Fire sprinkler movie myth
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3737/is_2002...Posted Oct 18, 2010, 7:27 AM UTC
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This is an outrage. We must stop this spread of despicable lies!
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I've only seen fire sprinklers go off in the movies, and I've always wondered how the process would actually work to trigger them all when one went off. Turns out I was tricked!
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A single or double interlock deluge system will all go off at once. The heads are open and a valve lets water into the pipes. Besides munitions factories they are used in freezers. If the system goes off the room has to be thawed out. If the room cant be heated the pipes must be unscrewed and taken outside to unfreeze.
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Reading this put my rampant criticizing of the portrayal of firearms in movies into a rather interesting light.
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they also never go off to just smoke, unless tied to a smoke detector. the wax on the sprinkler has to be triggered to get em to let out "the burning rains of death" or whatever bad line you choose.
They use a liquid filled glass bulb. I hate that I feel the need to correct this.
yeah i realized i made a mistake and was referring to sprinklers from the 50s. but i was too apathetic to edit it.
well you did my job, thank you.
They would go off if the temperature reaches about 150 degrees F. The heat would break the glass bulb on that particular sprinkler head. And it wouldn't take long with all the heat rising to the ceiling.
I get annoyed with this too, as I've worked in a facilites dept and had dealings with fire suppression systems.
At the end of the move "Constantine" I was saying "no way would you get all those demons wet by having Keanu break one sprinkler head." And then I felt a bit ashamed.
I could get all those demons wet.
I bet I could get 100 demons wet.
It depends on the head. They come in different temps.
If you can see a fire sprinkler head right now I bet it's red. That means it'll go off at 155 deg F.