Originally posted by Shorty82:
"I'm surprised the building's fire alarm didn't go off. Luckily it sounds like each room is its own sprinkler zone and the ones in your room didn't go off. In the dorm I used to live in each floor was it's own zone and if a sprinkler gets triggered a valve opens and pops every single sprinkler on that floor. There's three sprinklers in each room and many in the hallways of this building so that would cause some major flooding and damages. Never happened in my building but I heard of it happening in another dorm on campus."
Actually, sprinkler systems are set off by heat, not by one sprinkler head going off. So sprinklers will be activated only at the source of the heat. As heat builds and spreads across the ceiling additional heads will be activated. If a sprinkler system was designed to have all heads go off at the same time, there would be a serious drop in water pressure and no water would get to the sprinklers at all. A fire pump might help to boost pressure but the building would have to be pretty small.
Once a sprinkler head goes off an alarm sounds on an annunciator panel (usually in the security office) and if it is a central station alarm, then the alarm also will go to the fire department. Perhaps the night manager at the hotel was not familiar with the alarm? I imagine the banging on metal that the OP heard could have been the fire department trying to get the sprinkler valve shut.
I am sorry that the OP lost their photos and had other damages. Know that sprinkler heads can(although rarely do) fail on their own (that's why insurance on commercial buildings typically covers "sprinkler leakage") and the guests next door might not have done anything to cause the problem.
"I'm surprised the building's fire alarm didn't go off. Luckily it sounds like each room is its own sprinkler zone and the ones in your room didn't go off. In the dorm I used to live in each floor was it's own zone and if a sprinkler gets triggered a valve opens and pops every single sprinkler on that floor. There's three sprinklers in each room and many in the hallways of this building so that would cause some major flooding and damages. Never happened in my building but I heard of it happening in another dorm on campus."
Actually, sprinkler systems are set off by heat, not by one sprinkler head going off. So sprinklers will be activated only at the source of the heat. As heat builds and spreads across the ceiling additional heads will be activated. If a sprinkler system was designed to have all heads go off at the same time, there would be a serious drop in water pressure and no water would get to the sprinklers at all. A fire pump might help to boost pressure but the building would have to be pretty small.
Once a sprinkler head goes off an alarm sounds on an annunciator panel (usually in the security office) and if it is a central station alarm, then the alarm also will go to the fire department. Perhaps the night manager at the hotel was not familiar with the alarm? I imagine the banging on metal that the OP heard could have been the fire department trying to get the sprinkler valve shut.
I am sorry that the OP lost their photos and had other damages. Know that sprinkler heads can(although rarely do) fail on their own (that's why insurance on commercial buildings typically covers "sprinkler leakage") and the guests next door might not have done anything to cause the problem.
