When we built our house and shop we built in roof sprinklers and we used them once in 2007 and probably won't again. We found that with wind, the water didn't really go where needed and that with a metal roof and hardie plank siding, we had better use for the water.
flintlocke
Agreed. That is why we have a 24 kw generator to run our water pump (both in the shop next to the house) and 4 large pressure tanks to support a 1.5" fire hoses at 3 locations around the house/shop. We have 7000 gallons of water underground that will gravity feed to the house at 35 psi (which is stepped up by our pump to 70 psi). I have put together a 550 gallon fire trailer and pump, but want to significantly upgrade it over the winter. I plan to take the existing tanks pump and hose and put it on a sled that I can lift into the back of our 5 yd dump truck so that we can have additional mobile capability.
