freezemaster™ Antifreeze Blog
In-depth antifreeze and fire safety advice and insights from the experts behind the freeze protection technology like no other.
It’s nearly winter again, and prepping for the cold typically includes testing antifreeze in wet fire sprinkler systems. The typical process for inspecting wet fire sprinkler systems involves:
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs | Installation
It’s been 10 years since NFPA guidelines specified that site-mixed, unlisted antifreeze was no longer an approved option for wet systems. Because a listed alternative wasn’t yet widely available, new systems were almost exclusively designed as a dry system.
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs
NFPA standards require all antifreeze fire sprinkler systems to switch to a listed antifreeze by September 30, 2022. These standards help ensure that an antifreeze system performs reliably in a fire and saves more lives, rather than contributing to fire as unlisted fluids can.
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs | Installation
When installing listed antifreeze, the manufacturer’s installation guide is the final word. But talking with installers who have already started switching their clients to a listed product has revealed three installation tips that you won’t find in the official installation guide.
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs | Installation Guide | Listings and Innovations | fire sprinkler systems
Size matters!
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs
Planning for freezing temperatures during the sweltering summer might not be the first thing on anyone’s to-do list in the fire sector. But in the case of sprinkler system freeze protection, 2021 is the year it should be. Advance planning, insights from the field and a broad perspective on where winterizing is needed will be useful to prepare for safe, effective freeze protection in sprinklered applications this winter and next.
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During the years when there were no listed antifreezes to protect fire sprinklers from freezing in severely cold weather, dry pipe systems were often chosen to fill the void after NPFA put into place new regulations requiring listed antifreezes for new systems. The most common applications affected by this included attics, unheated warehouses, commercial freezers, overhead canopies, loading docks and parking garages. Now that listed antifreezes are commercially available, however, it’s worth evaluating experiences from the field where dry system use increased in situations where it might not have been best suited. While these systems can be the right solution in some scenarios, they can have significant drawbacks in others.
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Sprinkler pipes must be safeguarded when temperatures cannot reliably remain at or above 40ºF (4ºC) ambient temperature. New and existing sprinkler systems in Residential, Light Hazard, Ordinary Hazard and Storage applications can be protected against severe cold with freezemaster™ antifreeze, a new UL-listed, factory premixed freeze protection technology.
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Codes, Standards & Approvals | FAQs
As you select an antifreeze for your fire sprinkler system, it is important that you consider these questions: Does it meet the rigorous technical challenges of becoming listed as required by NFPA? Is it listed and approved for use with the application and the size of the system? Will it protect the system against damage from exposure to the severe cold? How does it contribute to the prevention of corrosion and microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC)? In this blog post, I address why the answers to these questions are so critical, and the advantage freezemaster™ antifreeze offers for fire sprinkler systems in Residential, Light Hazard, Ordinary Hazard and Storage applications.
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