On Jan. 9, 2010 at about 4:30 p.m, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake centered about 25 miles off-shore from Eureka, Calif., sent shoppers at the Bayshore Mall scrambling.
November 1, 2010 - Fire Safety/Protection
On Jan. 9, 2010 at about 4:30 p.m, a 6.5-magnitude earthquake centered about 25 miles off-shore from Eureka, Calif., sent shoppers at the Bayshore Mall scrambling. The shaking breached the hard-pipe automatic sprinkler system protecting the mall, closing 76 stores for clean-up and repairs until Jan. 13, with damage estimated at $6 million.
One store, however, opened for business the morning after the quake. Kohl''s sprinkler system, with about 500 sprinkler heads, remained intact and functional throughout the Saturday afternoon quake and its aftershocks. Even the concealed, flat-plate sprinkler covers remained in place.
The FlexHead-equipped system had been installed in May 2009 when Kohl''s took over an existing, 40,000-square-foot anchor-store attached to the main mall, gutting it in order to establish its own layout with new walls, ceilings and fixtures.
Quick Install
At the time, the flexible sprinkler connection system was selected purely for cost savings that came from faster installation. The legacy sprinkler system, which remained in place, was a typical 10-by-12 spacing with hard-pipe drops hanging down. But the ceiling height changed from the previous configuration, so the drops were removed and FlexHeads with the sprinkler heads already attached were installed. These were wire-tied up to the side of the drops until the ceiling went in.
In addition to reducing the need for cutting and threading to a bare minimum, and completely eliminating the back-and-forth adjustments typical to hard-pipe installation, using FlexHead also required only one drain-down and one 200-pound test.
