That red door that you pass every day on street level, that door that’s half under a covered entry to a building or flush with the exterior frame of the building, is just a door. It’s not that important, right? But when fire crews respond to a fully-engaged multi-story fire with seconds to spare, that door is one of the most important pieces of apparatus used for the call.
This door is known as a dry riser inlet point and it’s the only connection your building has to the efforts of the fire brigade. It connects to vertical piping throughout the building. When crews arrive with their pumper trucks and hoses, they attach the hoses to these inlets and pump water up through the riser systems to landing valves on each floor.
Without inlet access, there is no additional water source available other than what crews are willing to carry up the stairwells. In an intense fire, this is the difference between an effort expended to tame an inferno or prolonged action transforming your building into a full-blown furnace within minutes.
Why the Door Design Matters
These aren’t just doors protecting an opening. They need to operate smoothly under high-stress situations. If fire crews arrive anywhere and there is poor visibility and smoke billowing around them, they don’t want the inlet door stuck, rusted shut, or poorly accessible where interfacing may prove complicated.
The door needs to open and close without issue but remain air-tight and locked under normal building operating procedures. The area needs ample signage for a crew member to recognize it in low visibility over night or in rainy conditions. The operable door must be large enough to allow big hoses and firefighters access without craning their necks or themselves. When a 2 way breech inlet dry riser door is installed, it opens up two access points for hoses depending on where the pumper truck sets up.
Breech fittings are standard across the UK fire service but the door protecting it must be suitably designated. Some dry riser inlet points are older; they corrode over time (especially if in a coastal region or a highly-polluted area). Some become painted over during normal maintenance which sounds innocent enough until paint clogs hinges or makes emergency access even more difficult. Rusting, broken locks, poor weather protection all manifest as issues once they need to be used in an emergency, and oftentimes, they’re not discovered until it’s too late.
What Happens When Inlet Points Fail
Talk to firefighters and they’ll tell you they arrive at buildings where inlets won’t open (and that’s why they have hose securing connections); they arrive at inlet systems where the inlets themselves are crushed or blocked. They are sometimes overgrown by vegetation at ground level or set in such a way after building work that there’s no longer access – planters, bike racks moved too close, parked vehicles that shouldn’t be there yet always seem to be there on an emergency response.
These are not hypothetical situations. Inspections consistently find dry risers that exist but fail any real-time response. The pipework is great, landing valves pass testing, but if crews cannot connect easily and quickly at ground level, it doesn’t matter. Maintenance is key here as these systems sit unused for months at a time or even years between testing cycles yet day-to-day they are ignored, quietly but surely falling apart behind the scenes.
The situation only intensifies with more complex buildings with multiple entry points. Crews must not only locate the right inlet but also make sure it’s the correct zone needing water supply connections. Poor signage and confusing locations create delays while crews waste precious time figuring out which door connects with which riser. In a building fire, seconds matter.
The Two-Way Question
Single inlet doors are common yet challenging from a positioning perspective. The pumper must park a certain way to facilitate immediate access, but if there are other vehicles parked on the road, this may not be possible. Two way configurations allow crews to connect from either side depending on how their equipment is situated.
This matters more than one might think. Buildings today have limited access to their peripheries. They are sometimes positioned on narrow streets where crew members have no choice but rely on what’s in front of them. Pumper aerial platforms sometimes require specific setup locations that may block basic access options.
By allowing a two-way inlet point, no matter how the pumper truck gets positioned, access is still available. It’s better to have added redundancy that seems excessive than to attempt to figure everything out as conditions change in an emergency.
Getting the Installation Right
The installation of the inlet door itself isn’t all that’s important from a practical sense of connecting your building system with the fire system in use by responding crews. The inlet must be set at waist height, high enough so it doesn’t flood out during heavy rain and low enough that people don’t have to stretch or reach too far to get access to it. There needs to be ample space around it as specified by building codes so crews can work unencumbered.
The door should not only be heavy duty to protect it from weather and impact but it shouldn’t be so difficult to open that firefighters cannot get access fast enough.
Signage should be specific for safety matters. The inlet dry riser point should be visible for all; reflective materials should keep it visible in lower visibility operations and some have lights positioned above them for night usage.
These factors may seem menial but they all contribute as critical when fire crews try to quickly locate and utilize this system.
Regular testing should involve checking out this door and not just the piping beyond it. The hinges need oiling, locks need operation checks (and working), and weather seals need replacement when they fade into nothingness. Some building owners only care about pipe pressure checks annually and neglect what it’s like to get through these doors as well. That’s backward, the strongest dry riser system in place won’t do anyone any good if firefighters can’t connect.
What Building Managers Need to Know
For any manager responsible for their own multi-story building with dry risers, this inlet point should come into play on a consistent basis over many years of service. Have visual inspections occur between testing check points. Check the door openness out, see if any signs have fallen off or been put on or if anything else was placed or built nearby that could hinder response time access.
New landscaping and parking arrangements post-initial reviews can create problems with inlet dry risers, building renovations can sometimes make it difficult to get through anywhere. Building management should walk around the perimeter of their establishment at least quarterly thinking like a responder trying to find the very first time; can they access the system easily? Is it obvious?
Ultimately, when crews arrive in the worst situation possible, that red door should open without issue and the inlet should be ready for use immediately. Everything up until then must contribute positively because speed is everything with situations like these. The inlet door that no one thinks about is an integral component for when things go wrong; it’s easy to get this part right but hard when people fail to pay attention to detail, and those details become very much needed once things change for the worse.
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