It is not easy to find an indoor residential fire sprinkler repair technician for a house call on the Peninsula! So frustrating. I had a leaky sprinkler head (a slow drip) in the hallway not long ago and I hoped to find someone within a day or two so I could avoid turning off the main water to the house.
For the record, I did not use this service, Control Fire. They were very busy but the owner did call me back and he left a very nice message. He said that it would be several days before they could come for a repair job. I'm posting this information in hopes it will help others in my area. I spent a ton of time making calls.
I ended up calling the company who installed the sprinkler system in my house:
Advanced Automatic Sprinkler, San Ramon, CA - My house is 20 years old so it is not under warranty any more. They quoted me $85 per hour with a 4 hour minimum.
They have a repair technician based right here on the Peninsula!
He came over just a few hours after I called thank goodness.
Prior to calling them I called ALL the local fire sprinkler repair numbers that I found on Yelp thinking I could find someone closer to Redwood City:
Western States Fire Protection - They did not return my call.
JR Wagner - They also did not call back. It looks like they only work in the east bay so they didn't return my call from Redwood City.
Control Fire - Returned my call and the owner left a very nice message. Unfortunately they had no time to do a repair job for several days. I think they focus more on design and new installations rather than repairs.
My Local Plumber - They are not licensed to do this work and are not allowed to work on indoor residential fire sprinklers. You need to have a special license. The plumber recommended calling the local fire department because they should have referrals.
Fire Protection Services of Burlingame - They also don't do this type of work but the nice gentleman told me to look in the old fashioned yellow pages. I did and I came up with a couple of other leads.
AAA Fire Protection Services - Peninsula based - He specializes in this work but he is expensive. He quoted me $750.00 plus materials for emergency service. I asked him what if he came sometime the next business day but he said it's still $750. (I only have one leaky sprinkler head, a slow drip and I put a bucket under it so I explained it's not super urgent and it could wait a day, but he said the price is the same. I decided to keep checking around.)
Lund Pearson McLaughlin - They do not do this type of residential work because they don't deal with plastic pipes which most home fire sprinkler systems are made of.
There are also a couple others in the yellow pages that I did not get to.
Other things I learned:
- If the leak is really bad, you should turn off the main water of your house to prevent damage to your floors. The main water shut off is usually around the front of your house.
It is not possible to shut off only the water to the sprinkler system. That is illegal for some unfortunate reason. You will need to shut off the entire house water until a technician comes out.
- If you want the pressure out of the sprinkler system so the leak stops immediately after you turn off the main water, turn the handle at the sprinkler pressure gauge, usually in your garage, to open and drain. (However, once you turn off the main water there is less pressure anyway, so you may not need to do this.) If you want to, the handle should be turned to match parallel with the pipe. When the technician showed me, all the old water from the sprinklers drained our of a separate pipe near our main water shut off. I never knew what that pipe was for. Some of the water was rusty so the water was sitting in the sprinkler pipes for years.
- The alarm to the fire sprinkler system will not sound if you turn off the water or release the pressure from the sprinkler system. I was worried about the alarm going off and waking my neighbors at night. No, don't worry about that. The alarm only makes sound if water is flowing into the house through the fire sprinklers and if it does not stop. That means there might be a fire in one of the rooms in the house, or a major leak.
- Not all of the sprinklers in the house will turn on if there is a fire. Only individual sprinklers turn on where it senses fire.
The fire sprinkler heads in my house were manufactured by a company called Central. Those sprinkler heads were recalled and the company is no longer in business. They were the white model with 3 small disks that stuck out in the center. I was told that the brass threads in them go bad.
He installed a new sprinkler with a flat cover made by Tyco. It looks nicer and does not stick out as much.
Hope that helps! read more
