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Water damage can be a significant problem. The standard NFPA 13D system advocated for residential fire sprinklers is designed to supply water to two sprinkler heads at 13 gallons per minute from each sprinkler head. That means that 10 minutes of flow would flood more than 260 gallons of water into a room -- or 520 gallons in 20 minutes. Whether the activation is accidental, a malfunction, or result of a fire, there will be significant damage to the home and potential for mold and other problems well into the future. Once the sprinklers are activated, the water will flow until the fire department has been notified, arrives on the scene, evaluates and determines the structure is safe, and then finds and turns off the water supply. Manufacturers of sprinkler systems and fire departments do not recommend you attempt to shut off the sprinkler system without assistance from the fire department. Having sprinklers is also no guarantee that fire fighters will not turn on their hoses. Claims that less damage will be caused by a sprinkler than a fire hose are unsubstantiated. Any amount of water applied to interior components of a home can cause significant amount of damage, whether it is 260 or 2,600 gallons. Low-flow shower heads operate at less than 2.5 gallons per minute. Twenty minutes of two head sprinkler activation could be the equivalent of running your shower in the living room for about 3 ½ hours. Additional home flooding risks come from the vulnerability of the pressurized sprinkler heads, which can activate if they are dislodged or disturbed. And local requirements for water storage tanks and additional plumbing in the home open up the specter of frozen, pressurized pipes in some parts of the country. |
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