Pump for fire sprinkler = fire pump?

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SpiderMT

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I don't much much experience with the fire pump section of the code book and have a few questions. I have a job where an old barn is being converted into a small winery production and storage facility. Because this now is commercial space the county is requiring fire sprinklers in the building and want 400 gallons a minute. The current water supply is unable to provide this volume of water without some help, so the fire sprinkler company wants to use a pump to boost the pressure.

My question is, does this pump automatically become a fire pump because it is part of the sprinkler system?

Or is this pump a jockey pump (pressure maintenance) and therefore excluded from article 695?

I suspect I can't have a jockey pump without first having a fire pump. I have spoken with my inspector and the fire department and gotten no firm answer as of yet.
 
Good luck on getting a "firm" answer. When you do take names and get it in writing. You may have better results by having the fire co. design it and spec the equipment. How large is the barn? We have done houses with holding tank, pump ,with flow switch all in a packaged unit all you need to do is run the circuit to it and it is done. For houses these units are less then 1 thousand gallons for a 3500 sq ft house.
 
Something like this.




http://www.thedsystem.com/hf_pages/dsys_a.html

dsys_tank.jpg
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The pump is a fire pump and not a jockey pump. A jockey pump just maintains the system pressure and would not be able to supply 400 gpm. Most jockey pumps would be less than 25 hp and that would be for a very large system.
While you can do things like shown above for residential systems under NFPA 13D, you may not be able to do the same for commerical occupancies under NFPA 13.
Don
 
in the jurisdictions where I work the fire supression system is submitted complete to the ahj ( county/fire marshall) and once approved there's no questions (ie your question is a design question which the fire system designer would answer via the design/drawings/submittal/approval process and for which you may not receive an adequate answer informally)
 
There is a fire sprinkler company doing the design that will then be submitted to the fire inspector for approval. Another company that just does pumps will be supplying the water service and the pump.

My real issue is power for this pump. The existing service on the building is 100A 1ph. The proposed pump is 7 1/2 hp 240V 1 ph.

It looks to me like at 240V the pump would need-
40 x 1.25 = 50A = #8 conductors

and locked rotor current = 240A

From my understanding of 695 the pump cannot be fed from the existing service, I'll either have to tap the service entrance conductors ahead of the service or supply a new service. Either way I need to get PG&E involved and they take forever to get anything done. If this doesn't fall under fire pump rules I can just put a 50 A breaker in the existing panel and be done, if it does fall under 695 it turns in to a whole lot more work. I think.
 
fire system pumps

fire system pumps

existing sprinkler pump feed is to be relocated,can existing line be spliced in a box and extended,or must I pull in new feeder.note;existing feed is non-metered from power company.
 
It's good to see that our AHJ/Fire Marshal isn't the only guy who won't give any answers on-the-spot.

We asked for 6 months during build-out if this occupancy (Class. A3) was going to be required to have a fire alarm, it is already fully equipped with an automatic sprinkler system. All he would say is "Well, we'll see..."

Then, back in December, after everything else was done in the building, he finally said it needed a fire alarm with EVAC. The materials alone are over
$10k!
 
The electrical service for a fire pump typically does not have a service disconnect. If it does it must be able to carry locked rotor current of the fire pump.
The fire pump controller will not have motor overloads, the pump is sacrificial.
As has been pointed out, have a professional design the fire protection system, you merely have to wire it to the NEC.
The one fire pump system I did, I designed the electrical but had a EE stamp the plans. Too much liability.
The fire marshal will give it all a good inspection.
 
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