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Fire & Water - Cleanup & Restoration

Common Water Damages Caused by Commercial Fire Suppression Systems

3/3/2021 (Permalink)

flooded room in funeral home room  with carpet Fire Suppression System Malfunction Caused This Water Damage at a Covington Commercial Property

Most commercial and multi-family housing properties have a “wet pipe” fire suppression system. This type of system activates when a fire occurs or when extreme temperatures over 155 degrees heat sprinkler heads. Water is then released to quickly suppress the source. Each sprinkler head is individually activated on a needs basis to minimize water damages. However, just one sprinkler can release 8-24 gallons of water per minute. Our restoration team often encounters the following three water damage events caused by fire suppression systems.

Water Damages Caused by Fire Suppression

Often, the fire itself causes less damage than the water used to extinguish the fire. Residential fires are most often doused only by firefighter hoses. Fires at commercial properties are usually extinguished by both the fire suppression system and water utilized by firefighters. This can result in thousands of gallons of water inside the commercial building.

Water Damages Caused by Fire Sprinkler Malfunction

While this is a less common incident, our team has helped several commercial clients after their fire suppression systems accidentally initiated. For one example, a commercial property in Covington was newly built, but the fire suppression system was not calibrated for the correct heat resistance. On a particularly scorching hot summer day, the fire sprinkler system was accidentally activated and leaked thousands of gallons of water into over 4,400 square feet of the building.

Water Damages Caused by Frozen Fire Suppression System

Many commercial buildings in South Louisiana are not constructed to endure below freezing temperatures. Every couple of years, an awful winter storm will bring extremely low temperatures to our area. These dramatically low temperatures will cause water supply pipes and fire suppression systems to freeze. Sometimes the pipes will safely defrost in a day or two, but other times they will expand so much that they burst.

The above disasters can be mitigated by properly maintaining commercial fire suppression systems and knowing how to turn off the system when an incident does occur.

No matter the reason why a fire suppression system has caused water damages, our emergency restoration team is here to help 24/7/365. With our professional extraction equipment, our water damage restoration team will quickly extract all loose water. Then, we will utilize our drying and dehumidification equipment to return the property back to preloss condition. In a matter of days, our water damage restoration team can make any size disaster seem “Like it never even happened.”

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