Commissioning Of
Fire Protection |
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Today more property owners are requesting that their
sprinkler systems be commissioned as part of a quality
assurance or quality control process that will verify
the fire protection systems perform together as
intended. Too many buildings have systems that do
not work properly due to any number of reasons; poor
initial design, poor installation, inadequate testing,
no owner’s manual and no trained personnel,
unfortunately, are not uncommon problems. These and
other problems are driving the establishment of the
comprehensive commissioning program for the building
fire protection systems that is being developed in NFPA
3 —Commissioning Fire Protection Systems.
What differentiates commissioning from acceptance
testing? The commissioning of a sprinkler system
involves more than the acceptance testing described
within NFPA 13. Commissioning begins at project
inception and continues through design, construction
and project closeout and then throughout the
facility’s operation. Commissioning can be
defined as “a systematic process that provides
documented confirmation that fire and life safety
systems function according to the intended design
criteria set forth in the project documents and satisfy
the owner’s operational needs.”
NFPA statistics indicate that sprinkler systems
function exceptionally well when properly maintained.
The few instances of system failure are found to be
directly related to shut water-supply control valves
and inadequate maintenance, which can be construed as a
misunderstanding of the operational needs of the
system.
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