Nfpa 13 Attic Sprinklers

Property protection and life safety.

Nfpa 13 attic sprinklers.

Nfpa 13r commonly allows for the elimination of fire protection in attics closets and bathrooms nfpa 13r allows for a lower water discharge demand from the sprinkler system leading to smaller pipe sizes nfpa 13r allows for a shorter duration of water supply than nfpa 13. As shown in table 1 nfpa national fire protection association standards 13d and 13r both allow omission of sprinklers from attics not used or intended for living purposes or storage in the case of nfpa 13r and that do not contain fuel fired equipment. The industry benchmark for design and installation of automatic fire sprinkler systems nfpa 13 addresses sprinkler system design approaches system installation and component options to prevent fire deaths and property loss. Nfpa 13 installation of sprinkler systems the standard for the installation of automatic sprinkler systems never specifically addresses whether or not an attic requires sprinkler protection.

The restriction in the usage of antifreeze in wet pipe sprinkler systems protecting residential occupancies drives a need for a method to protect the piping installed in attic spaces from freezing. The allowed method prescribed in nfpa 13d should be brought forward into nfpa 13 to solve this problem. One such case is the idea of providing automatic sprinkler protection in attics. An attic can be a concealed space if it is constructed and used as a concealed space as outlined in 8 15 1 2 1 of nfpa 13.

In order for the systems to achieve these goals the general rule is to provide sprinklers to protect all spaces within a building. Automatic sprinkler systems installed in accordance with nfpa 13 installation of sprinkler systems are intended to serve two functions. The globe specific application attic protection scheme has undergone full scale fire testing with underwriters laborato ries and is listed to be utilized per nfpa 13 in conformance with the new technology and equivalency sections as well as the special sprinkler section.