Rule would require sprinklers in new Pa. homes

BRIAN C. RITTMEYER
The Associated Press
TARENTUM, Pa. - Beginning next year, all new one- and two-family houses built in Pennsylvania will be required to have an automatic fire sprinkler system.
Safety officials and other supporters say the systems , more commonly seen in business and commercial buildings , will save lives and reduce property damage.
But those who build and sell homes say the requirement , along with other building code changes , will add thousands of dollars to the price of a new home and hinder the housing market recovery.
The change has prompted a lawsuit, and efforts by some lawmakers to block the requirement.
Under the 2009 Uniform Construction Code, which the state follows , sprinklers are required in new homes starting Jan. 1, 2011.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, there were 414,000 residential fires in 2007, the most recent year available. They resulted in 2,895 deaths, 14,000 injuries and $7.5 billion in property damage.
Fire administration studies say residential sprinkler systems could save thousands of lives, greatly reduce injuries and eliminate hundreds of millions of dollars in property losses.
Sprinkler systems cost $1 to $1.50 per square foot in new construction , about the price of a carpet upgrade. Insurance discounts for those with sprinklers range from 5 percent to 15 percent, according to the fire administration.
Home systems are much simpler than their commercial counterparts, said Ed Howley, of Building Inspection Underwriters in Jeannette. They use plastic pipe and run off a home's water system.
"It's not intended to put out the fire completely," Howley said. "It's intended to suppress the fire to give people time to get out of the building and first responders to get there."
Pennsylvania is the first state in the U.S. to adopt the requirement, according to the National Fire Sprinkler Association, a trade association.

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"The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards."
- Alexander Jablokov (American novelist, b.1956) / www.ArnoldHomeInspections.com

They have been required in Scottsdale since the early 90's. I think around Breckenridge, Co they have been required for residences too.

A couple thousand $/house versus a couple thousand lives lost to fire every year. Tough choice, eh?

"and reduce property damage"
Try "Increase property damage".

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"Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket" Wise Indian remarking on daylight saving time

Fritz,

I'm trying to figure that one out:
a) Fire totally destroys structure.
versus
b) Sprinkler puts fire out resulting in the loss of all the belongings in the structure due to water damage, structure is gutted to frame and drywall replaced.

Let's see, now which one has the most "property damage"?
a) TOTAL DESTRUCTION?
or
b) Structure is suitable for renovation?

That's a real hard one there - NOT!

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
www.AskCodeMan.com

Jerry
Very few house fires are a total loss.
From some of the houses I,ve seen, as much or more damage is caused by the water. Even when the fire was localized to a small area, everything had water damage.

No, I am not saying don't use water, or let it burn.

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' correct a wise man and you gain a friend... correct a fool and he'll bloody your nose'.

If my house is on fire, I would appreciate it if you would just let it burn to the ground. That is of course, assuming that we are all out of the house by that point. However, that's just my love/hate relationship with my own place.

You could probably plug just about any construction improvement into that article, from using a ground wire all of the way up to the current sprinkler regs, and it would be the same article.

The regulating agency requires "X", the NAHB and others claim that doing "X" will drive the price of homes up too high, etc.

I do think that it is a good idea to continue to ban the burn accellerators used in cigarettes, since that is a large factor in fire deaths nation wide.

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Jim Robinson
New Mexico, USA

Most house fires I've seen, the houses are a total loss.

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
www.AskCodeMan.com

All of the fire sprinklers dont go off, most likely 1 or 2. Water damage is localized to a part of the house. Most of your irreplacable belongings survive. You and your family have a better chance of surviving. When my brother was a fire marshall he would tell us that no one had ever died from fire in a building with operable sprinklers.

Fire sprinklers are required here in houses over a certain sq footage and in condos. There is one condo complex, built in 1998 that has had 2 (that I know of) basically ruined by sprinkler malfunctions (one with the help of an HVAC tech that was there because of me). None have ever been activated by fires that I know of. One big problems seems to be that nobody knows how to shut them off.
As far as saving lives, if it is hot enough to melt the metal, or plastic or break the alcohol bulb, do you really think people are hanging around?
There's a reason you only get 5-10% off on your homeowners insurance. They are the ones who have run the numbers.

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"Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket" Wise Indian remarking on daylight saving time

Your homeowners is made up of many protections. You have fire, theft, water damage, storm damage, vandalism, etc etc. How much of a discount to you get for a monitored burgler alarm.

If your drapes catch fire on a lamp or candle that fire can spread very quickly. The room can be engulfed in seconds and a fire will double in size every 4 minutes. A fire sprinkler would dose that fire and either knock it back or put it out before the fire truck arrived. Damage would be confined. Most importantly lives would be saved.

When the fire department arrives they would know how to shut off the water. For the 10-15 minutes the water was running you would be talking of how many gallons of water? 100 -200 hundered. The fire deparment would put more than that on the fire every minute and the fire would hav tripled in size.

If the fire were to start in an unoccupied residence how long would the fire burn before someone even called the FD. All the personal property inside would be ruined including many irrecplaceable items. With a sprinkler system the fire would be contained to a small area. An alarm would be sounded when the sprinkler is activated so response from the FD would be much quicker and the water would be shut off without running for hours.

We fret about spending a small amount on a sprinkler system but adding $2-3K on a smaller house would up the house payment by how much - not much. People spend more than that on upgrades to a car every few years. Tell me which makes more sense.

"An alarm would be sounded when the sprinkler is activated so response from the FD would be much quicker and the water would be shut off without running for hours."

I basically agree with almost everything you said, but as far as I know, this part is not required nor has it been mentioned in the new code.

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Jim Robinson
New Mexico, USA

Seems to me that most house fires occur in older homes that are not going to be protected. That we have had a century of adopting safer construction metholds, that we finally figured out how to treat electricity.
We can never help those who would lay on a couch with a lit cigarette.
Except the cigarettes are being mandated to go out if not puffed on, the chemical they use to do that is probably more harmful than anything found in the tobacco and additives. Oh yeah, the couch has a flame retard. If that is not enough now we are going to wet him down. I see no long term benefit to this, if in fact the rest of the house is build to the new codes. Jimmmy the cricket, update the alarm systems.

Most "fire trucks" are known within the trade as pumpers. Pumpers usually have a 500 gallons tank and 2 or 3 one inch hose reels. A truck can pump 100 gallons a minute though a 1 inch hose. Usually as the pumper approaches the scene, a firefighter jumps off at the nearest hydrant while grabbing a hydrant wrench and the end of the supply hose. Wrap the house around the hydrant and the pumper pulls away laying hose to wards the fire. Once the pumper reaches the scene, the hose is connected to the hydrant. At the same time other fire fighters are pulling the 1 inch hose and heading towards the burning structure. That gives the first in fire fighters 5 minutes of water before they need the supply from the hydrant.

While in the movies, if one sprinkler goes they all go. That is not real life. Each sprinkler head is independently controlled by a temp sensitive release mechanism (fuse). Once the magic temp is reached, the fuse melts and allows water to flow. The other sprinkler heads do not flow water.

From the moment of ignition of a single christmas tree in a 8x8 room until the entire room is totally engulfed in flames is about 2-3 minutes. Sprinklers would extingish the fire before that happened. Then the water damage would start. 10 minutes of water damage is easier to repair than 10 minutes of raging fire.

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Bruce Ramsey
Advocate Inspections
www.NCAdvocate.com

And homes built this year will be older homes ... when?

Think into the future for benefits from current requirements.

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
www.AskCodeMan.com

My first thoughts on adding sprinklers to residential construction was the added expense, liability and maintenance with minimum advantage. One of thing I love about this site is the different perspectives and insight that make you think.

Good post Bruce, Thanks.

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When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. - Mark Twain

the cost of a compliant system to people that live in rural areas and on a well can get spendy, more than $1 or $2 p.s.f. as quoted . if you have a poor producing well with slow recovery you will probably have to install a 5k,10k or 20k storage tank with a pressure pump depending on the fire flow requirements for the system.pipe freezing issues will have to be addressed as well, unless you install a dry system requiring a compressor$ or an anti-freeze filled system, look out for cross contamination. who will maintain and inspect the system as required yearly$? $1 p.s.f. will buy the blazemaster pvc pipe, maybe. an average shack could cost $5,000, $10,000,or maybe up to $20,000.
who really stands to benefit from the new requirement? the plastic pipe industry and the insurance industry are doing some serious partying on your dollars. what about us rural folks that stand a far greater possibility of losing our homes and lives from a forest fire? sprinkle the trees? i think it should be a personal choice, not a guvmint mandate! chock another one up for lobbyist and private industry slipping their hand in your wallet under the pretense of saving us from ourselves. i ran with scissors in my hands when i was young!

I have several questions: Who is going to maintain the systems and who is going to inspect the systems?

the homeowner will be responsible to maintain the system to the expectations of the insurance companies, including hiring inspectors for whatever inspections the insurance companies may require.the ahj will perform and and approve the initial install. home inspectors will inspect at time of sales? what happens when someone is late with a water bill and the water is cut off? will the insurance company pay out in case of a fire?

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