A building’s fire protection system may require fire pumps and associated equipment. Engineers should follow these planning and design best practices to protect against various risk factors and ensure reliability during emergencies.

Thermal disinfection or short-term chemical disinfection may kill Legionella bacteria on the surface of the biofilm, but it does not kill bacteria under it. Bacteria can go into a cyst form, encapsulating it inside an amoeba and deep within layers of buildup on a pipe wall covered with biofilm.

GSA has incorporated IAPMO’s Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) in its newly released Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service (P100), marking the first instance that this federal agency has officially referenced the Uniform Codes.

When specifying pilot-operated automatic control valves for a fire sprinkler system, make sure to correctly calculate the friction loss. You’ll also need to determine if the automatic control valve should be configured for redundancy.

Unreliable water pressure from a 1,000 gallons/minute pump serving an underground fire protection loop and connected to a 10-inch municipal water main precipitated the addition of a 250,000-gallon water storage tank to a research facility’s fire protection system.

Properly calculating the water requirements for expansive medical grounds and supporting buildings is vital to the facility’s infrastructure plan. Here, John Gregory uses square footage and employee counts as part of a systematic approach to determine the gallons per day needed. 

These devices are used to shut portions of the fire sprinkler system off for maintenance or repair work without taking the entire system offline, endangering building occupants in case of fire. While not required in all circumstances, they should be considered as another fire safety mechanism.

As we continue this domestic hot water series, Ron George discusses the best circumstances to include temperature-actuated balancing valves or pressure-reducing valves in your plumbing design of high-rises and mega-tall buildings.