Alan Brinson looks at the international progress being made with water-based suppression as presented at the 2024 Fire Sprinkler International conference
In April, 415 delegates gathered in Dublin for Fire Sprinkler International, a record attendance for the European Fire Sprinkler Network’s (EFSN) annual conference. 44 presentations from 12 countries covered the latest research, innovations, developments in standards, and updates to fire safety codes. Dennis Keeley, Dublin Chief Fire Officer, welcomed us all with a thoughtful overview of fire safety in Ireland. He was followed by Claire Whelton of Cork Fire Department, who gave an overview of the changes to Irish regulatory guidance, published only a month earlier.
As I write this article a month later it is a good moment to reflect on where we are. Talking to delegates it was clear that the sprinkler industry is in good health. Insurers remain a major driver of the sprinkler market, recommending sprinklers in activities where they have experienced significant losses. Sprinkler markets also go up and down with general construction activity, particularly with the logistics industry. The EFSN remains focused on increased regulatory recognition of sprinklers, which over the medium term yields growth as a higher proportion of new buildings are protected. Ireland is the latest example of progress. There, new flats and student accommodation higher than 15m will now need to be protected with sprinklers, as will most other buildings higher than 30m, multi-storey care homes, and warehouses larger than 1,000m2 in area that store goods higher than 7m.
On the website, the EFSN maintains a summary of regulatory requirements and incentives from nearly 30 European countries. Today almost all require sprinklers in high-rise buildings and shopping centres, while most require them in large warehouses and underground car parks. England looks set to join the rest of the UK and Northern Europe in requiring sprinklers in care homes, but unlike Ireland still not in warehouses, nor in underground car parks. This is because the scope of our building regulations is limited to life safety. While that is the case in other countries too, some also require buildings to be designed to enable the fire service to extinguish a fire. Firefighters have confirmed to me the anecdotal evidence that without sprinklers, once a fire has taken hold in a large warehouse they cannot master it and it is dangerous to enter.
But back to the conference, where Armin Wolski of Marriott International appealed for support to see more hotels protected with sprinklers. His company is a longstanding advocate for sprinklers but under its franchise model does not commission the construction of the hotels it operates and brands. Some owners resist the fitting of sprinklers and unfortunately both the UK and Ireland allow hotels of any height and size to be designed without sprinklers. While we have not had large numbers of hotel fire deaths, hotel guests almost by definition are unfamiliar with the building and will likely be asleep, forming a higher risk group than office workers. Yet under the guidance in Approved Document B it is the offices that are sprinklered.
Fire sprinklers have been around for 150 years, as celebrated on the VdS stand in Dublin, yet every year we see research involving sprinklers and new guidance for their use. This is mainly because the rest of the world is also innovating, with new storage technologies and new risks being introduced, such as the increasing presence of batteries in our buildings and of wood in construction. Manny Silva of Johnson Controls presented research undertaken for a large US retailer to support a simple change of heads in order to protect a higher hazard classification than in the sprinkler design. Further research presented by Wes Baker and Ben Ditch of FM Global showed that if manufacturers of top-loading automatic storage and retrieval systems use non-flame-propagating material for their containers the fire does not spread. A ceiling sprinkler system is then adequate, and it can be designed as for the adjacent occupancy hazard. Elsewhere, cold storage remains an area where there are disadvantages with all the options and therefore a demand for new ideas. Phil Gunning of Victaulic showed that by dividing the system into smaller dry sections with pumps started by linear heat detection delivery times could be so fast that there was no need to increase flows or tank sizes compared to wet pipe systems.
Sustainability impacts
Environmental considerations are one area that is having an effect on the sprinkler industry. Jim Glockling, former Technical Director of the FPA, introduced the subject with a reflection on ‘Sprinklers as an enabler of net zero’, pointing out that most new fire protection challenges have arisen from net zero commitments. In Dublin, I learned that as part of this process some large end users, particularly in the Nordic countries, are asking for Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The sprinkler industry has yet to get to grips with this, but it reminds me of BIM, in that there is no legislative requirement for EPDs but markets may force manufacturers to provide them.
Net zero considerations are also raised over the sprinkler pump drivers, with diesel engines used for this releasing carbon dioxide and other unwanted emissions. Ross Livingston of Clarke Fire, which manufactures diesel drivers for sprinkler pumps, pointed out that much cleaner diesel engines are available but are not used by the sprinkler industry, perhaps because they cost more. A medium-term way to reduce net carbon emissions would be to use renewable diesel, while further ahead, hydrogen may be an option. Meanwhile there is an important debate around the use of batteries as backup power for electrically driven pumps.
Due to environmental and health concerns, the class of fluorosurfactants traditionally used in Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) has been banned and such bans are being extended to all fluorosurfactants. Major players have already stopped selling AFFF but there remain big questions around existing foam systems. Replacement foam concentrates are less efficient, requiring larger volumes and are much more viscous, meaning that the foam tank and foam proportioning system will need to be replaced. Europe does not have a standard to assess fluorine-free foam concentrates for application in sprinkler systems, nor a standard for system design so we must look to UL Solutions and FM Global for guidance. Meanwhile there is a drive to not use foam, for example in NFPA 409 for aircraft hangar protection, as presented by committee member John Frank of AXA.
Regulators in several countries are currently considering how to open their markets for wooden construction. To increase the fire-resistance of these buildings however, most require encapsulation with non-combustible materials, which greatly adds to the weight of the building and its embodied carbon, as well as being disliked by architects who want the wood to be visible. In some countries, regulators are open to sprinklers as a solution to allow wood to be visible. Johan Hoogeweg of DGMR in the Netherlands showed how sprinklers have been incorporated in a mass timber building in Rotterdam. To hide the building services they were laid on the wood, surrounded by gravel and covered with a screed. Sprinkler drops were then bored through the mass timber.
Lithium-ion batteries are another innovation bringing new hazards into our buildings. Opinions differ about how to protect electric vehicles, with the US having increased the hazard class because cars are larger, so closer together in car parks, and present a higher fuel load. In the US there is plenty of water available in the main to meet this demand from the sprinkler system. In Europe that is usually not the case and would lead to pumps and tanks always being required, whereas the current hazard classification of OH2 can often be met today. The cost and space implications of a pump and tank have even led some regulators to require sprinklers in small underground car parks but only to OH1! Research and anecdotal fire evidence suggest that an OH2 design can prevent fire spread between electric vehicles in Europe, where vehicles are smaller than in the US, but we must maintain an open mind if evidence to the contrary emerges.
Suppression standards work
We always have a big focus on standards in our conferences and Stuart Lloyd of Zurich and Ludger Tegeler of FM Global spent an hour on EN 12845-2, the standard for the design of CMSA (Control Mode Specific Application) and ESFR (Early Suppression, Fast Response) systems, which will soon be circulated for formal vote (i.e. the technical drafting is over). Gaetano Coppola of Jensen Hughes presented EN 12845-3, the standard for earthquake bracing of sprinkler systems, which is about to be published, while Simon Bird of Fixed Firefighting Systems Bureau and Sarah Colwell of BRE presented EN 17451, the sprinkler pump set standard, which will also go for formal vote this year.
Therefore, by the time of our conference next April we will only be working on EN 12845-1, the design and installation standard. We received over 4,000 comments on the draft and have addressed about 80% of them. Given that much of the regulatory resistance to sprinklers is down to cost, we need standards that not only make clear what is required but that include the latest innovations, so that we can protect buildings as efficiently as possible. European standards become national standards in the 34 CEN member countries, providing regulators with a reference in their own language.
Great progress on water mist standards has also been made. In the past the UK has objected to CEN water mist standards, with one objection being that there were too many missing fire test protocols. Eleven standards are now published with the remaining five well advanced. CEN is also revising EN 14972-1, the design and installation standard, primarily to address some of the British concerns, which I should point out are shared by experts in other countries. Water mist component standards are also being produced, compliance with which is intended to ensure that key components function reliably throughout their normal service life.
This brings me to quality assurance. In the draft of EN 12845-1 we greatly expanded the chapters on inspection, testing, and maintenance. If followed, these will help to raise the reliability of sprinkler systems to even higher levels. Can we do this in a more cost-effective way? Many installers are offering remote inspection, testing, and maintenance (ITM) with manufacturers offering complementary products. None of this is recognised in standards and there is resistance to remote ITM, particularly among insurers. Yet this has the potential to generate data to prove that inspection and testing has been conducted, to send alarms to end users, installers, and insurers if stop valves are closed, and to predict when preventive maintenance is required. Access to such data may win wider support for remote ITM.
We concluded Fire Sprinkler International 2024 with a panel discussion on how to develop the sprinkler market, with representatives of associations from Italy, the Netherlands, UK, and USA. All agreed that we need to work locally with potential allies, in particular the fire services, to generate broad support for our campaigns. Evidence helps to win that support.
A lot is changing in the sprinkler industry and a conference is the most efficient way to learn about it. Fire Sprinkler International will reconvene in Salzburg on 2–3 April 2025. I hope to see you there!
For more details on the work of EFSN and the Fire Sprinkler International conference visit: eurosprinkler.org
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Alan Brinson is the Executive Director of the European Fire Sprinkler Network (EFSN)