Your ADU project will be reviewed for compliance with the California Fire Code (CFC) to ensure projects are built for safety and ease of access during an emergency.
Section D: Fire Safety & Emergency Access of the City's ADU Univeral Checklist addresses these concerns with respect to Sprinklers, ADU address, ADU access, Hydrant Proximity, and Hydrant Water Flow.
In the case of Hydrant Water Flow, I needed to contact my water company to get the required information as stated in question nineteen of the ADU Univeral Checklist.
Here's question nineteen as shown on the City's ADU Univeral Checklist:
Hydrant Water Flow. Is a minimum flow of 1,000 gpm at 20 psi available from the closest hydrant?
You must submit a letter from your Water Company that contains this water flow data with your building permit application. Instructions for contacting your Water Company are at www.sanjoseca.gov/ADUs on the Fire Requirements webpage.
Outcome: If the flow is other than 1,000 gpm at 20 psi, Fire staff will review flow data and will evaluate if additional fire safety measures are required.
To verify your Water Company you can use the City's Utility Services Lookup tool.
My water company is the San Jose Water Company so I sent an email to the engineering.dept@sjwater.com using the words WATER FLOW REQUEST in the subject line and the following information:
Requestor's Name
Street Name and Address of the Project
Nearest Cross Street to that Location
And I received a quick email reply from the San Jose Water Company:
In order to provide the hydrant flow, we will need to be provided the Fire Plan Check Directive or any other documentation provided by the fire department stating the required flow, number of hydrants, type of project and name of the personnel at the fire department. Unless you are building an Accessory Unit only then simply advise you are adding an ADU and a fire plan check is not needed for a hydrant flow.
Once this information is provided it may take approximately 5-10 business days to complete and email your request.
What I learned is if you're only building an ADU you do not need a fire plan check but you still need the hydrant flow information. The other call out is you need to state that you are only building an ADU in your letter or email to your water company otherwise you're going to get push back.
I sent another email stating I was only building an ADU and received a reply that it may take approximately 5-10 business days to complete and email your request.
So I should have my hydrant flow info in a week or two.
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