CST Industries Joins our Expanding List of Product Offerings

As your trusted supplier of all things in the realm of fire pump sales and service, we’re always looking to expand on our offerings and increase our value to you. That is why we’re proud to announce that we recently added CST Industries to our growing catalog.

For those of you unfamiliar with the company, CST Industries is the global leader in storage tanks and covers. The company portfolio includes CST Storage, CST Covers and Vulcan Tanks. Their bolted and factory-welded steel tanks meet or exceed NFPA 22, FM, LPS, AWWA, USACOE and other internationally recognized industry standards. Continue reading →

Remember These Thanksgiving Safety Tips

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year when everyone gets a moment to take a break from the hustle and bustle of work and sit down with family and friends to celebrate everything they have to be thankful for.

Because we here at Steven Brown & Associates are all about safety, whether it’s fire safety or any other form of safety, we thought we’d share some helpful tips to keep your holiday happy and problem-free. We know how hectic preparations can be for those extra guests, so add these items to your Thanksgiving Day checklist to ensure a worry-free holiday.

We’ve broken these tips down into two parts, both fire safety (for obvious reasons), and other general tips. Continue reading →

Aurora Fire Pump Troubleshooting Guides

One of the necessary beasts that accompanies any piece of machinery is its eventual malfunction due to wear and tear over the years. Aurora fire pumps, while among the most reliable fire pumps available, are not immune from the occasional malfunction.

Fortunately, Aurora Pump has established an extensive library of troubleshooting guides that help you locate the problem and find the probable cause, and offer suggestions how to fix it. We’ve included these resources below to help you get your Aurora fire pump functioning normally once again, and to avoid having a minor problem becoming a major headache. Continue reading →

Steven Brown & Associates Launches October Training Series

The team at Steven Brown & Associates isn’t satisfied with just being the Mid-Atlantic’s best source for fire pump sales and service. We strive to go the extra mile, providing quality information and training to those interested in learning more about the products we offer. This is one reason why we try to maintain a monthly blog here on our website. Continue reading →

Talco Fire Systems Home Hydrants

Do you ever run into situations where you have to install a residential sprinkler system that meets all of the NFPA 13D requirements? Well, in this case a good option to consider would be the Talco Home Hydrant Systems, which can give you an almost effortless installation. Not only can our team at Steven Brown & Associates provide you with a fast turnaround on a quote, but also with our excellent team of service technicians for field service!

What can you expect from the Talco Fire Systems Home Hydrant that makes installation so easy and operation so reliable? Here are several unique features: Continue reading →

Hubbell Launches a New Line of Metron Fire Pump Controllers

Recently the great minds at Hubbell Industrial Controls, Inc., manufacturer of Metron fire pump controllers and transfer switches, released a new product we’d like to bring to your attention. Our blog today outlines this new MPT Fire Pump Controller series and what features are offered with this new line.

Fire pump controllers with integral automatic transfer switches provide a reliable means for bringing emergency power directly to the fire pump in case of loss of normal power. While this feature is important, the drawback to this arrangement historically has been that those controllers take up a lot of space in a mechanical room, especially with a more advanced, reduced voltage starting method, such as Solid State Soft Start, or Wye Delta Closed Transition. Today’s mechanical rooms are even smaller than previous years, and often engineers and architects are under pressure to condense their fire pump room layouts even more.

But what do you do if you want a reduced voltage starting method with a transfer switch, and you have a limited mechanical room floor space? Continue reading →

How to Adjust Fire Pump Packing Glands

If you’re looking for information on how to properly make a packing gland adjustment, you’ve come to the right place! Our blog today looks at the proper procedures for packing gland adjustments which will help extend the service life of your fire pump.

Follow these two steps:

At the beginning of the pump operation, loosen the gland nuts and allow the packing boxes to leak liberally.
Every 20 minutes, tighten the packing gland nuts, one flat at a time until the leakage has been reduced to about 60 drops per minute.

Please note: This process may require two to three hours. Continue reading →

Fire Pump Parts & Accessories Availability

We know it can be difficult to not only find replacement parts and accessories for your fire pumps, but when you finally do find them the turnaround times are often not acceptable. At Steven Brown & Associates we’ve decided to eliminate both problems by offering a wide variety of replacement parts for the fire pump industry that also ship out quickly. This helps get your fire protection systems operating normally again as soon as possible, which is great news for everyone involved!

Long time customers have come to rely on us for their both large and small jockey pump emergencies. Whether it’s through Aurora’s “Quick Ship Program” for larger jockey pumps, or direct from our warehouse for smaller jockey pumps, we’re relied on frequently for accurate and fast turnaround on our jockey pumps. Continue reading →

2016 Changes to the NFPA 20

Steven Brown presented to the AFSA Mid-Atlantic Chapter on NFPA 20, and the changes between the 2013 and 2016 editions in Newark, DE on January 21, 2016. While covering the changes to the 2016 edition, Steven also discussed key items from each chapter that while not necessarily new, are certainly often overlooked or misunderstood.

A discussion about what is new to 2016 is actually quite useful, since NFPA 20 no longer annotates the codebook to indicate what wording has been modified, added, or deleted.

Multi-stage, Multiport Pumps

New to the 2016 edition of NFPA 20 is the concept of a multi-stage, multiport pump. This type of pump is not often seen in the United States, and is basically a pump with more than one discharge flange. Since Factory Mutual no longer permits using fire pumps in series, there is a renewed interest in the concept of a pump which can serve more than one zone in high rise buildings, and do so without using more than one pump, motor, or engine. Continue reading →

5 Christmas Fire Safety Tips

Holiday decorations and Christmas trees account for a significant amount of fires each year according to the NFPA. We’ve previously told you how winter is the most prevalent time for home fires, and offered some general winter prevention tips here on our blog.

Adding to those previous winter fire prevention tips, we’ve put together this brief list of Christmas themed fire prevention tips for those celebrating the holiday season. Be sure to keep these tips in mind and help protect yourself and your family this holiday season.

Keep any flammable items or decorations at least three feet away from an open flame or heat source.
Any decorations that pull electricity should not be worn out. If the wires look to be in poor shape, it’s time to recycle them.

Continue reading →