In 1986 a team of Washington State Chiefs, led by then WFC president Bob Ely, traveled to Kansas City with a residential fire sprinkler trailer to lobby the International Conference of Building Officials, (ICBO) to add fire sprinkler requirements in residential occupancies to their Uniform Building Code.
Although not a complete success, we were able to convince ICBO to add fire sprinkler requirements in new multi-family of 3 or more stories and/or more than 4 units.
The most popular sprinkler head, listed for residential use at that time, was the Central Omega O-ring seal head. After 8 million were installed, Consumer Products Safety Commission, (CPSC) testing showed that the O-ring seal in many of the Omega heads swelled and would not unseat from its groove when the sprinkler head element fused.
Central Sprinkler wisely made an agreement with CPSC that the recall be listed as voluntary. The only reason it was classed as voluntary rather than mandatory was because Central volunteered to recall the heads before CPSC mandated it. Central then offered free replacement heads for the recalled Omega heads.
California proposed a sunset date on the voluntary recall and a class action judgement made it National unless a State opted out of the settlement. Many states missed the opt out date, so the program ended without all the Omegas being replaced. Washington was one of those states. 3 million recalled Omega heads still remain unaccounted for.
Unfortunately the sprinkler head most commonly used to replace the Omega was the Central G.B. (Glass Bulb) O-ring seal sprinkler head. Over 35 million were installed. An estimated 2 million in Washington State alone.
After receiving reports of GB O-ring heads failing to open under fire conditions, then State Fire Marshal Mary Corso ordered a Statewide investigation of the GB O-ring seal head.
During the course of this 18 month investigation more than 250 GB heads were taken from 21 different occupancies Statewide. The samples were sent to CPSC for testing. Results of the testing showed that 46% of the heads tested did not open at their design pressure. Several failed to open at 90 PSI.
These results didn't necessarily prove that all 104 heads that failed the testing wouldn't have opened at a higher pressure. However, if these heads were installed in an occupancy such as a home or multi-family unit that was designed to allow lower pressures, there is a good chance they would not have opened under fire conditions. I personally investigated three incidents in which O-ring seal heads failed to open when activated.
State Fire Marshal Corso then took the results of the testing to Washington D.C, and with the Virginia State Fire Marshal, met with CPSC, and Tyco Fire Products, (the new owner of Central Sprinkler). This meeting resulted in Tyco announcing another "voluntary" recall program of all 34 million GB model fire sprinkler heads with O-ring water seals.
An enormous amount of time and money went into testing O-ring fire sprinkler heads, working for their recall, and then helping property owners with identifying the recalled heads and then filing their claims for free replacement.
Now that the free replacement program has ended, there are still thousands of O-ring heads still out there in Washington "protecting" people from fire.
Many fire jurisdiction erroneously believe that an NFPA 25 inspection by a licensed fire sprinkler contractor will identify and then inform the owner of recalled O-rings. Due to liability issues, a fire sprinkler contractor performing a NFPA 25 inspection only inspects from the floor level unless it is specifically listed in the Inspection/Testing/Maintenance contract to identify recalled and defective heads,
The I.F.C. sec. 901.9, (which by the way was introduced and lobbied for by the WSAFM's), states that if fire sprinkler heads are no longer listed and have either been voluntary or mandatory recalled, the responsibility for replacement falls upon the property owner. The owner shall then notify the AHJ.
But, realistically, whose responsibility should it be to identify and inform the property owner. I would suggest all we have to do is look in the mirror to get that answer.
We fought to get sprinklers installed, we should now fight just as hard to see that the defective ones are replaced.
By: Larry Glen
Retired Deputy State Fire Marshal