HPAC 2022: Our Sixth Quiz of the Year!

This month, the National Fire Protection Association will hold its first in-person annual conference in two years in Boston. So, our June quiz looks at the history of fire protection.

 

The heating, piping, and air conditioning industry has been a fixture of ‘civilized’ life on Planet Earth for well over a century, and the focus of this venerable publication since 1929. The inventive and problem-solving work of engineers, manufacturers, and building owners have continuously helped to expand the impact of the HVACR industry beyond creature comforts and food and data storage to life and death issues like greenhouse gas reductions and, especially today, virus mitigation.

 

With all that in mind, HPAC Engineering here welcomes you to join us on a fun monthly ride through the milestones, innovations, people, places, problems and products that have come to define this industry and your work. Hopefully, there may even be a chuckle or two along the way. So, here goes, and see below for your chances to win a $50 Amazon gift card.

1) First off, let us consider the fire sprinkler. The first modern recognizable sprinkler system dates back to 1812 and was installed at London’s Theatre Royale, Drury Lane, by its architect, who patented the device that same year. Can you name that architect?

A. Ambrose Godfrey

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C. John Freeman
D. Augustus Pugin
Source: Wikipedia
2. In 1874, a piano maker from New Haven CT adapted earlier sprinkler designs to create the first automated fire sprinkler head. He developed it to protect the Mathushek Piano Manufacturing Co. factory, which became the first U.S. building to have a fire suppression system. Name the inventor.
A. Sir Hiram Maxim

B. Sawyer Tucker

C. Terence L. Mathusek

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Source: Wikipedia
3. Building on the innovations forged by the piano maker, this next pivotal figure improved upon the automatic fire sprinkler and patented a new design for it in 1881. Then in 1890, he invented the glass disc sprinkler, which is still the basis for most systems used today. A native of Massachusetts, he graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1855. Name him.

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B. Thomas Bridgerton
C. William Elmwood
D. Terence Townsend
Source: Wikipedia
4. The turn-of-the century advent of electricity led to the first automatic fire alarm and later the first electronic heat detector. But smoke detecting technology did not emerge until the 1930s, when it was stumbled upon by a physicist trying to develop a sensor for poison gas. Name that researcher.

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B. Francis Robbins Upton
C. George Andrew Darby
D. Hedy Lamarr
Source: MySmokeAlarm.org
5. Finally, in a nod to Fathers Day this month, we remember the Michigan native considered “the father of the modern smoke detector.” Working with a collaborator in 1965, he developed the first practical home smoke detector, the SmokeGard 700, which was made of fire-resistant steel and shaped like a beehive. Key to the marketing, it also ran on a removable and replaceable battery that made its operation cost effective for homeowners. Name this “father.”
A. Lyman Blackwell
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C. Stanley Peterson

D. Louis Adler

Source: MySmokeAlarm.org