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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Widely Used Fire Sprinkler Fails In Tests 35 Percent Failure Rate Alarms Firefighters; Feds Investigating

Bill Baskervill Associated Press

A fire sprinkler head installed by the millions in U.S. hospitals, schools, hotels and apartment complexes has repeatedly failed to activate properly in laboratory tests and in actual fires.

A model of the Omega sprinkler has a 31 percent failure rate in ongoing Underwriters Laboratories tests and a 35 percent failure rate in tests conducted this year for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.

The results have alarmed and perplexed many fire safety officials because sprinkler systems, in use for more than a century, are considered second only to human firefighters in reliability.

‘We’re playing Russian roulette” with the Omegas, said Capt. Frank Teevan of Fairfax County’s Fire Prevention Division.

“It wouldn’t be acceptable if 35 out of every hundred air bags that came out of the factory didn’t work,” said Teevan’s colleague, Battalion Chief Carl Maurice. “If a sprinkler head is installed in a building, it’s expected to work.”

All sprinkler systems have networks of water pipes that lead to multiple sprinkler heads. Various devices hold the water in or send it shooting out in pressurized sprays when heat sets them off.

The Omega head in question holds water in with a plunger; a rubber O-ring keeps the plunger from leaking where it meets the water supply. In the event of fire, heat melts a plug of solder below the plunger, and water pressure forces the plunger down and away from the O-ring, allowing spray to douse the flames.

Evidence indicates failure occurs when the rubber ring swells and grips the plunger too tightly, requiring higher water pressure to force it open.

The manufacturer, Central Sprinkler Corp. of Lansdale, Pa., switched from rubber to silicone O-rings in June 1996. But millions of the rubber-ring Omegas remain in place, and Central president George G. Meyer says the company has no plans to recall them. Meyer maintains faulty installation, not the rubber ring, causes the problems.

The company has been notifying building owners, offering to test their sprinklers and fix them, if necessary, at Central’s expense. It has already spent $4 million on the problem. Central also notes that Omega heads have operated successfully in hundreds of fires.

Nevertheless, Fairfax County Fire Chief Glenn A. Gaines on June 30 ordered all building owners in this Washington suburb to test or replace an estimated hundreds of thousands of Omega heads, which Gaines called “unsafe and hazardous.” Early this month, Teevan said Central was replacing 15,000 Omegas installed in county-owned buildings.

Fairfax is not alone in its concerns about the Omega:

Marriott International replaced 200,000 Omegas in 220 hotels after one head failed in a Marriott Courtyard guest room fire at Romulus, Mich., in May 1995. “We’ve got too much at stake to fool around with this,” Sonny Scarff, Marriott’s director of fire protection, told The Associated Press. No one was injured in the Michigan fire.

The same month, an Omega sprinkler failed when a patient’s bed caught fire at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Canandaigua, N.Y. Again, no one was injured. “We were lucky,” VA spokesman Ken McKinnon said from Washington. The Department of Veterans Affairs has replaced 11,000 of the 60,000 Omega heads in its 50 medical centers and outpatient clinics, and tests are continuing, McKinnon said.

A young inmate at a Fort Wayne, Ind., juvenile detention center set her bed on fire last April 15 and refused to let firefighters in. The heat and flames did not activate an Omega sprinkler overhead, said Fort Wayne Fire Marshal Tim Davie. The inmate was rescued.

On May 23, reacting to circulating reports of problems with Omega sprinklers, Maryland Fire Marshal Rocco Gabriele issued a “cease and desist order” barring further installation of rubber-ring Omegas in the state.

The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission is investigating the Omega, and the National Institutes of Health says it is a “serious life safety problem for our patients and employees.” NIH wants Central to replace tens of thousands of Omegas in its hospitals and other buildings; Meyer last month would say only that Central was testing the Omegas in NIH buildings.

Central Sprinkler is the second-largest sprinkler-maker among eight U.S. manufacturers, according to National Fire Sprinkler Association. It makes several hundred models, but the Omega became a top-seller when introduced because it activated so swiftly - generally in 14 seconds instead of the 90 seconds other heads required. The company says some 8 million of the rubber-ringed Omegas were installed from 1983 and 1996, representing about 2 percent of all sprinklers installed in that period.

Meyer refused to be interviewed for this story, and his company asked the AP to submit questions in writing. Meyer responded by fax.

He said blame for any sprinkler failures lay with improper materials used by contractors and maintenance workers. He suggested two culprits: oil used to cool steel pipes as threads are cut and compounds similar to those that stop leaks in car radiators but which are banned from use in sprinkler pipes. The cutting oil makes the rubber O-ring swell; the stop-leak clogs the sprinkler heads.

Meyer, in a Feb. 21, 1997, letter sent to sprinkler contractors and building owners, said problems arose only with rubber-ring Omegas installed on steel pipes. The Marriott and VA sprinkler systems used steel pipes, and Meyer said the heads that failed in their fires had been contaminated with stop-leak.

In the Fairfax tests, however, one Omega taken from an apartment building with a plastic system needed 42 pounds per square inch of water pressure to go off when triggered by heat from a blow torch. Seven of eight sprinklers removed from copper-pipe systems failed to activate under 7 pounds of pressure, the standard of the National Fire Protection Association.

Underwriters Laboratories has so far tested more than 800 Omega heads and found 31 percent failed to activate within the stricter UL standard of 5 pounds of pressure.

Fairfax County found that 223 of 633 Omegas tested among four independent labs, or 35 percent, failed to activate under 7 pounds of pressure. Some of the faulty heads failed to go off at more than 12 pounds of pressure, and some never activated at all, Teevan said.