AskCodeMan

Landlord called me and said he has a new tenant who has called and complained about a laundry list of nusiance items. Most he was able to repair. Tenant is complaining the sprinkler heads on a 1984 quadraplex building are too far recessed. Landlord has already installed all new smoke alarms, CO alarm and provided 2 fire extingishers to the 2 bedroom, 2 bath unit.

Landlord is looking for more information regarding sprinkler requirements for his building. He wants to be able to respond to the tenant but does not want to go directly to a sprinkler installer for fear of being oversold repairs/upgrades that are unnecessary and/or costly. How or why the tenant would know the sprinkler heads are too far recessed is unknown and can't/won't be answered.

Can you provide a reference that would outline the basic rules for sprinklers for a 1984 quadraplex? I don't have any copies of the commerical codes, only residential. I am guessing there are probably some NFPA 72 or 13 stuff that may also apply. Landlord wants to show due diligence regarding tenants questions. Building is located in Atlanta Georgia.

Thank you.

Bruce,

The only answer is that he needs to find out what brand and type of sprinkler head is installed and the escutcheons installed.

Being recessed indicates that the heads are recessed into a recessed escutcheon, and each type of escutcheon has a a minimum and maximum recessed amount. This is not a code item (other than 'install in accordance with the installation instructions and listing information'), just manufacturer's installation instructions/listing information item.

I cannot walk into a room and look at the fire sprinkler heads and escutcheons and say 'the heads are recessed too far/not far enough' because they may be exactly where they are required to be based on the manufacturer's information. However, it is likely than, over the years of painting and repainting, the paint build-up is not allowing the escutcheons to be pressed all the way up, which would make it look like (and may actually make it so) the head is recessed too far into the escutcheon.

To show due diligence he needs to go there and look closely at the escutcheons and heads to get the manufacturer, and to take some measurements, sometimes taking close up photos with a camera (a high resolution phone camera is usually pretty good these days) which will allow him (or you) to zoom in on the photo and look for the manufacturer's name and a model/style type/number on the sprinkler head, and do the same with an escutcheon after carefully removing it, he does not want to set a wet system off accidentally taking the escutcheon off.

If it is paint build-up, he can remove the escutcheons, scrape the paint off down to the ceiling level, then re-installed the escutcheon (after scraping the paint off the backside of its flange). If those are original escutcheons and heads, then the escutcheon should fit back as it was originally installed (presumable that would be 'correctly', but that is not a given).

Thank you.

Presumably fire sprinklers would have been required for a multi-family building in 84. Can you provide a reference that would indicate Yea or Nea to sprinklers required in a the building referenced above?