Products : firestop®
Domestic Fire Sprinklers
aquatherm firestop pipe is being installed in many homes throughout New Zealand every week from your average 3 bedroom to your big luxurious 5 or more bedroom house - have you thought about installing a fire sprinkler system in your home?......1 in 100,000 people's home catch on fire a year, 15 of those are fatalities....These are not necessarily high odd's but what about your valuables, like photos, heirlooms and things that hold a certain sentimental value? - A fire sprinkler system could be the difference in a minor accident and a major disaster - make your house a safe home.
"NZS 4517 is a the standard for domestic fire spinkler systems and is based on NZS 4515 and incorporates finding from the New Zealand Fire Service report Cost Effective Domestic Fire Sprinkler Systems authored by BRANZ. As such it provides an adequate level of life safety but a number of cost reduction features have been included which will reduce the effectiveness of the sprinkler system and the protection of the owner's and neighbouring properties compared with sprinkler systems installed in commercial facilities.
It is important to install sprinkler heads throughout the protected building with the exception of a few carefully defined areas. The small design water flow permitted is entirely dependent for validity upon rapid control of fire wherever it occurs. If a fire grows, for example, because of a gap in the sprinkler head coverage, the water discharge rates from surrounding sprinkler heads would be insufficient to control the fire. More sprinkler heads would open and the water supply would be quickly overcome. It is also stressed that the Standard is an integrated set of requirements; each is dependent on other measures for technical validity.
This Standard recommends the use of residential sprinkler heads as a number of important benefits are derived from their rapid response and fire control:
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The amount of smoke and toxic gases produced by the fire is typically well below life threatening threshold levels;
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The amount of heat produced by the fire is smaller and less water is needed to cool and control the fire. This provides substantial cost benefits by way of reduced size piping, easier installation and smaller system water demand. In many cases, it should be possible to use the domestic water supply to feed the sprinkler system. The adequacy of any water supply must, however, be checked and proven by flow testing and hydraulic calculation; and
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The nature of fire load in domestic occupancies, combined with the responsiveness of the residential sprinkler heads, has permitted the use of domestic plumbing pipe."
firestop Technical Brochure (5.5Mb)
firestop now available at Steel and Tube (386K)
Benefits at a glance (166K)
Consider the environment before designing and specifying pipe systems (389K)
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