don’t want alarms from half a dozen buildings when the first big pump kicks on.

In my city an excess pressure pump was most likely a sign of one of two things.

Even after adjusting the retard out to 90 seconds the system was generating false alarms due to pressure surges.

or

At least one of the sprinkler systems was being used as detection system as part of an alternative method and material solution.

An example: Building operator wants to use more than exempt quantities of a flammable liquid from an intermediate bulk container to support a paint spray operation. Bulk container and spare is located in an H room. Before piped product leaves room it passes through an excess flow valve, sometimes called a liquid fuse and a normally closed valve held open by solenoid during operation. The sprinkler heads and flow switch are the fire detection system for the solenoid. The flow switch is set to 0 or 5 seconds. Solenoid is depowered and valve closes quickly on head operation. Jockey pump is needed to prevent unwanted alarms with this near instantaneous activation, while ensuring only the flammable liquid in the pipe is available to spread fire.

Purchase of a new 1-gpm pump is likely cheaper for the business operator than shutting down their normal operations, even once, because the alarms went off. What is shop fee for all their employees for a quarter of an hour compared to pump cost?

Best.

Bruce Verhei

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