We are now living in a connected world. You can connect your smart phone to the fridge to see how many sausages you have. We can adjust the temperature of our front room radiator why on holiday in Cyprus. We can view our CCTV cameras at home from wherever we are in the world.
Then there is the Fire Sprinkler industry.
Building Owners / Developers / Landlords / Governments are seeing the benefits of installing Fire Sprinkler systems. Its like having a fire fighter in each room - on standby waiting in case of a fire, ready to burst into action and save lives.
But is the sprinkler system ready??
A network of pipework is installed from the water supply to a sprinkler head. On installation the sprinkler installer undertakes a flow test and commissions the system, locking off any isolation valves in the system to warn people off of isolating the sprinklers. Then for the next 364 days of the year it is unlikely anyone will then check the sprinkler system until the next annual service is due.
But - what happens if someone does shut an isolation valve? What happens if you are using a stored water supply and for some reason the water level in the tank drops and ball valve sticks?
On many occasions we see the above occur. The reasons vary far and wide. We hear stories of Plumbers isolating the sprinklers to work on the water supply then forgetting to re-open the isolation valve on completion. We hear stories of maintenance engineers isolating the system to carry out maintenance on heads or other parts of the system and forgetting to open on completion. Valves on Tanks can stick especially if the tank is not being used often. The annual service they carry out a flow test, the water level in the tank drops but it doesn't refill the tank. It gets missed. The tank is now at low level. For whatever reason any of the above could result in the sprinklers either not activating or not activating correctly.
If you specify a FloWatch with monitored Valve sets, the FloWatch will monitor isolation valves to ensure they are in an open position, the tank switch can be monitored to ensure the correct water level is in the tank and the booster set can be monitored for fault or loss of power. If any of these critical elements are isolated, or are in fault, the system will raise an alarm and with the inbuilt GSM card will email out to a nominated email address allowing preventative action to be taken.
You can also log on to the system using a normal web browser wherever you are to see the status of the system.
Bringing Domestic and Residential Sprinklers into our connected world. Raising the standard.