Back in January, Mary Lou and I moved into an apartment community which had been extensively renovated. One of the renovations (or atleast I don't think they were original to the buildings) were residential sprinklers. I guess it's because I've been a firefighter so long. . .but it just gives me an extra measure of comfort knowing that our home - and belongings - are protected even if we'e not at home. You can tell that they were specifically designed for residential use because at the tip there is a deflector (think upside-down "U") that's designed to push the water toward the floor. Only residential heads are designed this way. So far I haven't gotten to see ours in action (thank God), but they had a fire in the stairwell of one building and the sprinkler contained it so that all the fire department had to do was replace the head and clear several inches of standing water from the steps and landing.

Walter