A fire service branch from the main shall not be used for other than fire fighting purposes. It shall be the responsibility of the owners of the property served, or their agents, to obtain permission from the Water Department in advance for using water from a fire protection service for any purposes, including fire drills and pressure testing of a protection system.
The Department may order a fire service branch metered and converted to a domestic account to be billed at the monthly rates for general customers for any of the following reasons:
(a) Use of water for other than fire fighting purposes: flushing of debris, cleaning up or flushing of spillage, watering of dumps and other dry areas, shall not be considered as fire fighting purposes;
(b) Failure to repair leaks on the fire service branch or fire protection system;
(c) Use of water to control or extinguish self-made fires;
(d) Unauthorized breaking of a seal or seals on outlets of a fire protection system; or
(e) Registration on a detector check meter indicating unauthorized use of water.
(1) All fire protection systems shall have a detector check assembly unless the fire branch is fully metered. The detector check assembly shall meet the City's specifications.
(2) Applications for fire protection service branches shall be accompanied by applications for all meters required. Three sets of prints showing property lines, layout of fire line, fire hydrants, hose connections, and buildings shall accompany applications.
(3) No application for fire protections service branch shall be accepted where the size of the fire service branch exceeds the size of the main serving the branch.
(4) When an additional fire branch is installed to supplement an existing system and the two are interconnected, the entire system becomes an open system and check valves with detector check meter assembly shall be installed on both branches.
(5) All piping, valves, meters, detector checks and other hardware used in the fire protection system, up to and including that in the meter or detector check setting, shall meet City specifications.
(6) There shall be no charge for water used for fire fighting purposes.
(7) All detector check meter settings shall be inspected in the same manner as standard meter settings.
(8) Any changes or alterations to piping or equipment on an existing fire service branch shall be approved by the City.
(Ord. 91-1404. Passed 11-5-91.)