Quote:
Originally Posted by GH85Carrera
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To follow up Seahawk's post about "the first time":
Decades ago in a different career, I worked for a fire sprinkler manufacturer and we were developing some of the first "life safety" heads. Earlier sprinklers were primarily intended to protect property and could require 2-5 minutes of exposure to heat before they go off.
Those small diameter glass bulbs are a key technology in the "fast response" life safety sprinklers.
As part of my job, I got to do forensic investigation of allegedly defective products. That's potentially pointless when you get a sprinkler frame with no glass bulb or plug and a claim that it "just went off".
One other point - the water in fire sprinkler systems is typically quite stagnant and black with oxygen depleted iron oxide. It instantly stains anything it touches.
So I got a frame from a sidewall sprinkler and a claim for a couple million dollars in damages. It seems that this head had gone off while a world famous fashion designer had an entire show's worth of dresses in a Manhattan hotel room. We didn't just roll over on claims of that size, our guys asked for photos and we got them.
Under the activated sprinkler in question there was a pure white outline of a wedding dress on the wall - surrounded by black.
We didn't pay a dime on that claim.
That's when hotels started putting up little signs next to the sprinkler heads warning not to hang anything from them.
