Sprinklers
Contrary to belief and to what is sometimes portrayed in movies and television, only the sprinkler head(s) affected by the fire will operate and in the vast majority of fires this will prevent the fire spreading. They are an excellent defense against fires.
Facts About Sprinklers
- Sprinklers have a 99% success rate world-wide.
- Sprinklers will act to extinguish a fire and in some cases will actually extinguish it altogether. A smoke alarm will only tell you that a fire is present.
- Sprinklers systems will alert you to the presence of fire and will extend the time available to escape.
- Spinklers will last at least 50 years.
- The plumbing for a sprinkler system is not too different from that of a central heating system. It will not leak and cause water damage.
- Given any fire situation, a sprinkler system will use less water than the Fire Brigade.
- Where a sprinkler system is installed, in many cases only one head will operate soon after the fire has started resulting in less fire damage and use a maximum of 60 litres per minute, causing very little water damage, most of which will be absorbed by the heat in the room.
- Where sprinklers are not installed fire damage is greater as the fire is allowed to grow more due to the delay in time between the smoke alarm sounding and the fire service attending normally around 5 minutes in a category 'A' risk area. This extra fire growth means more water to extinguish resulting in increased water and fire damage to the building.
- Sprinkler heads are small, neat and unobtrusive unlike commercial sprinkler heads you do not see them. Domestic sprinkler heads are concealed in the cavity between the ceiling and floor above and covered by a metal plate which will drop away at a predetermined temperature and allow the sprinkler head to drop into the room.
- Sprinklers have an accidental operation rate of 1:16,000,000. They will only operate in the event of fire unless someone is intent on doing damage maliciously.