How Fire Sprinklers *Actually* Work

[DarkRange55]

Despite what Hollywood would have you believe…

Water under pressure in a pipe is held in place by a small plug. Fused link system: The sprinkler is held shut by a piece of metal that melts at relatively low temperatures. (Wood's metal: alloy of 50% bismuth, 26.7% lead, 13.3% tin, and 10% cadmium by mass). If there's a fire around the sprinkler, it will melt the metal piece. Or a fragile pressurized glass ampoule full of low-boiling fluid. (A mixture of alcohol and water or glycerin and water. The percentage of each is changed to determine the activation temperature of the head. The color is from a dye and indicates the activation temperature). It's much like a thermometer. Heat causes the fluid to expand and boil, producing enough pressure to break the capsule through thermal expansion. When the bulb breaks, it allows the plug to fall down to release water onto the sprinkler head. There's also a hybrid system for places like museums that also requires a smoke alarm to first be tripped, too. Either way the sprinkler isn't held shut anymore, opens, and begins spraying water. Water to hit the flower-shaped deflector, which spreads it around in a spray. Four main different shapes depending on placement. The serrated edges are to help break apart the water. Usually just one or a few in that area spray because this is usually sufficient and also helps minimize water damage. The small circular pieces that cover the sprinklers are pot metal or tin. Very low-melting point just to camouflage, they fall down when there's a fire. Fire code has to have sprinklers every number of feet. The water that comes out is often very dirty since its been sitting in those old pipes for a long time.

(Former commercial building engineer, manufacturing liaison in Vietnam and also cilivil construction in China, among many other jobs)!

 

[hikikomorizombie]

out of all the jobs you've had, which 1 was ur fav??or @ the least, most bearable (no pun intended lol). & which 1 was the worst?

 

[sserafim]

Lol good to know I guess. Haha you've had so many jobs

 

[DarkRange55]

out of all the jobs you've had, which 1 was ur fav??or @ the least, most bearable (no pun intended lol). & which 1 was the worst?

Least:
probably investment banking. M&A division where I advised on mergers and acquisitions and thats more of investment banker and kind of analyst role. The M&A job you had to do pitch decks and stuff like that at Goldman Sachs. 80-100 hours a week of very tedious very heavy work loads. Very high burnout rate. Trading your life for money.
Automotive detail was very physically taxing. Out in the hot sun working on everything from busses to McLarens.
Culinary had very stressful times like working for a Michelin star chef >.< but overall kind of the middle. The 5 people that become cooks are: college students, criminals, people with an expensive cocaine or marijuana habit / addiction, career chefs, and immigrants.
I worked for an oil and gas company in Beverly Hills and I got tired of them saying on film and in writing that they were promising 29% annual rate of return, my clients weren't even seeing 1%. So I decided not to bring any more new clients in until they got everything squared away.
I worked in corporate sales for many years on the side in commercial real estate brokerage specializing in hotels. Basically looking for hoteliers who wanted to buy a hotel. Lots and lots and lots of cold calls every single day and commission based.
I've been involved in some startup companies but they all fell to shit. But I learned a lot.

Best:
Hmm, probably manufacturing liaison in Vietnam Communicating with my western counterparts. Vietnam is like my second favorite country besides Taiwan.
Working in a family office (but they vary a lot in terms or risk, culture, style/approach) based on the principle. So some good, some bad.
Building engineer was good but had its bad times.
Some internships I had where I could just screw around and not do anything.

There have been others… but, thats just off the top of my head extemporaneously.

out of all the jobs you've had, which 1 was ur fav??or @ the least, most bearable (no pun intended lol). & which 1 was the worst?

Oh, working on a farm was good.

 

[zeevo]

Damn dude, it sound like you've had a pretty broad range of experiences. Also I didn't know how much I wanted to know how fire sprinklers worked until I started reading this lmao. Hella interesting post.

 

[DarkRange55]

Damn dude, it sound like you've had a pretty broad range of experiences. Also I didn't know how much I wanted to know how fire sprinklers worked until I started reading this lmao. Hella interesting post.

Grazie
I can post more random facts like (why hotels never run out of hot water, stuff about physics,
how are new parks created, why is parking so expensive, ect, ect.), but idk if anybody would be interested

 

[zeevo]

Grazie
I can post more random facts like (why hotels never run out of hot water, stuff about physics,
how are new parks created, why is parking so expensive, ect, ect.), but idk if anybody would be interested

100%, infrastructure is pretty interesting to me because I usually just accept that things are the way they were made for some reason without considering why. Physics stuff is also cool, I've been listening audiobooks of Stephen Hawking's books recently and they consistently blow my mind.

 

[DarkRange55]

100%, infrastructure is pretty interesting to me because I usually just accept that things are the way they were made for some reason without considering why. Physics stuff is also cool, I've been listening audiobooks of Stephen Hawking's books recently and they consistently blow my mind.

Love his books. Have you read a Brief History of Time, yet?
I can post one on street lights next, maybe, as an example
A friend of mine is a career traffic engineer and city councilman.
Infrastructure is very cool, very interesting. I know some people in the industry (in the US). I worked in civil construction in China. These are just some examples. Idk energy, farms, philosophy, whatever people would enjoy reading about.
Idk just food for thought

 

[zeevo]

Love his books. Have you read a Brief History of Time, yet?
I can post one on street lights next, maybe, as an example
A friend of mine is a career traffic engineer and city councilman.
Infrastructure is very cool, very interesting. I know some people in the industry (in the US). I worked in civil construction in China. These are just some examples. Idk energy, farms, philosophy, whatever people would enjoy reading about.
Idk just food for thought

Into Brief History now, I've been learning specifics and details about stuff that I thought I already knew that shows physics/chemistry in a whole new light. I know a tiny bit about street light systems from a curiosity based google search rabbit hole sometime in the past but it'd be cool to learn more.

Also I have a question pertaining to your civil construction work, what would you say the most significant differences in civil design are between China and the U.S. (or other countries you've worked in if not the States)? For example space allocation, materials used and what methods are used to keep projects under budget?

I had a summer job helping out on buildings that were being constructed or worked on. All I was doing was working with the flooring crew but getting to see unfinished buildings fascinated me.

 

[DarkRange55]

Into Brief History now, I've been learning specifics and details about stuff that I thought I already knew that shows physics/chemistry in a whole new light. I know a tiny bit about street light systems from a curiosity based google search rabbit hole sometime in the past but it'd be cool to learn more.

Also I have a question pertaining to your civil construction work, what would you say the most significant differences in civil design are between China and the U.S. (or other countries you've worked in if not the States)? For example space allocation, materials used and what methods are used to keep projects under budget?

I had a summer job helping out on buildings that were being constructed or worked on. All I was doing was working with the flooring crew but getting to see unfinished buildings fascinated me.

Haha my mistake, I goofed on the title lol been a while. Great book.
My overall experience is more american real estate and the financial markets but I can definitely say some things on this but I'll have to get back to you on this (at least tomorrow). Great question! stay curious!

 

[zeevo]

Haha my mistake, I goofed on the title lol been a while. Great book.
My overall experience is more american real estate and the financial markets but I can definitely say some things on this but I'll have to get back to you on this (at least tomorrow). Great question! stay curious!

ah no you got the title right, I'm just a lazy typist. And thanks a ton, I'd def like to pick your brain a bit about real estate as I used to live in the SF bay area, aka real estate hell as far as I could tell.

 

[DarkRange55]

ah no you got the title right, I'm just a lazy typist. And thanks a ton, I'd def like to pick your brain a bit about real estate as I used to live in the SF bay area, aka real estate hell as far as I could tell.

check my latest post actually haha

ah no you got the title right, I'm just a lazy typist. And thanks a ton, I'd def like to pick your brain a bit about real estate as I used to live in the SF bay area, aka real estate hell as far as I could tell.

But absolutely, boss, love to. And like I said, anything I'm not sure on, I can ask people. My friend's father-in-law for example a billionaire construction company owner (different than my recent post). So just let me know.

 

[DarkRange55]

ah no you got the title right, I'm just a lazy typist. And thanks a ton, I'd def like to pick your brain a bit about real estate as I used to live in the SF bay area, aka real estate hell as far as I could tell.

Very liberal, upper-income megatropolis - its very high population density, big city, you have lot of tech and corporations and movie stars, there's a big chunk of people that are rich there. You also pay a lot of taxes (blue-city).

 

[DarkRange55]

check my latest post actually haha

But absolutely, boss, love to. And like I said, anything I'm not sure on, I can ask people. My friend's father-in-law for example a billionaire construction company owner (different than my recent post). So just let me know.

I was talking to a great big real estate developer friend of mine, a day or two ago, and he was telling me how much development costs have increased for apartment units. It's kind of crazy.

Rent Going Up? One Company’s Algorithm Could Be Why.

Texas-based RealPage’s YieldStar software helps landlords set prices for apartments across the U.S. With rents soaring, critics are concerned that the company’s proprietary algorithm is hurting competition.

www.propublica.org