Annually, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) gathers industry professionals to present insights, new products, trending solutions and more. This year, from June 17-20, the conference and expo will be held at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, in San Antonio. 

In this, my last column for Plumbing Engineer, I wish to describe my journey as a fire protection engineer and give some recognition to several of those who lent a hand or gave some good direction along the way. 

Victoria Valentine to take over Plumbing Engineer “SFPE Corner” column in 2019.

The popularity of battery storage systems brings fire safety concerns. Proposed NFPA 855 Standard for the Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems addresses these concerns.

This is an outline of many areas in the codes where sprinklers are required or used to take advantage of the many trade-offs giving architects and builders flexibility in the design and construction of a building.

In this column, I would like to focus on the handbook’s approach to sprinkler system hydraulic calculations. Note that hydraulically calculated sprinkler systems did not appear in NFPA 13 until the 1972 edition.

NFPA 13D, Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems in One- and Two-Family Dwellings and Manufactured Homes, is effective as of Sept. 3, 2018. NFPA 13R. Standard for the Installation of Sprinkler Systems in Low-Rise Residential Occupancies, is effective as of May 24, 2018.

A look at some of the technical changes and clarifications in the soon-to-be-published, updated standard.

The new format of the 2019 NFPA 13, which reduced the document by nearly 50 pages, now organizes chapters in the way a fire sprinkler system is put together.