Residential sprinkler systems

[bigdog]

Hi Jerry,

An insurance company has asked a client who bought a sprinkled single family home what type of fire sprinklers it has: Type A or type B.
I have done the obligatory google searches and found nothing remotely referencing such. Most are wet or dry with residential usually having a wet system.

Have you heard of sprinklers being referred to as this?

David McCabe

[Jerry Peck - Codeman]

An insurance company has asked a client who bought a sprinkled single family home what type of fire sprinklers it has: Type A or type B.

David,

That's a new one on me.

I know the basic types of fire sprinkler system operations are:
- automatic wet
- automatic dry
- manual dry (requires fire department connection from either a hydrant or a tanker/booster truck and hydrant)

And the basic types of fire sprinkler system installations are:
- NFPA 13
- NFPA 13R (residential occupancies 4 stories and less, typically apartment and condo buildings)
- NPFA 13D (one- and two-family dwellings)

And that there are systems which have heads which spray windows from the exterior sie in rated exterior walls to get around some of the opening limitations (when permitted), and these have two versions: Issue A and Issue B ... but I doubt that is what the insurance company was asking about.

My guess is that the insurance company is asking about the Type of Construction and the fire-resistance rating of the structure, see 'TABLE 601 FIRE-RESISTANCE RATING REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING ELEMENTS (HOURS)' - such as Type VA or Type VB:
- - Type VA would have 1 hour fire-resistance rated protection for structural members.
- - Type VB would not have any fire-resistance rated protection for structural members.

That's my best guess as to what the insurance company is asking about, in which case the type of construction likely is Type VB (no fire-resistance rated protection of structural members)