By: The NFSA ’26 Interns: Jeremiah Allen, Wiley Hensley, Brooke Marshall, and Brookelynn Weinberg

On Monday, we drove to Easton, Pennsylvania, to visit Victaulic. We started the day with a tour of the facility, where we got to learn more about how Victaulic products are made. One of the most interesting parts of the day was touring their foundry and seeing the manufacturing process up close. We also watched equipment being tested to its ultimate breaking point, which showed how much stress these products can handle before failure. Later in the day we saw the Victaulic Vortex demonstration. It was cool to see new innovations and the thought that is put behind fire protection developments. Seeing how Victaulic makes their parts from start to finish in the United States was also very informative to see.

On Tuesday, we took a tour of Victaulic’s facility in Commerce Park. We saw the manual and automated manufacturing of their signature coupling, as well as the painting stations for it. We went to a training/testing facility where we learned about the benefits of the Victaulic groove coupling compared to threading and welding. We learned about, and operated, a roll groove machine and saw how a threading machine gets operated. Notably, the roll groove machine saved time and caused less variance in the difference between multiple cycles of uses. We also saw how their couplings have evolved and were able to install some pipes to physically feel the improvements of ease of use.

On Wednesday, we visited three different companies: AGF Manufacturing, General Air Products, and Oliver Fire Protection and Security. To start off the day, we went to AGF where we learned about the history of the company, the Inspector Test Connection, and the different products they offer. We then took a tour of their facility where we got to see their warehouse and the office where they ship, produce, and test different projects.

After AGF we went to General Air Products. We learned about their products like their air compressors and the Vapor Pipe Shield. We also got to see their warehouse where they test and produce products and the warehouse where they ship products.

We went to Oliver next where we went on a tour of their warehouse where they cut, groove, and store equipment for their projects. We then learned about ITM, estimating, design processes, project management, and fire alarms in the fire protection business. All three of these companies were different from each other and the past trips that we went on, which made the trip very enriching and educational.

Some key takeaways that we have from this trip are that we have a greater understanding of the amount of work and time that goes into producing new technologies. We got to see firsthand the iterations that all these companies went through on their products before they could release them.

Thank you to Victaulic, AGF, GAP, and Oliver for having us and thank you to Jeni of NFSA for joining us on this trip!

Code of the Week!

NFPA 13 (2025) 3.3.244 Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor (VCI)

A chemical compound (substance) that emits rust inhibiting vapor to protect ferrous and nonferrous metals against corrosion in air-filled dry pipe or preaction sprinkler systems.

This connects to what we learned at General Air Products about Vapor Pipe Shield because it showed us how vapor-based technology can help prevent corrosion and keep fire protection systems reliable over time.