>...I suppose a tank car buried below the frost line would do...

Yes, but you would still need a pump, and a UL/FM fire pump with all the bells & whistles is easily another $20 grand.

A watchman might be OK, but not foolproof. Smoke and heat detectors linked to an automatic dialer and programmed to call the fire department would be a relatively inexpensive compromise. What is the response time for your local FD? Once they arrive, how is the availability of water on-site? Where is the nearest hydrant? Will they have to draft water from a pond or stream? How far away is that?

A good thing for any building owner to ask their insurance agent is "how much will my premiums be reduced if we install automatic sprinklers?". Then you can see a payback to offset the cost of the fire protection and decide accordingly.

If the figures still don't work, perhaps the problem is how historic rail equipment is valued. A restored wooden car may have little cash, but untold hours of volunteer labor invested in it. Can you actually assign an hourly cost to that labor, add the cost of materials and come up with a realistic "replacement value" for that item? If operating equipment is destroyed, can the average museum afford to insure against the loss of revenue?

I really don't know. Perhaps others on the list can comment.

Tom

PS - How about a nice wooden water tank above ground??



tmanz@afo.net

> For a 24,000 square foot pole barn, a
> dry-pipe automatic sprinkler system would be
> your best bet. This will still require a
> minimum of 300 gallons per minute of water
> at a minimum pressure of 25 psig. 300 gpm is
> a a lot of water for a 4-inch main - a
> 6-inch water supply to the building would be
> best. Assuming you have the water available,
> a dry-pipe system would run maybe $4.00 per
> square foot, or $96,000. This can vary
> depending on local labor conditions and
> other factors. You would need one insulated,
> heated room roughly 8-feet square for the
> dry pipe valve. A small electric heater
> could handle that. This assumes that the
> barn is for storage and repair of rail
> vehicles. Storage of paint, solvents, fuel,
> lubricants, stacked lumber or other
> palletized or rack-type storage should be
> segregated.

> This is a snapshot of what you might
> encounter in a typical large unheated
> building. I hope it's helpful.

There may be additional costs to retrofit an existing pole barn for a dry pipe system. Specifically, the existng wood trusses would have to be inspected to determine if they could bear the loaded weight of the fire suppression systems.
Does anyone know of a post-construction sprinkler addition?

fred_ash@bankone.com