Performance of New and Aged Residential Fire Sprinklers

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) initiated a program to determine the effects of emissions from problem drywall on residential electrical, gas distribution, and fire safety components. As part of this program, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) generated data to help determine whether there has been degradation in the activation performance of automatic residential fire sprinklers exposed to those emissions, as manifested by changes to sprinkler activation time. NIST tested three sets of sprinklers in the sensitivity test oven (plunge test apparatus), according to the oven heat test section of UL 199 / UL 1626. Set 1 (bulb type) residential sprinklers were provided by CPSC staff and described as having been installed in homes with problem drywall; Set 2 sprinklers (bulb and fusible types) were purchased new by NIST and tested as received; and Set 3 comprised new sprinklers, of the same models as Set 2, after they had been subjected to an accelerated aging protocol, the Battelle Class IV corrosivity environment. Sprinklers from all three sets were installed and tested in the UL 199 / UL 1626 plunge test apparatus.