Members present:
Bill McKay-Advanced,
Steve Muncy-AFSA,
Kevin Kane-Viking SupplyNet,
Robert Lacy-WSRB,
John Abel-Crown Fire,
Christy Abel-Crown Fire,
Jamie Vos-Security Solutions, Steve Hobart-SimplexGrinnell,
Mike Fitz-MDE,
Ashton Wolfe-Wolfe Fire,
Todd Wolfe-Wolfe Fire,
Herb Schairbaum-Bates TC Fire Protection Student, Chris Johnson-Bates TC Fire Protection Student & Ron Greenman-Bates Technical College

And so it’s time for another newsletter. This one is for the Summer Meeting back in August and getting out just before the Fall Meeting is due to be announced. What more can I say than that I had a fun summer and that I wasn’t real excited about sitting down to write this. But duty calls and so here we go.

As always Bill had a lot to report. This man stays way too busy. He first addressed the insurance issues noting that prices were down somewhat but that there were still few carriers to choose from. On the technical side he said he’s still having trouble with 3mm bulbs. If you are also having problems and would care to send me information I’ll collect it and sort of correlate it all and make it available to the membership. Now I’m no accountant or a statistician, in fact I have problems just getting the newsletter out, but I’ll do my best to keep the records.

The Union is still busy trying to do anything they can to make it harder for you to do business. They’re still up to their current trick of trying to get you in an unfair hiring practices situation so be on your guard. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if they concentrated on training their people so that their signatory contractors could put you out of business by providing a superior product at a better price? Guess that won’t work so we get what we get.

For some reason NFSA wants to track all jobs there union members lose to merit shop contractors. There is a discussion about this in the latest FPC. You can decide what this is about.

Lynnwood and Dupont are requiring flow through systems for residences. Speaking of Dupont some time after the meeting the expanding town with a residential sprinkler ordinance announced the opening of a new EMS station—note—not fire station. Apparently they still need a quick response for medical emergencies but being fully sprinklered they don’t need a fire station on every corner.

At the time of the meeting only two of the fifteen contractors I sent dues notices to had paid. As of today five have paid. I’ll be sending out reminders soon.

For those of you that don’t know Dave McGuire of Dave’s Pump has passed away.

Seattle finally has a handle on their high-rise requirements for fire sprinklers, standpipes and fire pumps. I have a schematic \with notes that I acquired from George Goodall. I wanted to get this as part of the newsletter but I’m going to plead old guy because I can’t get it to work. I suggest contacting George at Seattle Fire to obtain a copy. I don’t know if he’s better than me or just has an IT department but….

Sprinx has gotten a gold certificate from ABC. I don’t know the significance of this but it is a good thing.

Washington Builders gets lists of all jobs and the contractors bidding them. Bill suggests it’s a good idea to join.

Remember the sprinkler demonstration trailer we helped build with AFSA and Woodinville Fire built a few years ago. Apparently interest in it had waned at Woodinville and it was idle for a long time, stored outside and a little worse for wear. Well, Larry Glenn decided it would be useful as a not only a learning tool but as a place where candidates for IT&M certification could demonstrate their hands-on skills. It is now garaged in an apparatus bay at the Fire Service Training Center at Bates Technical College—South Campus. I’ve volunteered my class to do the requisite design work and provide hands for the re-hab. We also hope to get the trailer weather protected with a roof and either canvas or roll-up sides. My intention is to prominently advertise the AFSA and Bates Fire Protection/Fire Service programs on it. When we’re ready to put it all together I’d sure like a fitter or two for supervision. If you’d like to donate someone for a day or two let me know.

And finally we get to Steve Muncy, President of AFSA and our guest for the evening. In his position Steve is able to see the broad view at the national level. For a not so auspicious start to his report due to my poor handwriting Steve had something to say about the 3mm bulbs but I can’t read my note. From a note I can read Steve mentioned that the single biggest loss for the insurance industry was water damage. Not necessarily from sprinklers or even plumbing but all forms of water damaging a structure.

The ASSE is developing an install standard for residential sprinklers. What they know about this topic is beyond me but they’re really smart guys and so I guess they know what they’re doing. On a good note though is the unlikelihood of ANSI to endorse any such document produced by ASSE.

Steve had things to say about the 25th Annual AFSA Convention but that’s long past and those of you that went know and those of us that didn’t don’t.

AFSA membership is at an all time high. There are 750 members but if you count all the divisions of that one big contractor owned by the T word company then the number exceeds 1000. You gotta love an organization that counts not only me as a single member but also Simplex/Grinnell as a single member. By the way, I just renewed my membership—hope you’ve done the same.

The sprinkler incentive act is going nowhere. Congress considers the likely cost to exceed a billion dollars and doesn’t want to lose that revenue.

And finally Steve said Roland has to come to the next meeting and talk about flexheads and the changes to the 2007 standard. We’ll be seeing Roland on November 7 at 6:30 PM in SeaTac at the 13 Coins.