The sprinkler is “activated” if the ambient temperature around the sprinkler head is 40C, due to the little “wet pipe” in the sprinkler bursting. 40C is HOT. Basically - when your whole apartment is beginning to catch fire. It’s designed to save lives, not your things.
Newer (higher end) apartments will have the sprinkler itself hidden / recessed, this way the little wet pipe / vial can’t be accidentally damaged by force (when cleaning, painting, etc)
prmoustache•1d ago
While 40°C is hot, it is not insanely hot. Every summer temp goes easily above 35°C in my apartment for a number of days.
serf•23h ago
40c is miserable to be in, but it's not really that hot compared to fire or combustion. The record hot day in Phoenix was 50c; miserable but livable w/ precautions.
wet pipe burst temps are between 57c-75c .
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
> The sprinkler is “activated” if the ambient temperature around the sprinkler head is 40C
So pretty much room temperature in central Europe in summer?
onetwentythree•1d ago
To provide more information than the others who responded: typical sprinkler systems are not automatically activated in response to a fire alarm. Each sprinkler head has a small glass vial filled with a liquid, calibrated to break at a certain elevated temperature (e.g 160 or 180 F). The flow of water starts when the glass breaks. So there has to be a significant fire near the sprinkler before it activates.
One weakness is that the glass vial is fragile. In some hotels you’ll see signs reminding guests not to hang clothes from the sprinkler head, as a clothes hanger could break the vial and activate the water flow.
estimator7292•1d ago
Please enlighten us then, why do many countries require commercial kitchens have fire sprinklers if it's such a terrible and dangerous idea?
wolrah•23h ago
Most developed jurisdictions require commercial kitchens (and commercial spaces in general) to have fire suppression systems, not necessarily fire sprinklers. Water sprinklers are a common choice for fire suppression in many spaces because they're relatively cheap, but they're not the only option. A kitchen fire suppression system will generally be a wet chemical system that will safely blanket a grease fire while still being easy to clean off of food prep surfaces unlike dry chemicals.
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
Presumably because the regulations were written by people who have zero experience of either kitchens, fires, or kitchen fires.
Do you know what happens when you put water on an oil fire, which is pretty much what you're going to have in a kitchen?
post-it•56m ago
> Do you know what happens when you put water on an oil fire
When the water is coming out of the ceiling at 25 gpm, you get a lot of slightly oily water and no fire.
To answer your earlier question, the purpose of sprinklers in a house is to save my pets' lives if a fire starts while I'm away.
cucumber3732842•19h ago
It's kind of funny that everyone's crapping on this comment when the poor value proposition of sprinklers in residential settings is exactly what enabled the investment to develop this system.
ccamrobertson•16h ago
Worse yet, you might not have a choice; the article notes that “sprinklers are already required in all new California homes built in 2011 and later.”
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
Well, one choice would be to simply not live in California. There's no good reason why anyone would want to.
jeffbee•57m ago
I use to worry about this but the industry claims about 1 per 20 million accidental discharge per year, which over the lifespan of a home works out to be 10-1000x less than other common hazards (including fire).
windowliker•1h ago
Anyone with experience of standing in front of a bass bin at a drum n bass rave will instantly understand why this could work.
xiaod•1h ago
I'd want to see more about the failure modes. Production systems need graceful degradation more than optimal performance.
giantg2•54m ago
I wonder what the frequency is and what it's resonant with. There could be some interesting and dangerous side effects.
dabinat•51m ago
I doubt this would be as effective as a sprinkler because sprinklers cool surfaces as well as extinguishing. But I could see it being a useful complement to a sprinkler, as a first-line defense in the early moments of a fire starting. Sprinklers only kick in once the fire is already well-established and do enormous water damage.
ErroneousBosh•1d ago
Do you want everything you own destroyed every time it goes off by accident?
Do you know how much worse a sprinkler system makes kitchen fires?
Larrikin•1d ago
Have you ever lived in a place with sprinklers?
Do you actually think they go off when ever the highly sensitive smoke detectors detect you made your pizza extra crispy with the window closed.
mikestew•1d ago
If it were a problem, you'd be hearing about it from apartment dwellers, since sprinklers are required in many (if not most) cases:
https://firetechsprinkler.com/blog/when-are-sprinklers-requi...
bobmcnamara•1d ago
lurking_swe•1d ago
Most common sprinkler type used in a residential setting is “wet pipe”: https://www.nfpa.org/news-blogs-and-articles/blogs/2021/03/2...
The sprinkler is “activated” if the ambient temperature around the sprinkler head is 40C, due to the little “wet pipe” in the sprinkler bursting. 40C is HOT. Basically - when your whole apartment is beginning to catch fire. It’s designed to save lives, not your things.
Newer (higher end) apartments will have the sprinkler itself hidden / recessed, this way the little wet pipe / vial can’t be accidentally damaged by force (when cleaning, painting, etc)
prmoustache•1d ago
serf•23h ago
wet pipe burst temps are between 57c-75c .
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
So pretty much room temperature in central Europe in summer?
onetwentythree•1d ago
One weakness is that the glass vial is fragile. In some hotels you’ll see signs reminding guests not to hang clothes from the sprinkler head, as a clothes hanger could break the vial and activate the water flow.
estimator7292•1d ago
wolrah•23h ago
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
Do you know what happens when you put water on an oil fire, which is pretty much what you're going to have in a kitchen?
post-it•56m ago
When the water is coming out of the ceiling at 25 gpm, you get a lot of slightly oily water and no fire.
To answer your earlier question, the purpose of sprinklers in a house is to save my pets' lives if a fire starts while I'm away.
cucumber3732842•19h ago
ccamrobertson•16h ago
ErroneousBosh•4h ago
jeffbee•57m ago