
DATE: Friday, August 15, 1997               TAG: 9708150704

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY BILL BASKERVILL, ASSOCIATED PRESS 

DATELINE: RICHMOND                          LENGTH:  102 lines

SUSPECT FIRE SPRINKLER HEADS IN MANY VIRGINIA BUILDINGS HOSPITALS AND PRISONS ARE AMONG THE SITES BEING TESTED STATEWIDE.

A fire sprinkler head that has repeatedly failed to work properly in laboratory tests and fires is used by the thousands in state hospitals and prisons.

There are 12,000 of the suspect Omega heads with rubber O-rings in the University of Virginia hospital where 450 to 500 patients are housed on any given day.

``They are everywhere,'' said Dick Lawrence, director of the U.Va. hospital's physical plant. ``We don't want these things in here anymore.''

The Omega has a 31 percent failure rate in ongoing Underwriters Laboratories tests and a 35 percent failure rate in tests conducted this year for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. UL has an activation standard of 5 pounds of water pressure per square inch, and the Fairfax testing used the 7-psi minimum activation pressure set by the National Fire Protection Association.

The manufacturer of the Omega, Central Sprinkler Corp. of Lansdale, Pa., replaced the rubber O-rings with stronger silicone rings in Omega heads manufactured after June 1996.

The sprinklers also are in 10 buildings at Eastern State Hospital, four at Western State Hospital, one at Southwestern Mental Health Institute and one at Central State Hospital, said Martha Mead, spokeswoman for the state mental health department. The sprinklers are being replaced in a new building at Catawba Hospital before the building is occupied, she said.

Central Sprinkler soon will start removing and testing 180 heads selected at random from the 10-story U.Va. hospital, the adjacent outpatient clinic and passageways, Lawrence said Wednesday.

Mead said the mental health department is working with the state fire marshal to test the heads. The number of heads installed in the buildings was not available.

About 500 Omega heads are in the North Hospital of the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals in Richmond, said Dean Broga, director of environmental health and safety for the huge hospital complex.

Broga said a dozen of the Omegas were removed Thursday for laboratory testing.

The Virginia building code says if one sprinkler head fails to activate during testing, all heads in the building from which the sample head was taken must be replaced.

Fairfax County Fire Chief Glenn A. Gaines on June 30 ordered all building owners in the state's most populous locality to test or replace what he estimates to be hundreds of thousands of the rubber O-ring heads. Gaines called the heads ``unsafe and hazardous.'' Central is replacing 15,000 Omegas installed in county-owned buildings, said Capt. Frank Teevan of the department's fire prevention division.

Marriott International replaced 200,000 Omegas in 220 hotels after one head failed in a Marriott Courtyard guest room fire at Romulus, Mich., in May 1995. No one was injured.

The same month, an Omega sprinkler failed when a patient's bed caught fire at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Canandaigua, N.Y. Again, no one was injured. The Department of Veterans Affairs has replaced 11,000 of the 60,000 Omega heads in its 50 medical centers and outpatient clinics, and testing continues.

About 8 million of the Omega heads with rubber rings were installed around the country between 1983 and 1996.

The head holds water in with a plunger; a rubber O-ring keeps the plunger from leaking where it meets the water supply. In the event of fire, heat melts a plug of solder below the plunger, and water pressure forces the plunger down and away from the O-ring, allowing spray to douse the flames.

Evidence indicates failure occurs when the rubber ring swells and grips the plunger too tightly, requiring higher water pressure to force it open.

Millions of the rubber-ring Omegas remain in place, and Central president George G. Meyer says the company has no plans to recall them.

Meyer said blame for any sprinkler failures lay with improper materials used by installers and maintenance workers. He suggested two culprits: oil used to cool steel pipes as threads are cut and compounds similar to those that stop leaks in car radiators but which are banned from use in sprinkler pipes. The cutting oil makes the rubber O-ring swell; the stop-leak clogs the sprinkler heads.

The company has been notifying building owners, offering to test their sprinklers and fix them, if necessary, at Central's expense. It has already spent $4 million on the problem. Central also notes that Omega heads have operated successfully in hundreds of fires. ILLUSTRATION: SITES WITH SPRINKLERS

The State Fire Marshal has identified these state facilities that

use Omega sprinkler heads with rubber O-rings; the number of heads

was not available for most buildings:

University of Virginia hospital and outpatient clinic.

North Hospital of the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals.

Eastern State Hospital.

Catawba Hospital.

Western State Hospital.

Southwestern Mental Health Institute.

Coffeewood Correctional Center.

Haynesville Correctional Center.

Dillwyn Correctional Center.