We’re in a bushfire zone, even had one get close, late last year. We looked into suppression systems, and there’s two types - one has a series of garden sprinklers positioned on your roof gutters or overhangs. They get turned on to create a large, extended fan-type spray of water. The idea is not to extinguish a fire, but to absorb the heat so it doesn’t get hot enough locally to ignite your house.
The other type - which we chose - puts agricultural sprinkler heads on your roof peaks. Fed by a substantial pump from storage tanks ( 2 x 22,500 litre/5000 gallons), they throw in intersecting circles out to a distance of about 15 metres/50 feet. The idea is to saturate your roof and walls, and surrounding foliage sufficiently that it won’t ignite.
It all comes down to flow rate and initial temperature.
It’s impractical, but even a typical garden hose at satp puts out enough mass to consume 16MJ/m of heat assuming it all vaporizes.
For perspective, that’s like getting hit by a Toyota Camry at highway speed every 7.5 seconds.
Massive practicality issues but from a thermodynamics perspective it passes an initial check at least
We’re in a bushfire zone, even had one get close, late last year. We looked into suppression systems, and there’s two types - one has a series of garden sprinklers positioned on your roof gutters or overhangs. They get turned on to create a large, extended fan-type spray of water. The idea is not to extinguish a fire, but to absorb the heat so it doesn’t get hot enough locally to ignite your house.
The other type - which we chose - puts agricultural sprinkler heads on your roof peaks. Fed by a substantial pump from storage tanks ( 2 x 22,500 litre/5000 gallons), they throw in intersecting circles out to a distance of about 15 metres/50 feet. The idea is to saturate your roof and walls, and surrounding foliage sufficiently that it won’t ignite.
Cool info. TIL. What about your life causes you to know that off-hand?
The real/fake answer is engineering school the real/real answer is playing “Oxygen Not Included” aka “Thermodynamics Simulator”.
Man yall smart mfs really do be just out here living among us.