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		Residence Hall Sprinkler Systems By William Conk Manager - Housing Facilities and Operations University of New Hampshire Introduction There are many responsibilities that housing professionals have when providing a place to live for students. One of the most important is to provide a safe living environment. Fire safety in the residence halls and apartments is one of the most fundamental responsibilities. There are different components to fire safety. The first component is prevention. A college or university must have policies and procedures in place that will minimize the potential that a fire will start in the first place. This includes such things as fire safety inspections or restricting what students can use in the residence halls, such as candles, halogen lamps, hot plates, etc. But for policies to be effective there must be the willingness to follow through with judicial and even legal action when university rules and or state laws are broken. A second component is maintaining facilities. There must be an emphasis on ensuring that building deficiencies are identified and, where safety is a factor, repaired in a timely manner. Particularly important are stairwell door closures and spring-loaded hinges on student room doors. Fire extinguishers, exit signs and emergency lighting should also be maintained in constant working order. A third component is a notification system. All residence halls should have two types of alarm systems. The first is a hardwired smoke detector that should be located in every student living space. This is a smoke detector that sounds locally in a student room when activated. The second is a building fire alarm system with smoke detectors in hallways and common areas and pull stations at exits which, when activated, will alert occupants of an emergency and the need to vacate the building. These three components of fire safety are basic standards which every college or university should have in place for their residential housing programs. Most state and local building codes call for these safety devices and procedures and there is usually no "grand fathering" of these requirements. There is a fourth component that is often not required but which every university and college should strive for and that is the installation of sprinkler systems in residential facilities. Traditionally it was identified that fire alarm notification systems were installed to protect occupants by notifying occupants of the emergency and warning them to leave the building. On the other hand, building sprinkler systems were installed to protect property. Sprinklers systems were designed to control, and possibly suppress fires when they occurred. The common belief was that the owner could make his/her own decision on the protection of property. Based on this philosophy sprinkler systems were not required by local building codes until only recently and in some instances they are still not required. In most cases, existing buildings are "grand fathered" and not required to upgrade. Over time, however, sprinkler systems have proven themselves as an important component of life safety. By controlling or suppressing fires they minimize the destructive heat and gases produced by fires and allow occupants time to escape the building. Understanding the Dynamics of the Danger There are two very specific things that will cause harm or death to students, smoke and fire. Fire occurs when you have material to burn, oxygen and a source of ignition. Smoke is the product of incomplete combustion and will be evident in any fire situation. Most deaths in a fire situation are caused by asphyxiation as the result of the inhalation of smoke. There are occasional situations of a smoldering fire where, due to the material burning, flames are not evident but smoke is being released. These situations are the one's often cited for why money spent on sprinkler systems is not money effectively spent. It is a very good example of why a fire alarm system is a critical component of any fire safety program. A smoke detector, located in a room, would activate and warn occupants and neighbors. Smoke would eventually creep around the door to activate the building system and notify all occupants. However, most residential fires are not smoldering fires. Residential fires are full fires that quickly consume all available combustible material and oxygen and produce extreme amounts of heat and toxic smoke. In a typical room fire, within thirty seconds of flames initially appearing, on average the temperature at the ceiling will be over 300 degrees. Within two minutes, the temperature at the ceiling will be over 1,000 degrees and the floor temperature will be over 200 degrees. Fires burn hot and they burn very quickly! They are very fearsome situations resulting in panic, disorientation and sometimes harm and death. A sprinkler head, located in a typical room will activate at approximately 135 degrees. The design of the sprinkler head and sprinkler system will ensure that the spray of water will cover the complete room. With an average pressure of 45 psi a 3/8-inch diameter sprinkler head will disperse a minimum of 18 gallons per minute into the room. Instead of 300 degrees at the ceiling after 30 seconds, the room is being covered with water that is controlling the heat and the flames, often suppressing the fire. Instead of injured students, you most likely will have just soggy students. Building Sprinkler Systems There are, for general reference, four basic components of sprinkler systems: water supply main distribution branch distribution alarm systems The water supply is the water source that will feed the sprinkler system. Generally code requires that sprinkler systems be fed by a six-inch water main that comes into a building. There are very few older buildings that were built with this type of domestic water supply that therefore necessitates that a new water line will have to be part of a sprinkler upgrade. Unfortunately, this can sometimes prove to be difficult and costly depending on a building's location and the water distribution system around campus. If one is lucky, a water main of sufficient size and pressure will be adjacent to the building. If one is unfortunate, the water main may be a distance away requiring considerable site work. A second consideration would be the water entry location into the building. Minimal space requirements for a sprinkler water entrance, without pumps, would generally be four feet by eight feet. This space would permit the piping into the building and the necessary valving. The main distribution system throughout the building is basically the vertical piping system that supplies the water to the different floors. Most often this is four-inch steel pipe that leaves the water entrance and rises at some appropriate place in the building. The appropriate place is really dependent on the building layout and the sprinkler system design. Ideally, this vertical riser would be in a central location running through closets that stack on top of each other. Other vertical risers, that will generally be required, are what are referred to as standpipes. These are also four inch steel pipes located in one or two stairwells with a valve at each floor landing which fire fighters can connect hoses to in order to fight fires. In some designs standpipes can also serve as the central riser for the sprinkler distribution. Some older buildings, built in the 60's and 70's, had dry standpipes incorporated into the original construction. Most times these can be used for some cost savings. The branch distribution system is basically the horizontal distribution system that spreads out on each floor to provide the actual sprinkler coverage. Each floor of the building will be its own zone. If it is a large building or one of unusual design, two or more zones may be required. The transition from main distribution to branch distribution is accomplished through a series of several small valves. These valves should be enclosed behind a locked closet or inside a locked box, such as you might use in a stairwell. The piping at this point will decrease in size, generally one to two inch piping. Here the piping can continue to be steel or it can be a special type of plastic piping. Steel piping generally must hang, at least several inches from the ceiling from hangers. Plastic piping can generally be attached directly to the ceiling. When plastic piping initially came out in the late 80's the sprinkler industry approached it with great reluctance. Now its use is as common as steel. Branch distribution is dependent upon building design and cost considerations. Designs will basically be one of two types. A main branch will either run down the corridor and branch into rooms or the main branch will run down the rooms with sprinkler heads punching out into the corridors. A branch system that can be designed as a loop system will allow for smaller sized pipe. At the University of New Hampshire, where I work in the Department of Housing, the advent of plastic piping allowed us to approach the installation and design of branch systems with new options. There were two initial concerns. The first was not to have piping that residents could hang on. The second was a concern for aesthetics. Generally, most of our designs have the branch distribution running inside the student room, on the ceiling along the wall adjacent to the corridor. Depending on the building and the availability of funds we have either left this piping exposed or we have built soffits around the pipe. Attached to the ceiling, in the corner of the ceiling, painted white to match the ceiling, the piping has a very low visual profile. Considering the safety factor this added for our residents; this was deemed an acceptable trade off. Sprinkler heads are then incorporated into this piping with piping and sprinkler heads going through the corridor wall to cover the corridor. The actual location of the sprinkler head is dependent on the design and size of the room. Where a sprinkler head is needed to be located on a wall adjacent to the neighboring room, that neighboring room would be covered by going through the wall at that location. This cuts down on the amount of piping. The fourth component is the alarm system. A building sprinkler must be tied into a building fire alarm system. The activation of a sprinkler head and flow of water will need to trigger the same response as a smoke detector activation or someone pulling a pull station. This is accomplished primarily at the transitions between the main distribution and the branch distribution. There are electronic devices at these locations that activate when water flow is initiated. When retrofitting existing buildings the problem may arise where the existing fire alarm panel does not have sufficient capacity to accept these new input devices from the sprinkler system. At best, a new slave panel to the existing panel can be installed to accept the sprinkler inputs and feed them to the existing panel. If this is not possible a new fire alarm panel may be required which would significantly affect the cost of the project. Sprinkler System Designs There are several avenues to pursue in order to have a sprinkler system designed for a building. One avenue would be to contact a sprinkler contracting company. All sprinkler companies need to have on staff qualified personal to design sprinkler systems and produce hydraulic calculations required to meet the approval of the local fire department or state fire marshal. A second avenue would be to hire a mechanical engineering firm to do the design. This avenue would generally also include the involvement of an architect who would be able to pay attention to architectural details. A third avenue would be to hire a fire safety-engineering firm to design the system. A fire safety engineer has training in the different disciplines that are involved in sprinkler system designs. However, fire safety engineers are generally used for the more complex sprinkler designs involved in very large and uniquely designed buildings. My own experience has led me to favor hiring a firm with both architectural, mechanical and electrical engineering staff. A design by a sprinkler contracting firm will often, though not always, be focused on providing the most design efficient and inexpensive installation possible, often at the expense of architectural considerations. By incorporating both an architect and mechanical engineer into the design architectural aesthetic considerations can be addressed, and inexpensive solutions developed. The fire safety engineering option often involves considerable costs. A final critical factor in the design process is the relationship the university or college has with the local fire department or state fire marshal who has final jurisdiction over any design approval. Hopefully, a cooperative relationship can be developed. At the University of New Hampshire, this type of cooperative relationship has existed and has greatly facilitated the design and installation of sprinkler systems. The Durham Fire Department and State Fire Marshall have been very supportive of the sprinkler program initiated by the Department of Housing and have demonstrated this support by considering and approving requests for different design alternatives that have facilitated installation and lowered cost. For the local jurisdiction or institution to take uncompromising positions the result will only be a delay in the installation of sprinkler systems and the protection of students. Student Concerns There is often concern about the issue of student vandalism to sprinkler systems and the accidental activation of a sprinkler head. For these concerns, I can only respond from ten years experience. When we started installing sprinkler systems in 1989 I was prepared for a marked increase in the number of accidental activations of sprinkler heads. Happily, this has not been our experience. On average, over the past ten years, we maybe have had one accidental activation a year. Students have been respectful of the system. It is often the errant frisbee or soccer ball that hits the head and causes the activation. The cost of this clean up, charged to the responsible student or students, is well worth the price for the protection the system provides. There has never in our experience been any vandalism to the system. With the sprinkler tied into the fire alarm system, any vandalism will initiate either a trouble signal or an alarm activation. On the other hand, we have had a couple of fires over the years that have been controlled or completely extinguished by the sprinkler system significantly reducing the amount of damage to the facility. Most importantly, however, none of these fires resulted in any injuries or deaths, which, without the sprinkler system, they very well could have. There is also the need to dispel a common misperception of a sprinkler system. It is a common misperception that when one sprinkler head activates they all activate. There is also a misperception that sprinklers will activate when a fire alarm system is activated. Sprinkler heads all activate individually. In a fire situation heat will result in a fuse or glass bulb, located in the sprinkler head, breaking which in turn allows the flow of water only from that individual head. Most times only one or two sprinkler heads end up activating in a fire situation. Conclusion Building sprinkler systems can and must become part of every residential facility on college and university campuses, both for new buildings and old buildings. A sprinkler system is not a complex system and depending on one's concerns for architectural aesthetics can be installed rather inexpensively. If college or university officials are not supportive of these initiatives it is up to the housing and residential life professional staff to become educated about these systems and actively and relentlessly lobby for these systems to have priority for the use of funds on the campus. The costs for these systems will pale in comparison to the costs an institution will pay if a resident is injured or dies in a fire. Private institutions, in particular since public facilities are usually self-insured, should check with their insurance companies for the potential of reduced insurance premiums. Finally, it is always important to see sprinkler systems as only one part of a comprehensive fire safety system for a residential program. Any one system can fail. It is the integration of several systems that will provide the greatest protection to our students and staff living in the residence halls. About the Author William Conk has worked for 20 years as the Manager - Housing Facilities and Operations at the University of New Hampshire. In this position, he oversees facilities planning, major repairs and renovations, maintenance, housekeeping, grounds, communication systems and technology for the Department of Housing. William is an advanced Emergency Medical Technician, and volunteers for the Durham Ambulance Core in New Hampshire, and the Biddleford Free Clinic in Maine. William also works as a logistical officer for Doctors Without Borders. William has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stonehill College and Masters of Arts degrees from the University of Minnesota.