Incident Report
Subject: Sprinklers Date of Email reporting Incident: Thu 11/10/2001 09:29 Report Detail: CENTRAL SPRINKLER TO REPLACE O-RING SPRINKLERS Central Sprinkler Company (Central), an affiliate of Tyco Fire Products LP, of Lansdale, PA, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) are announcing a voluntary replacement program. Central initiated this action because it discovered that these sprinklers with O-ring seals could degrade over time. The sprinkler heads can corrode, or minerals, salts, and other contaminants in water can affect the rubber O-ring seals. These factors could cause the sprinkler heads to fail to activate in response to a fire. Laboratory testing has indicated that the majority of the sprinklers would operate in a fire situation; however, some sprinklers required higher water pressure to activate than may be available in some buildings. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Release # 01-201 describes the recall, and can be found at their web site http://www.cpsc.gov/Trans/sprinklers.html This replacement program includes two kinds of sprinklers, "wet" and "dry." "Dry" sprinklers are used in areas that may be exposed to very cold temperatures, and the exposed piping does not contain water. These sprinklers were installed nationwide in a wide variety of buildings including houses, apartments, hospitals, daycare facilities, schools, dormitories, nursing homes, hotels, parking garages, supermarkets, warehouses, and office buildings. Figure 3 illustrates other sprinkler types manufactured by Central that are subject to the recall. Central has received four reports of "wet" O-ring sprinkler heads failing to activate during a fire situation and nine similar reported failures of "dry" O-ring sprinkler heads. These failures resulted in property damage claims ranging from $1,000 to more than $100,000. The Central "wet" sprinkler models with O-ring seals that are covered by this program were manufactured between 1989 and 2000. Specific model numbers are listed in Table 1 below. AFFECTED MODELS CENTRAL "WET" SPRINKLERS (Manufactured from 1989-2000)
The "dry" sprinkler models subject to recall were manufactured from the mid-1970s through 2001, and affected model numbers are listed in Table 2. CENTRAL "DRY" SPRINKLERS (Manufactured from Mid-1970s-2001) A-1 GB GB4-EC ELO-16 GB The program also covers approximately 167,000 Gem and Star brand sprinklers with O-rings. The Gem brand sprinklers were model number F927, and were manufactured between 1995 and 2001. If you have any questions about how to complete the forms or how to identify the O-ring seal sprinkler heads involved in this program, please call the Customer Service Hotline at EH has issued a Safety & Health Hazard Alert on this topic, which may be found at http://tis.eh.doe.gov/docs/hha/links.html.
|
