Fire departments must help resolve the Omega sprinkler situation
Patrick J. Coughlin
Director
Operation Life Safety
IAFC
Fairfax, Virginia
I was pleased to see Fire Engineering cover the Omega sprinkler issue (Editor`s Opinion, September 1997). The problem cannot be resolved without assistance from fire departments, but the feedback I am getting tells me that the fire service is largely unaware of the situation. The sprinkler industry is relying on installers to identity Omega systems, but this ignores the problem of installers who are no longer in business. We need fire departments to check their records and find all systems with Omega heads.
Even though Central Sprinkler began acknowledging the problem in 1996, progress in identifying and testing sprinkler systems with Omega heads has been slow. A sprinkler industry newsletter published in September 1997 stated that Central has identified 850,000 units installed in steel pipe systems, a fraction of the 2.5 to 3.5 million installed with steel pipe.
An additional five million Omega heads are installed in copper and nonmetallic systems. Failures have been recorded on these systems as well. To my knowledge, no one has conducted similar tests of other manufacturers` heads, so we do not know if the problems discovered are limited to Omega heads. Until such tests have been conducted, Operation Life Safety (OLS) is recommending that all systems with Omega heads be tested regardless of the pipe material.
Fire Engineering and two of our 10,000 newsletter subscribers criticized OLS for allegedly downplaying the problem. We received those comments in response to our earliest article on the matter. That report was restricted to information that we could independently confirm when the newsletter went to press, and the number of unconfirmed stories far exceeded what could be verified.
Aside from the Fairfax County (VA) Fire Department and a few other sources, most people were reluctant to share their data with us. Call it downplaying it if you will. I call it responsible journalism. We subsequently expanded our reports as we confirmed the facts.
I stand by my statement that a failure to operate at seven psi does not equate with a failure to operate in a fire, as implied by the statements that tests were showing a 35 percent “failure rate.” That sort of inaccuracy plays into the hands of our opponents in the building industry. I trust that I will be seeing flyers with statements about 35 percent failure rates at many builders` conferences for some time to come. They will certainly find their way to city council chambers when a fire department proposes a sprinkler ordinance or has to defend an existing one.
If the operating pressure of a sprinkler head is well under the system`s residual pressure, it will open when fused. How does one infer that a sprinkler will fail in a fire if it needs 10 psi to open and the system has a 30 psi residual pressure?
The data I received from fire departments and building owners showed that the majority of heads that failed to operate at seven psi did operate at slightly above that pressure. If the required operating pressure is anywhere near the residual pressure, then all of the heads should be replaced. I would, however, accept a system if the heads operated close to UL`s required pressure and the residual pressure was much higher. I would also follow the Fairfax County Fire Department policy of periodically retesting systems with Omega heads to monitor any changes.
One additional note: Central recently announced that it had not replaced EPDM O-rings with the silicone type in all of its Omega-style heads in July 1996, the date that it reportedly switched to silicone. It continued using the EPDM O-ring in its Flow Control head until April 1997. This is an “on-off” head that differs somewhat from the other Omega heads but uses a similar O-ring design. A Central representative said that keeping the EPDM O-ring in this model was warranted because of the difference in design, but the heads failed nonetheless. OLS is urging fire departments to recheck their inspection reports to confirm whether they may have accepted heads manufactured with the old style O-ring after July 1996.
