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 grove when the sprinkler head element fused...