Fire Valve Connections at Man Doors

[LowlySprnkLayoutTech]

Does any know the source of the reason I'm starting to see requirements for 2.5" "hove valves" at man doors in warehouses? I say "hose valves" because they are asking for 2.5" pipe to one valve, and 4" to multiple valves with no hydraulic requirements like a standpipe. We have never seen these in the St. Louis Area, and have not been able to locate the root source of these requirements. These seem to be coming from out of town engineering firms doing nation wide work. Is this a code requirement? or some sort of tradeoff for exit travel distance? They are in ESFR buildings, so they should already have exemptions (or a simple variance) for the distance.
Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

 

[TravisMack]

Hey there. I started in the fire sprinkler industry in St Louis as well. Anyway, I have seen these when doing work in the Salt Lake City area. They wanted the valves at all man doors. I did not have a reason why, other than the AHJ required them. Salt Lake was the only place I had seen them required in that manner.

Travis Mack
MFP Design, LLC

http://www.mfpdesign.com

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[cdafd]

The width and length of some of these

McWarhouses

By the time the fire truck parks, takes the attack hose off, and stretches to the door,

Maybe would have fifty feet to actually go into the Building.

So maybe their sop, is take a warehouse hose pack to the door and hook up to the hose valve, and pressure added at fdc or from Building fire pump??

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

We recently ran into an AHJ in Georgia that required a standpipe in the building protected with an ESFR system.

It wasn't that bad since the water was there to feed it.

 

[stookeyfpe]

2012 and later editions of the International Fire Code allow the fire code official to prescribe a Class I standpipe in high piled combustible storage areas where exit passageways are required for means of egress. In all other cases it isn't required per Section 3206.8 unless the warehouse is > 500,000 square feet per IFC Table 3206.2 and when required by the fire code official.