Why is microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC) becoming a problem now?
Corrosion may have always been an issue in fire sprinkler systems but due to lack of knowledge, fire sprinkler system corrosion mechanisms may have been overlooked and misdiagnosed as “bad water” or “bad pipe”. Additionally, more commercial space requires sprinklers now than ever before. More sprinklers mean more sprinkler piping with the potential to fail. Finally, fire sprinkler pipe wall thickness has been reduced over the past 10 to 15 years due to the introduction of “engineered” or thin wall pipe. With a thinner wall pipe, there is less pipe wall to penetrate if a fire sprinkler system does develop a preferred environment for corrosion.
