Giving Away Old NFPA Codes Any Interest? 2

[LCREP]

I retired 8 years ago and have many old NFPA individual standards ie 231,231c,72 most from the 1980-2000 time. Handbooks on flammable liquids, fire pump, sprinkler, etc. I am in the Philadelphia, Pa area. Any interest they are FREE you just need to pick them up. If you know of any organization or individuals interested let me know. Moving and do not want to bring them with me. I have not looked at them in 8 years…retirement a wonderful thing…lol

Thanks
Tom

 

[IceYogurt]

Very interested, but not in US.

It should be a lot of fun to compare new NFPA with old ones and trace the development history of fire fighting system.

 

[skdesigner]

LCREP, that is very generous of you, and a great way to keep the past alive. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants.

Do you have any proprietary stuff, like old ASCOA or Grinnell design guides? I have spent my entire career being told 'you young kids have no clue how much skill the old guys had', but with every passing year, there seems to be fewer old guys left to ask about the subject. Other than a (very) few old fitters who came up in the days of threaded mains, collecting old hand drawn prints and design manuals have more or less been my only connection to that era. I am forever searching for that type of sprinkler memorabilia.

 

[LCREP]

Sk

I did 8 years ago and tossed it all when we downsized

I will never forget an old guy, Zig who took a young kid…me.. under his wing and passed his 40 years of doing industrial site evaluations to me. Without his help I could have never gotten to where I did. I too took a young kid under my wing and now he manages a staff of 400 insurance engineers. Us old guys need to help these young kids because one day they will be an old guy/lady too!

Tom

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

Getting ready to turn 75 and my first NFPA #13 was 1974 when 90% of what we did was pipe schedule.

In 1975 I spent a week at Viking's Hasting, Michigan plant learning how to do hydraulic calculations from Jack Woods which everyone did by hand. A different world to say the least as computer programs weren't yet available. Trees, loops and grids we did it all by hand. Paper and pencil.

Grids weren't that bad if you laid them out as a ladder grid with equal mains. I remember one grid that took me about three days just to do the calculations.

The guy who taught me started his career after getting off the ship from Europe at the end of WW2.

 

[cdafd]

SprinklerDesigner2 (Mechanical


So how many pages was 1974 edition??? Five or ten?

 

[UFT12]

can't tell but the 1969 edition has 196. And... no, I am not that old.

 

[skdesigner]

SprinklerDesigner2 - I have been a member of this site for many years, and have enjoyed every single one of your posts. Thank you for all the expertise you've freely provided, you have no idea how much it has helped me in my career.

A good friend of mine created 'The Fire Sprinkler Podcast', and one of his early episodes was an interview with Hasu Doshi, PE. They discussed working with Jack Wood, Lin McCool and the various insurance agencies to develop and implement hydraulic calculations for sprinkler systems in the early 70's.

https://open.spotify.com/show/4ut1gXTYVXOQlBoFh9sGYu

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

cdafd,

We didn't have nearly the changes back then as we do today. The oldest copy I have is 1980 but I seem to remember the "little red pamphlet" had about 180 pages.

Question for everyone.

Do you remember the word "phantom" in NFPA #13?

Yes, did exist about 30 years ago and what it referred to was calculations.

You have a building with a density of .19/1500 for OH2 (yes, it was .19) and the heads were placed 10'x10' for 100 sq ft per head but along the wall the line started 2'-0" off the wall then 10'-0" between lines. How many heads did you have to calculate?

Today it would be the 5 heads along the wall at 80 sq ft for a total of 400 sq ft. Today you would have to add an additional 11 heads @ 100 sq ft each to total your 1,500 sq ft.

But back in the day the "missing" 3' along that wall was called a phantom area and we simply did our 15 sprinklers.

If you remember the phantom area rules you're older than dirt.

Hydraulic calcs on a dry grid.

And government didn't want your stinking sprinkler drawings everything went to ISO, FM or IRI for review and approval. Once you had that you were good to go.

Backflow assemblies did not exist.

So what is your oldest original sprinkler drawing?

Mine is a site plan of the Pell City Mfg Company in Pell City, Alabama dated March 31, 1905. On the site plan it specifically mentions "Grinnell Glass Button Sprinklers" whatever those were but I have the drawing framed and in my office. Sort of reminds me of the good old days.

 

[SprinklerDesigner2]

When hydraulics first came out the area was 1,500 sq ft but the 1.2*area^.5 didn't yet exist until the later part of the 1970's.

What this meant was if you had a tree system with 7 sprinklers on one side of the branch line and 8 sprinklers on the other with spacing @ 100 sq ft per head you calculated the ENTIRE branch line. I seem to remember the 1.2*area^.5 came about around 1978.

I have one claim to fame and that is I was the FIRST person to use a Viking mechanical tee in the entire state of Ohio but that building no longer exists. It too is older than dirt.

 

[ProSafPlant1]

The 1940 Edition of "NFPA 13" was 88 pages - I knew someday there would be a use for my 1944 NFPA Fire Codes book!

Generous of you to donate your old materials. I've got an eBay site "prosafbooks" for my old books including two fire protection related books going back to 1887 and 1903, and this 1937 FM sprinkler pamphlet.

 

[cdafd]

ProSafPlant1 (Petroleum

Will you post the link to eBay

Thanks



No results found for “prosafbooks”

 

[cdafd]

Found you

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?sid=prosafbooks&_pgn=1&isRefine=true&_trksid=p2349624.m3561.l49496

 

[ProSafPlant1]

cdafd (Specifier/Regulator), Glad you found my eBay site. i have trouble finding it myself, likely because I'm in Canada but on the US eBay site.
I started out as an insurance loss control engineer with IAO in Canada, similar to ISO in US.
SprinklerDesigner2 (Mechanical), I never heard the term "glass button" but its a good description, the lens-shaped glass disc acted as a gasket between the cap and the orifice. There's one for sale on my eBay site in a group of four old heads.