Underground Gate Valves Need Monitoring?

1/20/2020

Do underground gate valves for fire main water supplies have to be monitored and supervised?

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4 Comments

Randy

1/20/2020 09:33:37 am

Not necessarily. See NFPA 24-2019 Section 6.7.2

Franck

1/20/2020 11:48:09 am

But many AHJs request it for private facilities, in particular Insurance Companies.
If you have a Post Indicative Valve (PIV), it is easier to provide as they are equipped for that purpose (padlock or supervision switch).
For valves in pit, it is more complex. If you have an access « door » to the underground pit, you can either padlock the access and/or the valves in the pit.
If you just have a hole with a pipe valve key to open/shut the valve, there are little options, but you can still provide a welding point on the box lid. As long as you can check the integrity of the welding point, you can assume that the valve in the pit box is still in the right position.

There are many reasons to provide valves supervision :
- limit arson and malicious act
- ensure the valve is back in the right position after works
- ensure that only a limited amount of people have access to the valve

These sectional valves are sometimes more important than the ones on sprinkler risers.
If you close a valve on a sprinkler riser, you impair one system
With tree underground systems, if you close one valve you can impair several sprinkler systems...

Jim Abernathy

5/20/2021 10:00:38 am

I have four underground 8 inch valves with valve boxes. How do I supervise these valves?

Joe Meyer

5/20/2021 10:05:32 am

Usually two options - chain and lock the valves, or run tamper switches from fire alarm out to the valves for electronic supervision. The requirements very much depend on the enforceable local codes.

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Underground Gate Valves Need Monitoring?

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