How Do Professionals Maintain Fire Sprinkler Systems?

Commercial fire sprinkler systems and fire alarm monitoring are essential to keeping your business and property safe from fire. Fire protection and suppression systems, including sprinklers, can extinguish a fire quickly by detecting and targeting the fire at its source, mitigating fire, smoke, and water damage, and keeping people and property as safe as possible. Professional installation and routine maintenance are critical to the efficacy of these systems to provide reliable safeguards, protect the safety and security of your facility, prevent accidental activations, and ensure your peace of mind.

To keep your building safe from fire, you can do a few things to maintain your fire sprinkler system properly. The first and best defense against fire danger is the professional installation of a comprehensive fire sprinkler system. Next to the professional installation of the system you choose, routine inspection is of the utmost importance and should be conducted per the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).

There are some safety measures that you can take to monitor your system yourself. These include:

• Keep your sprinkler heads clean - Even up high, sprinkler heads gradually accumulate dust and debris that can interfere with the spraying mechanism, a necessary process for extinguishing fires. Airborne grease is particularly harmful to sprinklers and can inhibit their ability to broadcast water when and where it is needed. All sprinkler heads require regular cleaning, with sprinklers in kitchen areas requiring routine and thorough inspection and attention.
  
• Keep your control valves operational at all times - The control valves on your sprinklers must remain open. These valves control the flow and water supply from your automatic sprinkler systems, and they must remain open to ensure that water can flow correctly to and from the sprinkler heads in the event of a fire. There are two types of control valves: electric and non-electric. Electric valves are to be tested during inspections of the entire sprinkler system. In contrast, non-electric valves should be checked manually on a routine, weekly schedule to ensure they are fully open and operational. Upon installing your fire sprinkler system, Allstate Sprinkler Corp will provide you with the user manual and instructions on performing this procedure correctly. Beyond the regular inspection of your system, we will schedule routine visits for total system checks and maintenance. If your building has automatic control valves, they can be checked during our full, annual fire sprinkler inspection.
  
• Keep tabs on your water pressure - Ensuring that your building maintains adequate water pressure is crucial for operating your sprinkler system. If you should experience diminished pressure and a fire occurs, it is possible that your sprinklers will not have enough pressure to broadcast the water needed to put it out effectively. During our routine inspections, Allstate Sprinkler Corp. conducts comprehensive pressure testing, inspecting and checking all valves associated with the sprinklers, ensuring the proper pressure is maintained.
  
• Keep the system as it is - Once your commercial fire sprinkler system is installed, you must not modify or adjust it in any way. Never hang anything from any part of the sprinkler system, and ensure that no one with access to any part of the system tampers with it. When renovating, remodeling, or painting your facility, take proper measures to ensure the system remains intact, unencumbered, and in place. Any of these alterations can drastically decrease the effectiveness or responsiveness of your fire protection systems, leaving your system and your property vulnerable to suppressed water flow, the potential inability to adequately sense heat in the event of a fire, or system failure.
  
• Keep your temperature stable - New York winters can be brutal and unpredictable, and freezing temperatures can harm your commercial sprinkler system. Be mindful of the location of your sprinkler system, and make sure that the building where it is installed maintains a temperature of at least 40 degrees Fahrenheit to avoid frozen pipes or system failure due to a lack of flowing water.
  
• Keep it clear - As stated previously, it is vital to stress to all employees and personnel that they never touch, tamper with, or hang anything from sprinkler heads, pipes, or equipment. Doing so may trigger an accidental activation of the fire sprinkler system and result in catastrophic water damage.

To maintain your fire sprinkler system, contact Allstate Sprinkler Corp. for regular, routine maintenance and inspection of your entire system. With over 50 years of experience, we are your trusted fire protection and sprinkler service professionals serving New York City, New York (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx & Staten Island), Westchester, and Long Island.)