Aboutno longer answering questions Expertise unless you are in miami or ft lauderdale i can no longer give advise. i charge 40$ for the trip and flat rate prices on repairs. estimates are free, diagnosing is considered a trip charge.
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Question As our home was being built, a bylaw was passed requiring buildings over a certain height to have sprinklers installed. This was intended for apartment buildings, but affected taller homes as well. Our home is a five floor (including basement and attic loft) townhouse.
On the surface, this might seem like a good thing, but the reality was very different. The contractor did a terrible job of installing - maybe due to inexperience with sprinkler systems or desire to avoid additional costs. They were put in at the last minute, apparently not secured to joists/studs. Some of our neighbours have had problems with major water damage due to leaking/bursting sprinkler pipes. The sprinklers are snaked through our entire house, with heads popping out in the strangest places. It's like having a disaster waiting to happen - especially given that we have all hardwood floors. Also, the sprinklers only work if a fire is large enough to melt the plastic in the sprinkler head. By that time, our super-sensitive smoke detector system would have already alerted us. Our house also has a full height concrete block fire wall dividing each home plus other fire prevention building techniques, so I'm not concerned with loss of fire protection. In fact, our insurance company does not give a discount for the presence of the fire sprinklers. (I wonder if they would actually increase our premiums if they considered the real risks.)
Fortunately, this by-law has since been revoked/modified. What would be involved in removing these sprinklers (by a professional)?
Answer i wouldn't remove them, i actually installed some in one of my houses a while back. the heat from a fire can ruin a lot before the smoke detectors are activated. the sprinkler system isolates and minimizes the damage, not to mention could save your life, or you pets life a lot better than a fume filled house. if u really want to remove it, check with the local fire marshal make sure its legal, turn the main of and cap or plug it. place a 5 gallon bucket or trash can under it to catch the drainage. go to the most distant sprinkler, unscrew it, cut the line whatever, make sure theres a bucket under it. then move back down 1 by 1 until their all gone. this will minimize water leakage. also have plenty of kind of big towels available at every sprinkler site fro any drippage until the system is all the way drained and cut out. if u want, you remove the sprinkler heads if they are the screw in type and just replace the sprinkler with a 1/2" galvanized steel plug. it's up to you.
