Category: Articles

Improve Your Fire Sprinkler System Maintenance with These 5 Tips

Fire sprinkler system maintenance keeps a system ready that could save your life. Everyone hopes fire sprinklers never need to activate–that there’s never a fire. But the worst scenario for building tenants and property is a system that doesn’t work when they need it.

Maintenance doesn’t need to cause a headache for facilities professionals, though. With these five tips, building managers can maintain a safe fire sprinkler system with ease.

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How to Offer a Better Five-Year Obstruction Investigation

and Differentiate Yourself in a Crowded Marketplace

With the increased emphasis on the 5-year obstruction investigation, one might be left to wonder when it became a requirement.  Well, the requirement has been lurking in NFPA 25, the Standard for the Inspection, Testing, and Maintenance of Water-Based Fire Protection Systems, for over 20 years but became clearly defined in the 2002 edition. Most insurance companies now require 5-year internal pipe inspections as a condition of their coverage. Some have denied claims for damage done by system-related issues if a building owner can’t prove that the system has been maintained correctly and internally inspected every 5 years.

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Beyond the Basic Auxiliary Drain

Two Upgrades that Save Thousands

A broken auxiliary drain, sometimes referred to as a drum drip, is at best an inconvenience to building tenants. At the worst, it costs facility owners thousands (or in some cases, hundreds of thousands) of dollars. One international furniture retailer reported that shutting down due to a broken auxiliary drain cost them $50,000 per hour in lost business, plus the cost of system maintenance and fines paid to the fire department for responding to a false system trip.

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Made in America – Why Should You Care?

AGF President Jim McHugh goes into detail to answer the question “Made in America: Why Should You Care?” in Sprinkler Age Magazine. From stimulating the US economy to ensuring code-compliant, high-quality products, choosing American manufacturers is a great choice for your project. Read the full article here, or keep reading for some highlights.

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AGF Goes to College

Find AGF Products, Earn a Shirt

Colleges and Universities in the United States have been on a steady growth curve for the last 20 plus years. And, while most students don’t choose a college based on the presence of sprinklers, higher education administrators realized the safety of their students was an important feature for parents and began to retrofit dormitories with sprinklers and advertise their installation. As an industry, Fire Sprinkler manufacturers, engineers, and contractors have benefitted from both the increased awareness and concern for student safety and the growth of higher education campus infrastructure.

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Pressure Relief Valves in Wet Sprinkler Systems

Save Time, Save Water…Save Money

In 2010, NFPA 13: Standard for the Installation of Automatic Sprinkler Systems adopted the new standard requiring the installation of pressure relief valves on all wet systems.  Prior to 2010, pressure relief valves were only required downstream of pressure reducing valves and on gridded systems.

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CORRinSITE – Reliable Corrosion Monitoring Made Simple

Corrosion is a continuous and virtually unstoppable force of nature, and it is on the rise.  Corrosion occurs when the oxygen present in air trapped within fire sprinkler systems interacts with water or moisture and the metal pipes. Virtually all commercial fire sprinkler systems are susceptible to corrosion’s damaging effects.

It often starts with pinhole leaks, builds to mineral deposits that can clog pipelines, and ends with sprinkler pipes being destroyed from the inside out.  In addition to attacking the sprinkler system, corrosion can also result in ceiling staining, water damage, mold growth, and even electrical system failure.

Corrosion monitoring is the key to addressing corrosion before it causes leaks and other damage.

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AGF’s COLLECTanDRAIN Part of Utah State’s Maverik Stadium Renovation

Model 5400 Protects New Stadium’s Fire Sprinkler System from Freeze-Ups

Utah State University, located in the Northern Utah Mountains, is known for its top-notch academics and research and nationally recognized for its athletics.  In August 2016, Utah State’s Division 1 Aggies return to their newly renovated and renamed football stadium for the start of the 2016 season.

While the fans, students, staff, and public celebrate the premium enhancements and state-of-the-art upgrades, they will also appreciate the safety improvements incorporated into the renovation.  The kind of improvements most people never see or notice, but are critical to ensure the safety and protection of both lives and property.

AGF Manufacturing is proud to announce that our COLLECTanDRAIN® Model 5400 Auxiliary Drains are part of the Maverik Stadium Renovation.

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