Released – Upcoming NFPA Vote with AFSA’s John Denhardt and Kevin Hall

Drew Slocum::

This is episode 33 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Today, my guests are John Denhardt and Kevin Hall from the AFSA, the American Fire Sprinkler Association. Uh, been been wanting to get these guys on for a while. Uh, met John a few weeks back and, uh, got and put it together. So, uh, he had a great idea. There’s, uh, uh, there’s an upcoming, uh, N F P A, uh, meeting, virtual meeting again, second year for the virtual meeting. But there’s a big vote, uh, a few different votes coming up. Um, uh, but mainly today we discussed N F P A 13, the N F P A 13 vote. So any N F P A members out there that have been members since, uh, believe the beginning of the year, please get involved. Listen to the podcast, uh, kind of hear, you know, John and Kevin out.

Obviously do do some research before you vote, but they put out some great points. We also get into some in inspection on N F P A 25 and kind of where that’s heading here in the, in the very future. So, um, yeah, really cool to have them on. So check it out. Um, we posted this on the YouTube page as well, uh, with video. So, uh, one, one of the first times for that quick plug for the, the podcast and, uh, inspect point is, uh, uh, couple weeks ago we were at the live from at NAED in Las Vegas. It was, it was tremendous. Uh, thank you for all the support. Thank you for everybody coming by. Uh, we’re gonna be doing that again in Atlantic City on June 23rd and June 24th. So please stop out to that event. Uh, we’re gonna be doing a live stream as well, so take a peek at the podcast notes, subscribe to all our channels, and, uh, yeah, hope to see you here soon. Thanks for subscribing and liking. Enjoy. This is a good platform. Well, uh, thanks Kevin and John for, for joining me today on, on this, uh, on the Fire Protection Podcast. I’ve been, been wanting to get, you know, you guys and afs a on for, for a little bit now. So it’s, it’s, it’s cool to have you on. Um, John, where are you right now?

John Denhardt::

Uh, I’m sitting, uh, in my backyard enjoying this beautiful scenery out here today.

Drew Slocum::

All right. That used to get sent a beautiful day weather.

John Denhardt::

Yeah. Yes, it is. In June, you know, living in the Maryland area, you know, you go from, uh, winter to summer and not much time in between, so you gotta enjoy the weather.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, totally, totally. Caly you, you’re in Maryland too, right?

Kevin Hall::

Yep, yep. I’m down in Baltimore, so, so work outta here, but most of the time on the road teaching our design school class, doing committee meetings, so Nice. Basically living in front of the computer screen or in front of a classroom.

Drew Slocum::

Nice, nice. Well, I, I, I want to get into it pretty quick, but just, you know, you guys both work, both work with afsa. If you just wanna give a quick rundown of, of what you do there, uh, kind of a little bit with AFSA is about too. I, I obviously know that probably a lot of listeners do too, but just in case, uh, uh, they don’t know. Fire away.

John Denhardt::

Absolute, absolutely. I’m the Vice President of Engineering and Technical Services for A F S A. Uh, basically the, all the engineering and technical department is under my responsibility. Uh, A F S A was founded in the eighties as a, uh, merit shop based contractors association, trade association to represent the contractors and provide, uh, first class training for the merit shop contractor. Now, we’ve, we’ve expanded over the years to, we also have, uh, uh, other contractors in there. We have associate members, and our goal is to give, whether it’s designers, fitters, i t m, uh, apprentice, uh, anywhere from edge estimators and project managers, all the training they need in our sprinkler business. In addition, we represent, uh, uh, Kevin, how many, uh, different NFPA a committees we on 36, 37 committee, something like that. It’s, it’s, it’s pretty hot.

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, I think roughly to, yeah, 37 or 40 40 now last, you know, last cycle.

John Denhardt::

Wow, okay. And we sit on the N F P A committees, we’ve got 70 some seats. Uh, we’re on the UL standards. We’re on a bunch of different standards out there representing our members and their interest in these, in these documents.

Drew Slocum::

Yep. Yeah. Do you wanna go? Yeah, it’s super important because, you know, you know, those associations, you know, they, not every contractor can be a part of ’em. So I think that’s, that’s super powerful cuz you can kind of combine all the thoughts into, and, and that’s what you guys do day in, day out, right?

John Denhardt::

Absolutely.

Drew Slocum::

So, Kevin, what, what, what’s, so Kevin, uh, what’s your background or,

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, so I’m the, uh, coordinator of the engineering technical services. So basically I’m just, I’m responsible for just coordinating all the activities of the department. So whether that’s our informal interpretations where we answer our members’ technical questions, uh, whether it’s our representation on committees, uh, keeping track of all the committee meetings that we’re on, all the public inputs, all the public comments, what our positions are. And then teaching and keeping up to date are educational courses, which would be our design school, which currently have a beginning school working on intermediate school, and then an advanced school that we’re gonna push, uh, live later this year.

Drew Slocum::

Nice, nice, nice. Yeah, you’re on a n ft nine 15 with me. The, the, the new, the new one.

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, that’s, that’s gonna be a fun one. We’ll see how those meetings scale. Yeah, couple of these meetings had me pulling my hair out, so I’m gonna look like John in a couple years. But, uh, <laugh>, hopefully we can keep moving, moving forward pretty smoothly.

John Denhardt::

Yeah. Just Drew, just

Drew Slocum::

A

John Denhardt::

Quick, I’ve been in this

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, go for it.

John Denhardt::

Yeah, I was gonna say, I’ve been in this industry a long time, worked as a contractor for 28, 29 years. Uh, university of Maryland grad in ENG in Fire Protection Engineering, uh, and really sit on these committees and bring a different perspective. Kevin does the same thing. He worked for a contractor for five years. Uh, you know, we bring our contracting experience to these N F P A committees. Um, you know, that’s one thing that a lot of times the committees seem to lack is real world knowledge. And, uh, we can bring that sprinkler contracting experience, uh, you know, with us and, and offer thoughts and changes to the document that, that help help the real world situation. You know, I, I, you know, it’s great to do all the theoretical stuff, but at the same time, you gotta make it happen in the real world.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, totally. Um, I, I feel like, you know, even that way with our company a little bit with like, you know, you know, there’s a lot of different software platforms out there, but if, if you’re not focused on the part of what you’re representing, whether it’s fire protection or the contractors, or, you know, it’s tough to, it’s tough to kind of push the message forward. So that, that’s great. I’m glad, I’m glad you guys are, uh, kind of championing that, that side of afsa.

Um, so I, you know, I, I was at your, uh, A F S A, uh, I TM training, uh, up in Philadelphia at General Air a few, few weeks back. And, you know, John, you and I got talking. Um, I think Kevin, you were down doing another training at the time, but, you know, uh, I wanted to talk about, you know, N N F P A didn’t have a, a, an actual event this year. Um, uh, they didn’t have one last year either, but they are still doing, um, they, they’re still having a, what, what is it? Is it a, is, is it just a vote or is it like a technical, technical meeting? I guess, what is actually N F P A doing and, um, kind of get into the vote a little bit.

John Denhardt::

Sure. The, uh, N F P A, just like last year, uh, they still have to conduct their business. So they have an annual technical meeting every year. They had it last year. They’re gonna have it again this year, uh, because of, uh, their restrictions when meetings and stuff, they’re gonna do it virtually again. So the meetings coming up, uh, the debates actively going on as we speak, uh, for the next two weeks. And then the, the vote, uh, process starts June 28th, if I remember correctly, and goes through July 2nd now. So what’s going on? Well, every year during the annual meeting, N F P A brings any proposed new, new revised new or revised standard to the membership for voting, uh, to make sure that everything’s going good. And, uh, that gets accepted. So in the N F P A th uh, process, there’s a as long about a two year revision process, and I, I’m, I’m just generalizing here, but a two year revision process from first draft to second draft. And then you go through the process and we have committee meetings and we discuss things and things get resolved, things get, uh, accepted and modified and move forward. At the end of that process, the final document comes out. And at that point, anybody that has legal standing in NFPAs terms can file a, what we call a NIP a, uh, Kevin, what the heck does a NIP man stand for?

Kevin Hall::

So NIMAN is a notice of an intent to make a motion.

Drew Slocum::

Are you testing him, John?

John Denhardt::

That’s it. I’m exactly, because I don’t remember exactly what it’s for, but I know it’s called a NIP man. Um, and, and A F S A and along with some other organizations have filed some nip mans on N ffa 13 in particular, three, uh, organizations. A F S A N F S A and JCI Johnson Controls followed a NIP MA on a water supply issue. Um, and N F P A goes through and ev evaluates those nip MAs to make sure they have legal precedences. And if they are done right, they will become a cam, a certified amending motion. Okay. Once they become a cam, they will be brought up to the membership for a vote. Um, and in this case, the one in particular I want to talk about is on water supplies. That motion was made a cam by all three of us, and they combined all three motions cuz they were all very similar into one camp. So those motions are moving forward, or one vote, I guess you’d say those have

Drew Slocum::

Moved forward. That’s for nfps R Sorry, that’s NFPA 13. NFPA 13, right?

John Denhardt::

Correct. Correct. This is strictly for N FPA 13 2022 edition. Now, there’s some other cams that are also being certified. Um, there’s also, uh, I believe, uh, NFPA 10 nf, which is fire extinguishers, NFPA 72 has a couple cams on fire alarms. Uh, and I think that’s the three big ones under this cycle that are, you know, out there at this point.

Drew Slocum::

Cool. Yeah. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll put

Kevin Hall::

Some of this. There’s also one on,

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, I’ll put some of this in the show notes as well, so if whoever’s listening or whatever, I’ll have, you’ll, you’ll be able to access, you know, some of the documentation there. Sorry, Kevin.

Kevin Hall::

Cool. Yeah, I was gonna say there’s also one on 2 91 for the, uh, marking of private fire hydrants that, that’s open for discussion.

Drew Slocum::

Cool.

John Denhardt::

So, so Drew, the biggest one that, that A F S A would like to talk about at this point is the, uh, one on water supplies. Um, there was a proposal, and this, this has gone back about 10 years now. There’s been two or three attempts to push a water supply, a mandatory water supply adjustment into the standard, um, for lack of better words, a safety factor, reduction in the water supply, uh, whatever way you want to call it. And this time, uh, like similarly, three years ago, this has made it to the point that the membership is either gonna have to accept it or vote it. Um, this, this proposal has language in it, which is going to require the user of the document. If you base your, your, uh, water flow, if you use base, your sprinkler design, your water supply on a water flow test to do an engineering analysis of that water supply, uh, unless the AHJ or the water authority makes an adjustment to that water supply before you start.

And what, what that’s gonna mean is that every sprinkler job, every time you go out and do a water flow test and do a, and do a sprinkler uh, design, somebody’s gonna have to look at that water supply and make a engineering analysis of that water supply an adjustment. Uh, now do I agree water supply adjustments should be made? Absolutely. Okay. The language that was proposed isn’t horrific. The language that’s being proposed is fairly common Goods sense engineering, but N FPA 13, in my opinion, is not an engineering document. N F P A 13 is a prescriptive standard for installation and design of sprinkler systems. Now, the Society of Fire Protection Engineers has position paper out that water supply is the requirement of the engineer of record and should be analyzed, but it’s not the contractor’s responsibility. And where they’re placing this in the document where the proposal was put in this document is going to put it in chapter five, which is right under water supplies.

It’s not in chapter four, under owner requirements or, you know, owner or designated representative. It’s in chapter five, and it’s gonna be pointed out in many, many jobs by hjs that this has gotta be a requirement of, of sprinkler submissions. And that’s af SSA’s main concern is that not that this shouldn’t be done to some extent, uh, depending on the job, if the authority of a jurisdiction, the water department who knows their water the best, should be making these adjustments. A contractor, a designer going in, doing a, having a test result and trying to design a system is not in position to make this analysis. And if it’s, if it’s in fact an engineering analysis, which is what it’s being described as, they don’t have, most designers do not have the legal authority to do that work.

Drew Slocum::

Right? Yeah, yeah. You don’t wanna push that liability on the contractor. So is it, I guess who I, you don’t have to out anybody, but who’s, I mean, who’s in, why, what, is there a pr, obviously there’s common sense that, you know, the analysis should be done, but is there, is there a way to, obviously you can go against this and it can, you know, next cycle it could be adjusted, but is, or can it be adjusted this time? The, just the language of it?

John Denhardt::

Great question, drew. Great question. At this point, the language has been proposed. We cannot adjust the language. The language has been accepted, it’s moving forward. Um, this is, uh, the fourth quarter, four points down. You know, you gotta go for a touchdown to win the game, and you got 35 seconds left. This is the last attempt we can go through. We’ve brought it in front of the membership. If the membership votes to overturn this language, it will go back to the 2019 language. And all three people that, uh, submitted the camps, three organizations are happy with the 19 language. So at this point, the only option we have is to overturn it and go back to the 19 language. Uh, it’s the same thing that happened for the, uh, 16th si or the 19 cycle is the language got overturned and it was a little stronger even back then. Um, this language is better language. It’s just the location is not a very good location as far as the membership’s concerned. So we need to do something with this, have it overturned, and then let the, uh, the proponents bring it back for the 25 edition. And maybe we can put it in the ownership ticket and the owner’s information section, uh, where it’d be more palatable. But at this point, um, there’s been some strong support for this cam to be, uh, accepted, which will overturn the language, and we’re hoping it, uh, is a very successful

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, I could see it, you know, if it does pass and it doesn’t get overturned, it could, it potentially could drive up the cost of installation too. If you, if, if you’re putting all that liability back on the contractor, they’re gonna have to raise their price, get an engineer involved, insurance potentially is infected. I mean, that’s just me saying that. But, um, you know, there’s other effects of this just, just in grabbing the water supply. Right?

John Denhardt::

Absolutely. And even more important than that, um, is when you get, when most contractors bid a job, they don’t necessarily have, you know, there’s not been an engineer involved. If there’s an engineer involved, they should have the water supply analyzed already. But if they didn’t, and you get, get a project, you get three contractors or four contractors bidding a job, what do you, what are you assuming in your bid? This one, you know, you’re not gonna do the analysis beforehand. So one contractor takes five PSI or 5%, the next one takes nothing. The next one takes 10%. Who’s gonna get that job? Where’s the numbers gonna be? Um, so it’s gonna be a real right, uh, issue, and it’s gonna be a liability concern. Something ever goes wrong. The lawyers are gonna have fun. Um, and it’s gonna put the AHJs in a difficult spot because when they go to review these drawings, you know, what are they gonna say?

Oh, well, where’s your engineering and analysis? I don’t, I don’t believe your numbers. You better go get an and seal this thing. Um, you know, and all of a sudden, as you said, there goes to price, there goes to time schedules and everything else. If it’s done up front, you know, before the job’s out to ward, no problem. The water supply takes it, no problem. The ahj and what I’m already hearing from some AHJs, well, is this a safety factor? And it’s not a safety factor, it is an adjustment to the water supply. So there’s AHJs out there, local county officials that require a 5% safety factor, a five PSI safety factor, wherever it varies all over the place. N F P A does not have any built in, you know, mandatory safety factors. So what I’ve asked them, okay, if the water supply adjustment is made, and we take an adjustment on that, is that take care?

I don’t need to do your safety factor. And the answer is absolutely not. They still want the safety factor on top of this. So now are we gonna start running into fire pump issues and have to put fire pumps on jobs because, you know, by time the, the reduction in waters supply and then another safety factor on top of it. I mean, Kevin and I both worked in a water district that was very consistent. They made you go to a low hydraulic gradient. In that case, we knew what the water supply was gonna be. We didn’t always agree with it. It was worst case, but that’s what they made us use. Okay. We knew it. That complies with the Curry code and even the new one, if it gets accepted, that would work. But how many jurisdictions do that? Not many. So most of the time we’re back to that gray area that you don’t know what to do with it.

Drew Slocum::

Right, right. Right. Yeah. So voted down any, so any, so any N F P A member in, in good standing can vote on this, is that correct?

John Denhardt::

Absolutely. Any n FPA member?

Kevin Hall::

Yeah. Anyone who, yeah, been a member.

John Denhardt::

You, Kevin, you Kevin.

Drew Slocum::

Go ahead, Kevin.

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, just so yeah, anyone who’s been a member since, uh, yeah, within six months of the meeting is, is allowed to vote. And, and I guess the key thing to point out here is, is because it’s, it’s our cam and we’re looking to reverse an action of the title committee, we actually want to vote in favor of this cam. So even though we’re striking the language, we’re voting in favor of the cam.

Drew Slocum::

Gotcha.

John Denhardt::

Right. It’s a motion, it’s a motion to accept our motion, which is to go back to the 2019 edition. Now, A F S A, along with some other organizations have, have worked in beta voting guide, sort of like, uh, you know, when you go vote in a national election or state election, these are the candidates that the newspaper would recommend or whoever. We’ve went through the cams, we’ve evaluated them. Um, and we’ve come out with a a F S A voting guide. So, you know, if anybody’s interested our website, that information’s out there. Uh, drew, you can post a link to it, I’m sure. Oh, yeah. We have a voting guide that’s telling you what we want, you know, what we prefer. Our position is on these ICE issues. I want everybody to review the issues, make sure you’re comfortable, but we wanna get the word out. How some of these cams are gonna affect, uh, could affect you. One of them in particular, we’re actually voting against. Um, and Kevin, you wanna go over that with the elevators, what, uh, the cams are trying to do there?

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, sure. Uh, I mean, yeah, the one, the one that has some merit, but you know, we’re still opposed to the cam would be the, uh, the sprinkler in the elevator hoist way. So that, that was heavily debated last cycle. In the first draft meeting, we removed the requirement to install a sprinkler in the pit of a elevator, regardless if it, it was hydraulic retraction. Uh, just because the elevator guys never want a sprinkler in there. Our sprinkler guys, it’s so hard to get in there. You gotta coordinate with the elevator guys, and then depending on what inspector shows up on the project, you either have to install or put a plug in that sprinkler to get your inspection to pass. So it’s just a pain for all sprinkler contractors. And I guess we got to the point we’re like, fine, we don’t, we don’t need that sprinkler in there anymore.

So we were okay with having it outta there, but during the second draft, it was brought back into the standard. Um, the elevator association had some good data on their side, uh, but the consensus committee was to put that sprinkler back into the pit. So it’s now in there, uh, what the elevator association is doing. They, they submitted a, a niman, just like we did to put the first draft language back in the standard. Uh, it was certified as a certified amending motion or a cam. And so that, that’s really the cam that’s sitting on the floor now. Uh, cam 13 dash four, 13 dash 18, and 13 dash 26. So again, three submitters, basically the same action. So they combine them into one and they’re looking to get that sprinkler out of the elevator pit again, which, you know, we’re okay with that, but we oppose the cam because the way it works, John mentioned it earlier, the only way a CAM can go through is you have to accept their action a hundred percent verbatim.

You can’t make any other modifications except for if it’s an editorial, you know, issue with a punctuation or something. But, uh, the language that’s in there, public input or public comment has to be accepted word for word. And by doing that, we’re actually gonna have a loophole in the standard if their CAM actually gets accepted. Um, you’re, you’re essentially not gonna have any guidance whatsoever for, uh, a sprinkler in the pit or not in the pit of a elevator. And there’s just gonna be a black hole in the standard for what to do in that scenario. So to provide some guidance, we’re, our position is to oppose CAM 13 four, um, next cycle. You know, we can revisit it, make sure we clean up the language and make sure it’s covered a hundred percent. But again, it’s just the nature of the beast with these cams. If you accept them, there might be some unintended consequences, just cuz you’re not allowed to correlate the language with the rest of the standard. You’re just stuck with what you got.

Drew Slocum::

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I know, I, I’ve had experience, um, in the New York market of, of, of elevator, uh, a sprinkler being required, but needs to be tied back to a heat detector. It just makes it super complicated. There’s not a, a good technology out there to handle it. Do you, do you wanna install? Some of ’em are install like a, I think reliable’s got a reliable sprinkler’s, got a, like a little valve that handles it, but like, just drives up the cost. So, um, yeah, I, I get it. So, so that one you’re not in favor of, right?

Kevin Hall::

Yeah. Yeah. That one. Yeah, that one. We oppose that cam. Yeah. Vote, vote no.

John Denhardt::

Okay. And, and like I said, just Kevin said it very clear, it’s just gonna cause confusion type deal because if it gets, if it gets accepted, then there’s just, there’s a hole in the committee, the hole in the proposal, you can’t, they didn’t do a good job cleaning up the camp type deal the way this is gonna be. So we have to oppose that. There’s one other one, drew, that’s worth discussion. Um, and that’s the proposal by, uh, N F S A. It’s concerning, uh, a nine head e s FFR design, uh, type deal. I don’t even wanna use esfr. It’s a K 28 and another K that was brought into the standard. Uh, bottom line is two manufacturers have a technology that allows sprinklers, uh, in storage IES to be designed with nine or 10 sprinkler heads. I, you have to look at the data to get exact, that language was, was done at fm, was at FM global test.

It passed. It is a FM approval right now. Contractors today can use that design in a system. An owner can use that design. Um, a designer can pick it and use it. And, and there’s some cost benefits. There’s some reasons to use that. The manufacturers, uh, brought that to the, uh, N F P A committee to have it included in the table. F uh, the data was presented, FM tests were presented. It was debated. And for some reasons that I still can’t fully get my hand around the N F P A committee accepted the language, but changed the, the, the number of sprinklers back to 12. The N F P A had a line in there years ago. It’s been in for years that the minimum design could ever be used. 12 heads, 12 sprinklers going off. And even though the FM data clearly supported a lower design, they did not accept the lower design.

So the bottom line for contractors is, right now there’s a, an acceptable design approach to using FM that you could submit to an HJ based on a nine head design. However, if this language stays in the standard, the standard’s gonna, n FPA 13 is gonna tell you you can use that design, but you gotta use a 12 sprinkler design. So you just lost all the advantage of using the nine that sprinkler in a nine sprinkler design. Um, there was no data presented why a nine head design wasn’t, wasn’t adequate. In my humble opinion. FM does a very good job on evaluating sprinklers and testing. There was no reason to test the, you know, to question the data. Uh, and what, from my perspective as a contractor, I’m not gonna get into the technical reasons. I’ll let the others argue that, but the reality is my contractors are gonna be severely limited when they go to an HJ to try to submit a nine head design.

And they, the HJ looks in the book and says, Nope. The book says 12 heads. Well, FM says nine. Well, we’re not gonna take fff. We’re gonna follow N fpa. You’re gonna get into a, you know, Nope, you can’t do this. No, you can, you know, this kind of scenario, it’s gonna be very confusing for the AHJs. They’re not gonna have the history on why, you know, N FPA 13 accepted to 12 and didn’t accept a nine. It’s just not worth the aggravation. So with that, for that main reason, we are voting to support the camp to take that language out of N F P A 13 and leave it back in just per the FM listing. So, uh, you know, that that’s another one that we, we are supporting.

Drew Slocum::

Supporting. Gotcha. And I obviously, I’ll put all this in the notes, so if anybody wants to see it, we’ll put it on a blog and obviously in the podcast notes. So, no, that’s good. I’m, I’m, I I think we need more of this. And I think, you know, have they, have you been able to vote virtually in years past like this?

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, the, the last, uh, technical meeting was, was a virtual vote. So as long as you register, you add that membership for six months prior to the vote, they do charge a $50 fee just because, you know, they’re not getting the revenue from their conference. So you gotta, you gotta charge to, to do the vote. Um, you, you pay a vote in this case. So, but you get one vote, you get to vote on all the cams, whether you’re, you know, uh, sprinkler contractor, alarm technician, whatever, you as a N F P A member, you have the right to vote on any of these cams. And, uh, you get to, you know, vote what the membership position is basically what the, what the consensus, the entire membership is not just the select few on the technical committee.

Drew Slocum::

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, 50 bucks isn’t that much. Is 50 bucks to vote on everything or is it 50 bucks per vote?

Kevin Hall::

Yeah, 50 bucks to vote on everything and just considered an investment. I mean, that 50 bucks will pay pay off. Oh yeah. Time over time by not, not having to increase pipe sizes at a fire and all

Drew Slocum::

That stuff. Yeah, no, no, it makes sense. It’s, uh, and I know N F P’S struggling without their event. So that’s, that’s one thing too.

John Denhardt::

Yeah. And, and, and they, they’re their ex their ex figure on this. It costs them money to process the votes and all that stuff. And in your, when you, when you usually go to the annual meeting, you, you’re paying a fee to go to the convention anyway. That fee, that 50 bucks or whatever it costs them is built into that convention cost. So they’re just trying to cover that cost, is what they’re saying. But I will tell you this, you know, A F S A, you know, f fsa, I’ll give them credit too, that we do a great job representing sprinkler companies and contractors in the N F P A process. That’s what you guys pay us for. We go in there and we represent you and nine times outta 10 99 times outta a hundred, we can represent you and get what we think is best for the contractor and good fire protection.

I mean, I will never talk bad about doing anything that’s gonna be bad fire protection saying that there are those times when we just can’t get the committee to go our away. Um, during the debate on the, for example, the water supply, it was the vote actually at the meeting where accounts, it was a virtual meeting was like 17 to 13 on this. And a simple majority can move this forward. Um, the official ballot that’s, that’ll show it more. Now, that doesn’t surprise me cuz everybody usually just affirmative with no comments. It makes it easier voting electronically. But we do it at the committee level. But the, the debate that that’s centered on this was maybe 17 13, 16, 14. So it wasn’t an overwhelming majority of the technical committee was moving forward with this. Um, we really, right.

Drew Slocum::

You know,

John Denhardt::

Where, where I need you imagine Uncle Sam pointing that finger, you know, I need you type deal. The sprinkler industry needs you, the contractors need you. We can’t do any more than educate the members at this point and have the members step up and tell the N F P A technical committee that we don’t like this language. We don’t wanna move forward with it. So it gets down to that $50 investment to, to make your voice known. Uh, and and I get this from contractors, but we’re still on the 13 or the 16 edition. That’s not till the 22. Yeah. Well guess what, you know, I’ve been in this business, been starting in the 87 edition and look where I’m at, the additions catch up to you when this goes into 22. Don’t be surprised at some hjs, well that’s coming in 22. We wanna start that now. We wanna start, you know, adjusting the water supply, this kind of stuff. So be careful. Um, you know, if you sit back just like in any other government business, you know, don’t be, you’ll be surprised and, and, you know, use our, our current federal in the United States, use the federal or state politics. If you just think about that example, it’s similar to here. We’re no different. We’re trying to get our word out to our members that this is not good language and we need to get this overturned.

Drew Slocum::

Nah, that’s great. That’s great. It’s a, I think it, it it’s a nice platform to, to get some of this message out there. And again, we, you know, with the virtual vote, I think, uh, a lot more people can get involved with this as well. So that, that, that’s a great piece of it. So, um, kind of flipping over, you know, um, you know, we’re near and dear to N F P A 25. Any any big highlights coming in some, some of the stuff in 2023? I know we’ve talked about moving the, the, the deficiency status annex potentially up or out. Is there anything else in N F P A 25 for the 2023 that you guys know about that’s that’s, that’s high on the list?

John Denhardt::

Yeah, I’ll start off. You know, the 20 20 23 edition of N F P A 25, let me tell you where it’s at the first draft cycle, all the, the public input has been made. First draft has been voted on and moved forward. We’re now moving into the second draft phase. Uh, public comments were due, they’ve all been received. And the second draft meetings, if I remember correctly, are scheduled for some time in September. So at this point, yep, A F S A staff is starting that process where we’re gonna go through all the public comments to see what we can shake loose, um, and make some opinions on these. Uh, I, you know, there was some minor tweaks going on. The first draft. A lot of things were shot down that, uh, were just outrageous to be honest with you. Uh, we had one proposal, just a little funny thing.

We had a proposal from a, a fire department, uh, individual to change, uh, weekly diesel fire pup runs to monthly or maybe even quarterly. It was something moving way back and, and not make ’em as frequent anymore. And it has substantiation. Well, we don’t like polluting the air too much, so we don’t wanna run the diesel fire pump more than we need to. Well, okay, we run it once a week just like you run your car, otherwise it doesn’t run. But, so that’s the kind of proposals we’ve gone through. Um, you know, that was at first draft, the second draft, we are working through that process now. Later in August, we’ll have a better idea of anything that that really needs to be talked about and beat up. And we’ve got a group about six, uh, individuals that will all be looking at these things from AFA a’s perspective, forming our opinions and then getting into the second draft meeting and, and jockeying for position, um, the annex material with the deficiency list and the classification. There was a proposal on the first draft to remove that and just take it out of the book cuz it was confusing in some people’s minds. It wasn’t complete, uh, that was defeated. So at this point, it’s still in there, but I’m sure that opened it up that there might be some other proposals coming to tweak it. Maybe another potion to remove it. I don’t know. I haven’t reviewed all those review motions yet, drew.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah. Yeah. I, I haven’t either. I’ll, I’ll probably leave it up to you guys and then follow <laugh>

Drew Slocum::

<laugh>,

Drew Slocum::

Um,

John Denhardt::

Luck, luckily I got, I got some good guys named

Drew Slocum::

Kevin and that’s good.

John Denhardt::

Go through all that.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, well you picked up a new one too. Uh, is Josh right?

John Denhardt::

Josh McDonald? Uh, formerly of j c i is also on our plate and Josh and John are my n fpa a 25 experts and Kevin, uh, assist system and make sure everything happens in the right place.

Drew Slocum::

That’s good. Um, all well, uh, if, if there’s anything else you guys got, I do a little, uh, quick response round. Um, at the end of this. I don’t, I don’t know if you guys are ready for it, but I ask you, I’ll ask you a couple questions just to to to kind of mix it up and we’ll get outta here. I’ll, I’ll obviously toss a lot of this stuff in there so you have it. Um, John, I I, you know, I, I hear you have a little friend that you bring along to a lot of meetings. Uh, can you, can you tell us a little bit more about that?

John Denhardt::

Sure. My, uh, wife is, has adopted a little baby dog that seems to have to go with me every place cuz she works store today. So if I’m working from home or on a day trip, he gets to come with me. And quite honestly, he’s the boss of the family. He takes care of everybody. So he’s about a 10 pound little dog and, uh, you know, thinks he thinks he runs the place he was out with. I went out yesterday to tell tech to check the, uh, college and he was out there having fun.

Drew Slocum::

Ah, that’s great. That’s great. Yeah, I, uh, I got some, some little intel on you. So I, I always do a little research on all my guests before, uh, before having them on. All right. Kevin, I’ll, I’ll hit you with this one. And, and John, you can pipe in. So, you know, in, in the fire protection schools in, in, uh, in, in the US at least, um, there’s Maryland, there’s WPI and there’s Oklahoma State. I know there’s others, but, uh, can you rank ’em one, two, and three for me?

Drew Slocum::

<laugh>?

Kevin Hall::

Well, I, I think the premise of the question is off. There’s Maryland and then there’s the other schools, so one and then everything else. <laugh>.

Drew Slocum::

All right. I like that. Yeah, you didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t, uh, you, you put ’em on both the same pedestal, right? One below <laugh>.

Kevin Hall::

There we go. Yep.

Drew Slocum::

That’s funny. Yeah, I, I obviously know a lot of people from both those. I went to a com competitor to WPI in, at RPI in upstate New York, and actually two of the other co-founders are from there as well. So, uh, um, a bunch of people from RPI at the company. So, um, Frederick Grinnell went there if anybody didn’t know that. <laugh>. Yeah. Um, last question for both of you. Um, sprinkler head testing and NFPA 25, and, and Kevin, you, you might know this a little bit, but sprinkler head testing recently changing the 2020 edition to, for, for dry heads to, to move up in testing, um, to 15 years and then 10 years after that, you know, moving frequencies. I, I mean, how, what, what is your thought on that? I mean, my thought is you need data behind that in order to move frequencies and there’s not a good date. I know NFPA is trying to come out with the research foundation with everything, but how, how do you move a, a frequency within a standard, at least the, the TM standards without the proper data that’s,

Kevin Hall::

You mentioned date. I mean, I mean, UL had a substantial amount of data. They, they test the majority of the sprinklers they get sent to them. So they, they had a bunch of raw data that was submitted to the committee for review and, you know, that that was one of the bases for, for changing those frequencies. Another one is, is, you know, we have the standard response sprinklers, uh, and the O-ring sprinklers. So previously when we had internal O-rings and sprinklers, we tested them at a quicker frequency just cuz we knew they were, they were prone to failure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, since they’ve been, you know, outlawed and recalled, we’re not seeing as many of those, they’re reaching their kind of life cycle. So as, as the new sprinklers come in without the O-rings, we’re able to expand that, that frequency to match the other sprinkler types. So kind of as we go, uh, addition to addition some of the older technologies phasing out. So that means we can have longer intervals in between these inspection and testing frequencies.

Drew Slocum::

Nice. Okay. You, you’ll have to bring data that’s, that’s good.

John Denhardt::

Yeah. Yeah. If I can add, drew, they brought a ton of data back when they, you know, back in the day before we had dry pendants as separate testing, technically it was every 50 years or something ridiculous. I mean, anybody thinks 50 years is, is way too long. Even for standard sprinklers, we were seeing failure rates of dry pe, dry type sprinklers all over the place. Um, and UL went back and not only saw the failures, they reevaluated how they were listing sprinklers, dry sprinklers. So that led to getting rid of the O-rings and some other things. Uh, I saw Kerry Bell’s report, uh, have it in the file somewhere. Uh, and that’s where they went to the 10 year testing. And what happened is the 10 year testing really identified and got a lot of those sprinklers out of the market between the recall the, uh, issues that they had, the testing.

We, we could look at a sprinkler and say, yep, that’s gonna fail. There’s no way. Just don’t even test it. It’s not worth it. And that’s what UL saw. And then what they started seeing is those numbers drop it off cuz people were just replacing those sprinklers. We’ve had those revised new standard UL sprint improved sprinklers in a, in the, in the industry long enough. Now we’re seeing they, they’re testing really, really well. So UL came back and proposed to go to 15 years for dry with 10 years following. And that’s in the code. I wanna say that was the, maybe it was the 20, it might even been the 17 edition, but I know it changed coming forward for the 23. Yep. Coming forward for the 23, we might be changing even the fast response element sprinklers, which is a separate discussion. We can have one day fast response are going to probably 20, uh, there they’re 20 years now, we’re probably taking them to 25.

And one of the proposals in the 25 edition for this, the 23 edition to 25 is to take all standard spray sprinklers, maybe back to 25 years because, and just make it more common. 25 for everything dry. 15. Yeah. Um, 50 years is a long time, you know, look at your own body, your own car or anything else for a piece of mechanical equipment. So there’s some discussions going on. I don’t know where it’s gonna wind out. Um, and we’ve got some thought processes that are starting to go in there, but, uh, yeah, definitely in your mind, none of this is changing without real data. UL has brought a ton of data with dry sprinklers to this, to this testing, so, uh, they’ve been very proactive on that kinda stuff.

Drew Slocum::

That’s good. That’s good. That’s good. Well, let’s wrap it up. Uh, I guess where do we find you guys? Where do we, you know, I, uh, if you want to give your, whatever, obviously you guys have your LinkedIn profiles, but let’s do that. Let’s wrap it up and, you know, I’ll get this, uh, posted here soon.

John Denhardt::

Yeah, absolutely. So our homepage is fire sprinkler.org. On there, we have all the links and all to the voting guides and anything else on these, these NFPA stuff that we got going on. You can get to the tech department for designers out there, no matter where you’re at in the world. We offer a very affordable designer, uh, membership and you get your full access to everything. Uh, don’t quote me on it, but the US dollars, I think it’s $250 a year and you get full access to us. And then technical, is it technical@firesprinkler.org? Kevin, I believe is the email address. Yep. Reaches our by whole technical department. So, uh, it’s mainly for members, but at the same time, if you’ve never used us before, you wanna reach, ask us a question. Like I said, we sit on the, like I said, Kevin just said it was 40 N FPA committees.

Uh, we got, uh, you know, colleagues, staff on all these committees. We can get answers for you and tell you what our opinion is on these. They’re not, they’re not gonna be legal opinions and they’re not gonna be engineering opinions, but we can tell you what the standard says in our mind and do some research for you. So feel, uh, feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to see anybody and everybody, uh, ask questions. And then of course, in live in San Antonio in September is our annual conference. We are moving forward, um, boost sales and sponsorships are through the roof. And, uh, we just opened up the registration about a couple weeks ago and it’s already filling up quick so people are ready to travel, uh, especially in the US and we’re gonna be in Texas and having a good time in September.

Uh, more importantly, even in September, we’re gonna have 40 some technical presentations by the who’s, who’s of the industry type deals. So we’re gonna have a lot of good presentation. A lot of, yep. Drew yourself, you’re gonna be speaking. Kevin speaking, I’m speaking James Alvo with Tyco Mark Fest. I mean, uh, James go with Viking. Mark Fein with Tyco, uh, among others. Wes Baker with FM is scheduled. Carrie Bell will be down there. Uh, mark Workman’s coming. Somebody from N F P A on their staff’s coming. So we’re gonna have a good, good, uh, show out. Uh, looking forward to everybody there and meeting everybody again in person. Nah,

Drew Slocum::

That’s great. That’s, I’m really excited to get down there. So Kevin, where can we find you? Absolutely,

Kevin Hall::

Same thing John said, technical@firesprinkler.org. Get a get ahold of us. You can find us on, on LinkedIn. We got our links there. We’re pretty active there answering people who’ve gone astray on the interweb. So, uh, help, help people out there.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, no, that’s

Kevin Hall::

Great. Yeah, I mean, e email’s the best way to, to get ahold of the whole team. We like to, you know, work together, use teamwork’s the best way to get everything done. Put our heads together and find the right answer.

Drew Slocum::

Totally. Totally. Well, thanks guys for coming on and, uh, we’ll, we’ll, yep. Yeah, go.

John Denhardt::

I was just go for it, John. I was just gonna say most of the answers, if you said something to technical@firesprinkler.org, we’re not guaranteeing it, but realistically, 24 hours, 365 days a year, you’ll get a response from one of us and be able, wow. To tell you, point you in the right direction. So, you know, we, we tell our contractor members we’re extension their design team. We understand how contractors work, you know, we are contractors, you know, you need an answer, you need to keep moving forward, you run into an issue. That’s what we’re here for. So, drew, I really appreciate the opportunity today. Love to come back, pick a topic and let’s talk about it, uh, that type stuff. And hopefully your viewers, uh, enjoy this and let us know. We look forward to hearing from them.

Drew Slocum::

Yeah, yeah. We’ll, we’ll be, I’m, I’m gonna plan on doing one live in, in San Antonio, so, we’ll, we’ll get everybody on and, you know, get some good discussions going.

John Denhardt::

Absolutely.

Drew Slocum::

Cool.

Kevin Hall::

Sounds good.

Drew Slocum::

Thanks guys.

John Denhardt::

Good guys, have a great,

Drew Slocum::

This has been episode 33 of the Fire Protection Podcast, powered by Inspect Point. Want to thank both Kevin and John from a F S A today to, to join me talking about this, uh, this critical N F P A vote that’s coming up. I think being virtual, we’re gonna get a lot more participation, I hope, um, I, other than having to be at that live event. But, uh, yeah, again, uh, stop out, uh, at, at NAED next week to, to see the podcast, to see in Spec point, as well as, uh, tuning in on, on YouTube and, and livestream, uh, live from naed, uh, Atlantic City. So thanks again and, uh, appreciate everybody’s support. Take care