Thanks for the kind words! I'll do my best to make a similar video for a dry pipe valve and hopefully one of each type of preaction system. Is there any material in particular you would like me cover?
Dry systems and preaction systems would be great!! Do you service fire pumps?? That would also be really helpful. I love how you showed the components and explained how they work. I am a fire inspector and I’m trying to understand these systems better. Videos like this help me work with installers as I can speak more intelligently on the systems I see. Older, legacy systems videos are always helpful or even a video on a full 5 year process or internal obstruction investigation 😊😊
Also I wanted to ask, is there a maintenance frequency in NFPA 25 for these excess pressure pumps? I didn’t see them. Does it just fall under a pressure switch for the automatic ones? If so, would that be more of a fire alarm maintenance requirement or fall on sprinkler fitters?
@@juliebellinger6117 I'll see what I can do about dry pipe valves and Pre-action valves. There's a few different variations of them and I like to make videos with actual live systems so that I can actually trip them/show a real world scenario. I do a bit of everything to be honest, its on a job to job basis really. But yes I work on everything, fire pumps, wet, dry, pre-action, deluge, special hazard (FM, Victaulic Vortex, High pressure CO2), foam, fire pumps. I'm a licensed journeyman fire sprinkler installer, and also an inspector. I got lucky on this particular job as I had a fair amount of time during this inspection to the point where I could make use of my spare time to make an instructional video. I'm not always blessed with enough hours in the day to do so. There are quite a few decent videos already out there for fire pump flow testing so I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to make a video on that. It's been on the back of my mind for a while because there are definitely some aspects that I've noticed have gone unexplained and there's multiple methods for flowtesting pumps which would be neat to throw into a single video. Actually for the 5-year internal obstruction investigation I practically did 50% of that in this video. They are very strait forward, simply take photo's of four points on the system: System Valve (which I have open in the video when I took the faceplate off of the alarm valve), Riser (had I pointed my camera UP inside the faceplate and taken a photo that would count as the RISER photo), Cross main (The pipes supplying the branch lines, either directly or through riser nipples), and Branch line (The pipes supplying sprinklers, either directly or through sprigs, drops, return bends, or arm-overs). Snap a minimum 4 photos of the above mentioned points and investigate for the presence of sufficient material to obstruct pipe/sprinklers as well as tubercules or slime Where I live most systems are from a municipal source so I VERY rarely see organic build up of MIC (Microbiologically influenced corrosion). If the system is supplied from a raw water source (like a pond or lake) then you're MUCH more likely to find some goodies. I'll be honest, most wet systems are usually pretty good where I live, but dry systems can certainly be extremely loaded with corrosion so doing internal obstruction investigations on those are for sure worth doing.
@@juliebellinger6117 Excess Pressure pumps are typically positive displacement pumps (usually 1/3HP maybe 1/2HP at most), and are sometimes referred to as a pressure mainteneance/make-up pump. Their terminology often gets mixed up/confused with a Jockey Pump. In their own right, they both kind of fall into the same category, however a Jockey pump is what you would see as a pressure maintenance pump following a fire pump. As per NFPA 25, there is no maintenance required on excess pressure pumps other than your typical visual inspections- However, there is typically a strainer on the inlet side of an excess pressure pump (as mentioned in the video) which must be internally inspected/cleaned every 5 years as per NFPA 25. Most excess pressure pumps literally consist of 2 parts: a pump head, and a small motor. If the pump head seals start leaking, you can just replace that brass pump head easily by simply loosening the bolt connecting the brass head to the motor using a 1/2" open-end box wrench or adjustable crescent. Pull the pump head off and swap it off easy peasy (also just remember to pull out the cross-shaped plastic thing inside the old pump head and put it in the new one... its just there so that the motor drive shaft can spin the internal gears of the pump head). So to put them in order for which pump would turn on FIRST to LAST under normal sequence of operation would be the following: 1) excess pressure pump- turns on to make-up for small loss of SYSTEM pressure. Typically they can keep up with a very small leak on the system, but cannot maintain system pressure should a sprinkler head actually operate. They can be set up for both manual/automatic operation- there is no rule mandating that it must be one or the other. 2) Jockey pump- turns on to make-up for small pressure loss in the HEADER. Turns on/off automatically and is also typically a positive displacement pump. When the excess pressure pump cannot replenish system pressure at a fast enough rate, eventually the system pressure and header pressure will equalize and the alarm valve clapper will open and cause a flow alarm. When this happens, the jockey pump will be running constantly- soon after if the jockey pump is also unable to maintain pressure, the last pump to turn on will be the fire pump. A jockey pump will have its own dedicated controller (similar to a fire pump), and it will also have its own sensing lines installed as per NFPA 20. Last note- jockey pumps shall NOT be required to be listed as per NFPA 20. They can be listed if you want, but its not a requirement. 3) Fire pump- essentially the final pump to turn on. When both the excess pressure pump and jockey pump cannot maintain pressure, eventually the fire pump will automatically turn on. Its the biggest, baddest pump in the valve room. They can be centrifugal/vertical shaft pumps operated by either an electric, diesel, or steam engine/motor.
Wow this is the best sprinkler video I have seen in a long time! Thank you so much for posting and please post more!!
Thanks for the kind words! I'll do my best to make a similar video for a dry pipe valve and hopefully one of each type of preaction system. Is there any material in particular you would like me cover?
Dry systems and preaction systems would be great!! Do you service fire pumps?? That would also be really helpful. I love how you showed the components and explained how they work. I am a fire inspector and I’m trying to understand these systems better. Videos like this help me work with installers as I can speak more intelligently on the systems I see. Older, legacy systems videos are always helpful or even a video on a full 5 year process or internal obstruction investigation 😊😊
Also I wanted to ask, is there a maintenance frequency in NFPA 25 for these excess pressure pumps? I didn’t see them. Does it just fall under a pressure switch for the automatic ones? If so, would that be more of a fire alarm maintenance requirement or fall on sprinkler fitters?
@@juliebellinger6117 I'll see what I can do about dry pipe valves and Pre-action valves. There's a few different variations of them and I like to make videos with actual live systems so that I can actually trip them/show a real world scenario.
I do a bit of everything to be honest, its on a job to job basis really. But yes I work on everything, fire pumps, wet, dry, pre-action, deluge, special hazard (FM, Victaulic Vortex, High pressure CO2), foam, fire pumps. I'm a licensed journeyman fire sprinkler installer, and also an inspector. I got lucky on this particular job as I had a fair amount of time during this inspection to the point where I could make use of my spare time to make an instructional video. I'm not always blessed with enough hours in the day to do so. There are quite a few decent videos already out there for fire pump flow testing so I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to make a video on that. It's been on the back of my mind for a while because there are definitely some aspects that I've noticed have gone unexplained and there's multiple methods for flowtesting pumps which would be neat to throw into a single video.
Actually for the 5-year internal obstruction investigation I practically did 50% of that in this video. They are very strait forward, simply take photo's of four points on the system: System Valve (which I have open in the video when I took the faceplate off of the alarm valve), Riser (had I pointed my camera UP inside the faceplate and taken a photo that would count as the RISER photo), Cross main (The pipes supplying the branch lines, either directly or through riser nipples), and Branch line (The pipes supplying sprinklers, either directly or through sprigs, drops, return bends, or arm-overs). Snap a minimum 4 photos of the above mentioned points and investigate for the presence of sufficient material to obstruct pipe/sprinklers as well as tubercules or slime Where I live most systems are from a municipal source so I VERY rarely see organic build up of MIC (Microbiologically influenced corrosion). If the system is supplied from a raw water source (like a pond or lake) then you're MUCH more likely to find some goodies. I'll be honest, most wet systems are usually pretty good where I live, but dry systems can certainly be extremely loaded with corrosion so doing internal obstruction investigations on those are for sure worth doing.
@@juliebellinger6117 Excess Pressure pumps are typically positive displacement pumps (usually 1/3HP maybe 1/2HP at most), and are sometimes referred to as a pressure mainteneance/make-up pump. Their terminology often gets mixed up/confused with a Jockey Pump. In their own right, they both kind of fall into the same category, however a Jockey pump is what you would see as a pressure maintenance pump following a fire pump. As per NFPA 25, there is no maintenance required on excess pressure pumps other than your typical visual inspections- However, there is typically a strainer on the inlet side of an excess pressure pump (as mentioned in the video) which must be internally inspected/cleaned every 5 years as per NFPA 25. Most excess pressure pumps literally consist of 2 parts: a pump head, and a small motor. If the pump head seals start leaking, you can just replace that brass pump head easily by simply loosening the bolt connecting the brass head to the motor using a 1/2" open-end box wrench or adjustable crescent. Pull the pump head off and swap it off easy peasy (also just remember to pull out the cross-shaped plastic thing inside the old pump head and put it in the new one... its just there so that the motor drive shaft can spin the internal gears of the pump head).
So to put them in order for which pump would turn on FIRST to LAST under normal sequence of operation would be the following:
1) excess pressure pump- turns on to make-up for small loss of SYSTEM pressure. Typically they can keep up with a very small leak on the system, but cannot maintain system pressure should a sprinkler head actually operate. They can be set up for both manual/automatic operation- there is no rule mandating that it must be one or the other.
2) Jockey pump- turns on to make-up for small pressure loss in the HEADER. Turns on/off automatically and is also typically a positive displacement pump. When the excess pressure pump cannot replenish system pressure at a fast enough rate, eventually the system pressure and header pressure will equalize and the alarm valve clapper will open and cause a flow alarm. When this happens, the jockey pump will be running constantly- soon after if the jockey pump is also unable to maintain pressure, the last pump to turn on will be the fire pump. A jockey pump will have its own dedicated controller (similar to a fire pump), and it will also have its own sensing lines installed as per NFPA 20. Last note- jockey pumps shall NOT be required to be listed as per NFPA 20. They can be listed if you want, but its not a requirement.
3) Fire pump- essentially the final pump to turn on. When both the excess pressure pump and jockey pump cannot maintain pressure, eventually the fire pump will automatically turn on. Its the biggest, baddest pump in the valve room. They can be centrifugal/vertical shaft pumps operated by either an electric, diesel, or steam engine/motor.
High quality content, keep it up.