Who is at fault?

RJTravel

Member
You arrive at job location. Everyone leaves and you are alone. You remove the filters and are inspecting plenum from floor level. You havn't begun work nor disturbed system. Suddenly the suppression system begins to hiss and dumps its caustic liquid. You are there and of course are suspect, however you positively know you did nothing to set off the system. Just happened to me. Ever happen to you? Were you blamed?
 
Sorry to say, but it's gonna be your fault no matter what you say.
The restaurant owner already has made up his mind. Do you have any affiliation with a fire system contractor that can prove to you why the system went off?
 
Grant,
Yep - family member with no labor cost to me - however owner called own technician who arrived 5 minutes before my contact. We would have reset gas and later done a blow-down without cost to owner. Guess they like to spend money. Fortunately we looked at the broken link, it was stale-dated and wrong heat rating. Proper inspection had not been accomplished. Still, I get the uneasy feeling we will be blamed. Probably a lab report will show either heat-weakened or cold-flow breakage. Ever happen to you? How did you protect yourself?
Richard
 
We do systems and can absorb the cost if needed. It has happened, but not in the last few years. We get calls when other companies set the system off while cleaning the flues. We usually pick them up as a new customer for all services.
 
We had a McDonalds system go off after the job was completed, equipment was back in place, but not turned on. The only thing we had left to do was mop up when the system went off. No links were broken and to this day no one has been able to give me a reason for it. That was about a 2200-dollar problem, and could have been worse. They didn't ask us to pay for lost business, half a day at union station in DC, I don't even want to think what that could have been.
 
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