thoughts on managing the risk of fire sprinkler heads leaking while you are on vacation...

[simple girl]

Hello,

We live in a townhouse community which is outfitted with fire sprinkler heads in each unit. They are inspected yearly by the community's fire service company. The community is about 23 years old.

Recently my neighbor's fire sprinkler head started with a slow leak, right over her bed. Thankfully, she was home and was able to get it repaired before major damage occurred.

This now has me concerned about what, if anything, I could do to manage the risk that one of our sprinkler heads in our unit could do this while we are on vacation.

Turning off the water to the unit does NOT turn off the fire sprinklers, as they are on a different water system, to protect the community.

I thought about putting out water sensors under each sprinkler when we leave, but that would be expensive and a pain, but...maybe it's our only option? There are quite a few sprinklers in the house, around 15.

I could also pay to have someone do a walkthrough of our house every couple days, but this would be expensive and also, a lot of damage could happen in a couple days.

Otherwise, if I do nothing, and we have a fire sprinkler leak, as my friend said "that's what insurance is for".

Any other ideas for how to mitigate this risk?

 

[COcheesehead]

Indoor cameras. We use Wyze. Cheap and easy. About $20/camera. If you see a leak, you can at least inform someone.

 

[AZ2020]

YoLink water leak sensors can be had for about $10 each on Amazon.

 

[Masquernom]

YoLink water leak sensors can be had for about $10 each on Amazon.

These were mentioned on a thread earlier, and I set up several in my home now. They are working fine so far.

 

[Zona]

Another vote for YoLink. We've had them for a few years now. One alerted us to a dishwasher leak before the water could sit & damage our cabinets. They are inexpensive enough that we have them throughout the house where water could come in. Hadn't thought about placing them under the sprinkler heads when we're out of town, though. Will consider that.

 

[jazz4cash]

These were mentioned on a thread earlier, and I set up several in my home now. They are working fine so far.

I have Govee brand on sale now at Amazon ~$8 each. We never connected them but I was very pleased the unit under the sink alerted us to a problem recently. We’d need about 15 to cover the whole house and I’ll probably connect them eventually.

 

[simple girl]

Thanks all. The water sensors are cheaper than cameras and send me notification of a leak, vs using a camera means I'd actually have to remember to look at my cameras when on vacation, lol.

Currently we use the Switchbot brand for under sinks/near toilets and they work great. They are on sale for a little over $10 each right now, so I guess I'll go ahead and invest in a bunch more. It will be easier to just having everything on one app.

I didn't get anyone saying not to worry about it (my husband's response, lol), so I guess I'm not over-worrying.

 

[Chuckanut]

I turn off my water and the water heating tank whenever I leave the house for more than a few nights. There are no sprinklers in my home.

But, if I had sprinklers that does defeat the purpose of the sprinklers, doesn't it. I wonder what the insurance company would rather have homeowners do?

 

[skyking1]

That's why condo homeowners have no control over the sprinkler system
You don't want to give your neighbor the ability to burn your unit down because they were scared.
I frequent a DIY forum and somebody was asking about how to move a fire sprinkler head or if the plumbing was in the wall that they were planning on moving. I let them know that under no uncertain terms, they shouldn't mess with it. And there's a contractor hired by the condo association to do any sprinkler work. It's a special certification.

 

[savory]

House sitter. DW and I have been one and we have used them.

We were house sitting when we heard the drip, drip,drip in the middle of the night. The pipes broke on the floor above us. The water was dripping on the ceiling light lamp shade.. It took a few minutes to figure it out. Without us it might have been 7 to 14 days assuming the owners would have had a person occasionally watching the house.

 

[Koolau]

We are in the very early stages of adding sprinklers to our Condo building. It will be a major disruption and a very expensive project.

I hadn't even thought about leaks yet.

Heh, heh, Thanks a lot for reminding me!

 

[simple girl]

House sitter. DW and I have been one and we have used them.

We were house sitting when we heard the drip, drip,drip in the middle of the night. The pipes broke on the floor above us. The water was dripping on the ceiling light lamp shade.. It took a few minutes to figure it out. Without us it might have been 7 to 14 days assuming the owners would have had a person occasionally watching the house.

We are actually housesitters, too!

I may consider bringing one in for our next trip. We have no pets, just plants. Sure would be an easy gig for a sitter, and we live 15 minutes from the beach.

The only problem - I'd have to clean my house top to bottom before a trip, and I'm always so busy prior to traveling.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I used to design fire sprinkler systems for a living. Leaks are very uncommon; I wouldn't lose sleep over it despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I'd be much more worried about a plumbing pipe leak, a roof leak or a water heater leak. And I agree, one should never, ever, mess with a sprinkler system!

Condo unit owners shouldn't have access to the shutoff, and if they did, closing the valve would initiate a signal at the panel and at the monitoring company and someone would come looking for the culprit. Besides, the valve is probably locked open anyway. A slow leak isn't going to have enough flow to initiate a fire alarm, but if one were to knock a head off, say, then one's whole day would be ruined. The building would evacuate and you'd have to wait for the fire department to come and shut the water off after they did a thorough search of the building for a possible fire.

 

[Lorenzo]

I used to design fire sprinkler systems for a living. Leaks are very uncommon

This. The possibility of a leak was something that occurred to me when I first moved into the 30-unit condo building I ended up living in for over 20 years, but nobody ever reported a leak from a sprinkler. I realize this is a small data point--a single building of a mere 30 units--but my point is that it was a small enough community that news of a leak would have been known by all of us. Meanwhile, plenty of us had various plumbing leaks over the years.

 

[Trooper]

I have Govee brand on sale now at Amazon ~$8 each. We never connected them but I was very pleased the unit under the sink alerted us to a problem recently. We’d need about 15 to cover the whole house and I’ll probably connect them eventually.

Just curious...how did your sensors alert you without being connected?

 

[skyking1]

probably the audible alarm.

 

[jazz4cash]

That's why condo homeowners have no control over the sprinkler system
You don't want to give your neighbor the ability to burn your unit down because they were scared.
I frequent a DIY forum and somebody was asking about how to move a fire sprinkler head or if the plumbing was in the wall that they were planning on moving. I let them know that under no uncertain terms, they shouldn't mess with it. And there's a contractor hired by the condo association to do any sprinkler work. It's a special certification.

But even if the your neighbor shuts their sprinklers off, your system should still activate. Our county rewuires whole house sprinklers for new construction since the late 90’s. The upcharge in 2000 was about $3k so not bad. A fire chief told me they are very effective at limiting fire damage but if an upstairs unit activates you could have as much damage but from water not fire and easier to restore. Also unlike the movies a single sprinkler head activation does not turn all the heads on.
Ppp

Just curious...how did your sensors alert you without being connected?

They have 100db audible alert. Connecting via hub/wifi adds push notifications or email (not exactly sure) but we didn’t need that feature.

 

[skyking1]

But even if the your neighbor shuts their sprinklers off, your system should still activate.

That sounds good in theory, but it would allow a small fire to become a huge one, so no, folks have no control over the condo system. It defeats the protection.

 

[simple girl]

I used to design fire sprinkler systems for a living. Leaks are very uncommon; I wouldn't lose sleep over it despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I'd be much more worried about a plumbing pipe leak, a roof leak or a water heater leak. And I agree, one should never, ever, mess with a sprinkler system!

Condo unit owners shouldn't have access to the shutoff, and if they did, closing the valve would initiate a signal at the panel and at the monitoring company and someone would come looking for the culprit. Besides, the valve is probably locked open anyway. A slow leak isn't going to have enough flow to initiate a fire alarm, but if one were to knock a head off, say, then one's whole day would be ruined. The building would evacuate and you'd have to wait for the fire department to come and shut the water off after they did a thorough search of the building for a possible fire.

So, if a fire sprinkler leaked enough to eventually knock the head off, are you saying that it would then spray large amounts of water, and that would trigger a fire alarm in and of itself?

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I mean if the head were struck by a ladder or something, which could break it off or more likely knock out the thermal element and release the plug. But yes, there’s a water flow sensor in the system that initiates a fire alarm.

 

[simple girl]

I mean if the head were struck by a ladder or something, which could break it off or more likely knock out the thermal element and release the plug. But yes, there’s a water flow sensor in the system that initiates a fire alarm.

Got it.

The fire sprinkler repair company my neighbor initially called (she called the wrong one) told me that eventually the leak could progress to the sprinkler going full steam.

Hence, my concern about a small leak developing into a huge release of water came from that comment from them.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Upon further thought, and without knowing the specifics, I might suspect some sort of corrosion or something? Which would be a whole other issue.

 

[Trooper]

These sensors such as Govee and Yolink seem like a good fit for a remote-ish cabin we have. Do they require a hub, or could they be used without one?

 

[simple girl]

These sensors such as Govee and Yolink seem like a good fit for a remote-ish cabin we have. Do they require a hub, or could they be used without one?

I believe our Switchbot sensors require a hub if you want to access data remotely or receive notifications.

 

[mcso]

How about replace the head before it needs replacing.....