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Stanford University
Environmental Health and Safety
480 Oak Road
Stanford, CA 94305-8007
650-723-0448
Contributed by
Fire Protection Engineer, Aaron McCarthy
In July 2001 Central Sprinkler Company
(Central), an affiliate of Tyco Fire Products LP, of Lansdale, PA,
and the U.S. Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced a voluntary recall
of some 35 million automatic fire sprinklers designed using a rubber
"O-Ring" water seal. Central is currently replacing these
sprinklers free of charge when replacement is in accordance with
the recall program.
These sprinklers use a rubber O-ring for the water seal, which over
time degrades and allows the sprinkler to "weep" microscopically
past the water seal. This causes corrosion due to the oxidation
reaction and can encrust around the water seal resulting in plugging
of the waterway or the need for higher than anticipated water pressures
to break the seal.
All fire sprinklers sold in the U.S. are required to be approved
by a nationally recognized laboratory such as Underwriters Laboratories
(UL) or FM Approvals (FM). Also, the California State Fire Marshal's
Office (CSFM) must list all fire protection equipment sold in California.
Both testing labs, UL and FM, started investigating
problems with the GB O-ring sprinklers in Feb 2000 . UL concluded
their investigation
in April 2001. Investigation showed that of the 1800 sprinklers
that were tested by UL, 7 percent did not operate at 40-psi pressure
(on the water seal). Reportedly, the percentage that failed to open
above 60-psi water pressure was less. All UL/FM fire sprinklers
must open at no more than 5-psi pressure on the water seal. To date
all of these agencies maintain their listing of the affected sprinklers.
Is Stanford Affected?
Stanford along with many other owners installed the affected sprinklers
in many of their buildings constructed between 1989 and 2000.
Stanford Fire Marshal's Office as part of their quarterly preventative
maintenance operations identified the buildings using the affected
sprinklers. Although, Stanford already has replaced sprinklers in
most all buildings affected by this recall, some sprinklers still
remain. These are relatively few in number and mainly in areas that
cannot be readily accessed without shutting down building operations
or using destructive means such as removing HVAC and/or electrical
equipment, cutting into ceiling gypsum board (which may then require
asbestos abatement) to gain access to the sprinklers for replacement.
It is planned these areas will be addressed as a special projects
or possibly as part of larger renovations of the affected buildings.
Stanford will continue to be pro-active and replace these sprinklers
to further reduce any remaining potential risk of faulty operation.
It should be noted there always remains a risk of failure due to
inherent nature of mechanical equipment. But the long-term reliability
of automatic sprinklers remains very, very high: overall historical
performance of fire sprinklers has been accepted by various agencies
as being 95-99% effective providing no other contributing factors
(i.e., loss of water supply, explosion, change in construction or
building use, etc).
Contributed by
EH&S Specialist and CPSI, Dave White
Unless you have children, you may not
realize that Stanford maintains a number of children's playgrounds
on campus. Escondido Village itself has a dozen play areas that
are maintained by Residential and Dining Enterprises (R&DE)
and the Grounds Department. Childcare centers such as Bing Nursery
and Childcare Center of the Stanford Community (CCSC) include several
large playgrounds. Take a look at some of these playgrounds and
you'll soon see some improvements to make play areas safer for kids!
Why is EH&S involved? California is the first state to legislate
playground equipment safety rules. The new regulations cover a wide
range of safety concerns that are commonly encountered around public
playground equipment. Examples of safety problems are equipment
components that form head entrapments, entanglements, or hazardous
protrusions, and equipment that is installed above inadequate protective
surfacing.
The Stanford University WorkLife Office, R&DE, and Faculty Staff
Housing are the departments most affected by the new regulations
since they are responsible for most of the playgrounds on campus.
EH&S has been advising playground operators on regulatory compliance,
and Facilities Operations is actively planning for equipment repairs
and upgrades. If you would like more information about playground
safety at Stanford, please contact EH&S at extension 5-9096.
The US
Consumer Product Safety Commission website has publications
on the issue.
Contributed by
Health Physicist, Jan Kirkley
Larry Gibbs, Associate Vice Provost of
Environmental Health & Safety, has announced the appointment
of Lance Phillips as Radiation Safety Officer (RSO) for Stanford
University. For the past five months Lance has served as Acting
RSO. In his role as Radiation Safety Officer in the Department of
Environmental Health and Safety, he will be responsible for managing
the health physics programs and radioactive materials use licenses
for the University, Stanford Hospital, Packard Children's Hospital
and the Veteran's Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. As RSO,
he is charged with assuring the safety of individuals working with
or receiving diagnostic or therapeutic doses from radionuclides
and radiation producing equipment.
Mr. Phillips has been with Stanford University since August 1998
serving as a Senior Health Physicist in the Environmental Health
and Safety department. Prior to his work at Stanford, he served
as Radiation Safety Officer for the Northern California Institute
for Research and Education (NCIRE), a large medical research group
based on the campus of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical
Center. Lance has also served as Assistant RSO for the VA Medical
Center in San Francisco and as a project engineer and RSO for National
Nuclear Corporation in Sunnyvale, California.
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