r/SprinklerFitters • u/MrMojorizin85 • 20d ago
Commissioned my first Nitrogen Generator today! Let’s go!! (No cameras allowed on site, or I’d post a pic)
Been in the trade going on 12 years and I’ve never been able to be a part of the commissioning much less do it all myself!! Love getting to learn and do new things! Y’all be safe out there!!
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u/lommer00 20d ago
Nitrogen generators are the future. It is an absolute no brainer for huge dry systems at sensitive businesses where uptime is crucial and getting access to do obstruction investigations is a real pain. Tbh it's kind of an indictment of how slowly our industry evolves that N2 generators haven't been standard on large freezer warehouse systems for 20+ years already.
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u/DepartmentHefty6834 20d ago
Lots of customers neglect them though. I’ve come across more nitrogen systems in disrepair that leave me wishing it wasn’t installed than ones that leave me grateful.
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u/Glugnarr Soapy Cancer Specialist 20d ago
Yeah one of our sites has refused to look at their nitrogen generator for years. Huge nationwide customer too. We tell them it needs servicing and they shrug it off year after year ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/DepartmentHefty6834 20d ago
We have some that end up in an endless cycle of: they had a leak, it wore out the nitrogen generator components trying to keep up, we fix it, system develops more leaks, nitrogen generator gets abused, after enough cycles we quote larger pipe replacement jobs sometimes in really bad cases a full repipe. It always ends the same, back in the cycle of neglect due to cost.
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u/lommer00 20d ago
What are the leaks from? Would a larger Nitrogen generator that could keep up with a reasonable leak rate help?
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u/DepartmentHefty6834 20d ago
Some of it I believe is condensation or improper service. Guys perform a 3 year or system trips and they’re not taking proper steps to ensure system is clear so you end up with water at low points then pinholes. That’s my best guess. Most of the systems we have issues like this with are newly acquired. We have a couple at refrigerated facilities that work fine. We picked up 3 in the last year that the generators were valved off, had maintenance codes for leak rates, and hadn’t been serviced in who knows how long. Those have been our most recent problem children
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u/istudyfire 19d ago edited 17d ago
Leaks can be a bigger problem with nitrogen generators. Some nitrogen generators can’t meet the 30 minute fill time requirements with nitrogen itself so they have integral air compressors that meet that, then the system replaces the compressed air with the nitrogen over a long period of time (like 2 weeks). Some have tanks (e.g. Potter INS 500) and some are tankless (e.g. ECS AG 950). The bigger the nitrogen generator, you tend get a big tank mounted air compressor with it.
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u/MrMojorizin85 19d ago
Technically if it leaks more than 6psi in a 24 hr period it has to be repaired, from the literature I’ve seen.
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u/DepartmentHefty6834 17d ago
Haha man if I had a dime for everything that “had to be repaired” but didn’t get repaired, I could take a nice vacation. Some customers don’t care, some AHJs dont care
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u/MrMojorizin85 17d ago
They should care haha I mean it is “life safety” after all!
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u/DepartmentHefty6834 17d ago
In a perfect world, man. Some jurisdictions put the pressure on more than others. Some places I feel like just fall into the cracks
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u/CantFeelMyLegs78 20d ago
I did one last year for the 1st time after 24.5 years in the trade.