How Fire Sprinklers Work in Basement Finishing
Hello, everyone. I’m Caleb with Dansie Design Build, and today I wanted to talk to you about fire sprinkler installation and basement finishing. We are here in a basement finish in Draper, Utah. I wanted to show you how fire sprinklers work to protect your home from a fire once it starts in your home. So let’s jump right in here, and we’ll take a look.
Fire Sprinklers Are Not Always Required
The first thing to note is that fire sprinklers will not be required for all homes in Utah. If your home already has fire sprinklers installed in the basement, it’s essential in your area. If they’re not installed currently, then they’re not required.
Fire Sprinkler Head on the Ceiling
So we are looking up at the ceiling of this basement finish, and you can see here we’ve got a fire sprinkler head. The way these work is that there’s a cover installed here, designed to sit on the bottom of the drywall. There’s about half an inch of space for the drywall to be attached to the joists. Then this white cover is a finished cover that blends in with the ceiling, so the fire sprinkler is hidden.
Fire Sprinklers: How Do They Work?
We’ll remove the fire sprinkler cap to see what’s inside the sprinkler. We have a temperature-activated head, so no valve opens and closes automatically when the smoke detectors go off. Once this room and this fire sprinkler reach a specific temperature, then this lid will melt. There’ll be a component inside that melts, and then the water will spray out to this cone and then shower all over the room. So that’s how fire sprinklers work.
Temperature-Activated Fire Sprinklers
You will not turn around and remove these covers as the fire starts. However, you can see here that one is rated for 135 degrees. That is the temperature at which it falls apart when the heat reaches that temperature. There’s a copper side and a painted side, a different metal type. Those two are soldered together, and that melts at that 135-degree temperature. Once that happens, the white plate drops off the bottom of the cover, allowing it to become a pipe that this fire sprinkler pops down. So that eventually activates and starts spraying the water out.
Working with Existing Fire Sprinklers
For this basement finish, we are just working with these existing fire sprinklers, protecting them while working around them and putting in the drywall. We have these fire sprinkler cover plates that we will put on to keep them from getting too dusty and painted on so that they’re in good working order when we’re done. So we’ll show you those too.
Fire Sprinkler Cover
This is the cover. The little dots on the side are little threads. This cover screws in here, protecting the sprinkler from getting dusty or painted on while we finish the basement. So we’ll leave it like that.
Wrapping Up
If you need help with basement finishing or home remodeling, or if you’re considering getting some plans drawn up for a project that you’d like to do, you can reach us on our website, DansieDesignBuild.com, and request a project consultation there. We’d love to talk to you.
Thanks for your time today, and have a great week.
