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Residential Fire Sprinkler Market Potential Exceeds $3 Billion Annually – Over 10,000 Additional Skilled Workers Needed

New residential fire sprinkler market analysis projects the market potential and labor demand created by the passing and eventual widespread enforcement of amendment RB64-07/08 to the International Residential Code (IRC).

September 22, 2008 - A national market potential for the installation of residential fire sprinklers is examined in a new report Residential Fire Sprinklers Market Growth and Labor Demand Analysis (PDF, 913 KB), authored by fire protection industry expert Russ Leavitt, SET, CFPS, with contributions by Steven Scandaliato, SET, and Ryan J. Smith. According to the report, the required installation of residential fire sprinklers in newly constructed one and two family houses has the potential to exceed $3 billion annually.

Using three different methods of calculating market potential, results for residential fire sprinkler installations in the United States ranged from $2.9 billion to $3.2 billion annually. Further, four types of labor were analyzed to project the number of additional positions needed as residential fire sprinkler requirements are adopted across the country.

“There’s no question that the recent passing of residential fire sprinkler requirements to the International Residential Code will change the industry in a breath and timeline never experienced before,” said Russ Leavitt, SET, CFPS. “How the industry responds to the need for additional skilled labor will determine how quickly this market potential can be fully realized.”

The report considers the extent of design, installation and jurisdictional enforcement labor that will be needed to accommodate the residential fire sprinkler market growth. Most staggering is the projected amount of sprinkler installation labor that will be required as the conservative analysis calculates over 7000 additional positions.

The Residential Fire Sprinklers Market Growth and Labor Demand Analysis, published by Fire Smarts, LLC, is available for download at www.ResidentialFireSprinklers.com . Fire Smarts, LLC, is a leading provider of online educational and marketing services focused on fire protection.

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Consider…

- That the most effective and reliable fire protection system was invented over 100 years ago, yet your home most likely is not protected.

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- That smoke detectors frequently fail when you need them most - this is critical information if you have young children.

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You will receive an email confirmation with a download link to instantly access the “Home Fire Safety - Consumer Bulletin.”  This incredibly thought provoking report may forever change your views of home fire safety.

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Voting members of the leading building code body in the nation, the International Code Council (ICC), overwhelmingly supported a residential fire sprinkler requirement for all new one- and two-family homes and townhouses.

Fire service and building code officials united to approve the requirement and countered opposition. The code proposal, RB64, easily overcame a procedural requirement that mandated a super-majority of two-thirds approval. This represents an unprecedented step forward in advancing home fire safety in the United States.

The vote, held today in Minneapolis, was supported by 73 percent of the voting members in attendance.

The IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition, an association of more than 100 fire service, building code official, and safety organizations representing 45 states, assumed a leadership position and secured unified support for this issue over the past 18 months.

“Our team worked hard to rally support throughout the United States for a residential fire sprinkler requirement, but our supporters deserve the recognition for showing up en masse in Minneapolis,” said Ronny J. Coleman, president of the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition. “They know from experience that sprinklers are the answer to the nation’s fire problem.”

Fire deaths in the United States realized a dramatic decline over the past three decades as smoke alarms became common – today, more than 95 percent of homes have them. Still, more than 3,000 people die each year from fire, and a home burns every 80 seconds. Residential sprinklers are the only fire protection technology that works to rapidly contain fire, effectively giving families more time to escape the deadly heat and poisonous gases of an unchecked fire. Therefore, the proposal’s passage has also pleased home safety advocates across the country.

“We work with families every day that are directly affected by the ravages of fire,” said Meri-K Appy, president of the Home Safety Council. “We are thrilled not only because this moment has taken decades of demanding work to achieve, but because it provides protection for potential victims of future fires.”

Kaaren Mann, a fire safety advocate and the mother of a fire victim stated in her testimony, “the cost to put sprinklers into the home where my daughter died would have been less than what I had to pay for the flowers at her funeral.”

The sprinkler mandate will first appear in the 2009 International Residential Code® (IRC), which will be published by the end of the year. Forty-six states use the IRC as the basis of regulating new home construction.

“The vote was a historic moment in residential fire safety – and is a significant step in a long journey before sprinklers are installed in every new home,” noted Ronny J. Coleman, president of the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition. “We’re now going to move forward at the state and local level to ensure new code requirement is adopted.”

The potential impact of this code change is discussed at “Residential Fire Sprinklers Market Growth and Labor Demand Analysis“

The Residential Fire Sprinklers Code has passed!

See the article “ICC Approves Residential Fire Sprinklers in the International Residential Code“

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With the International Code Council (ICC) hearings in progress at the Minneapolis Convention Center, September 14-23, 2008, the Wall Street Journal featured the article Mandating Fire Sprinklers for the Home. This timely article puts residential fire sprinklers in the national spotlight as a critical vote approaches.

Starting on the evening of September 20, 2008, members of the ICC will vote on the proposed amendment to the International Residential Code (IRC) that, if passed, will require the installation of residential fire sprinkler systems in all one and two family houses and townhouses.

Over the last several years the support for residential fire sprinklers has been gaining momentum as hundreds of cities and counties adopt local ordinances requiring their use. The Residential Fire Safety Institute, a nonprofit that promotes fire safety, says it has a record of 400 counties and cities that have passed ordinances requiring sprinklers. Eight years ago, that number was only 200, says Roy Marshall, the organization’s director. He adds that “most of the movement has happened in the last two or three years.”

While local ordinance adoption has been a huge step forward for the fire protection community, adopting of residential fire sprinkler requirements in the IRC takes home fire protection to an entirely new level. The IRC is the model code governing residential construction in 46 states plus the District of Columbia. Once residential fire sprinkler requirements are included in the IRC it will be a challenging uphill battle for opponents to get the requirement removed at the city or county level.

The push for amending the IRC is headed by the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition, which has the backing of more than 100 national, state and local organizations including the IAFC, IAFF, NVFC and the National Association of State Fire Marshals.

We are at a pivotal point in home fire protection. Considering the high number of home deaths and injuries currently experienced in the United States, this code change has the power to alter the future of public safety.

“If the sprinkler resolution passes so that the IRC requires residential fire sprinklers in all new homes, in the next few years we will see a transformation in the fire sprinkler industry like no other to date”, says Ryan J. Smith, President of Fire Smarts, LLC. “Home fire deaths and injuries will start to decline and the fire sprinkler industry will experience a rapid growth in demand that will be a welcomed challenge to it’s already limited supply of skilled labor.”

The supporters of residential fire sprinkler requirements have good reason to be optimistic. The last time this proposal was voted on it missed a 2/3 majority vote by only less than 100 votes. This time, thanks to the unifying effort of the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition, attendance from voting members of the ICC that support the proposal should be at an all-time high.

Thousands of individuals wait anxiously for this weekend when the final vote for the 2009 edition of the International Residential Code takes place…hopefully confirming once and for all that residential fire sprinklers are essential life safety devices for all homes.

It may be of interest to you that on the Internet you can view a webcast of the hearing from the comfort of your home. While there is little entertainment value here, you do have an opportunity to watch the course of home fire protection forever change.

View live webcast of ICC Final Action Hearings

By CARL ROTENBERG - Norristown Times Herald

The reconstruction of two apartment buildings in Conshohocken destroyed by the eight-alarm fire in August will include sprinkler systems in attic areas that are not currently required by state construction codes.

Brian O’Neill, the president of O’Neill Properties Group of Upper Merion, described the fire-fighting effort Tuesday night to the West Norriton Board of Commissioners because his company has built 675 apartments in similar buildings in West Norriton.

“We have built 180 buildings in our career. It was an accident,” O’Neill said. “The fire officials think the embers from a steelworker cutting steel got caught up in plywood. It started as a small flame the size of a cigarette pack. A gentleman in an adjacent building took a series of pictures.”

O’Neill said that intense heat radiating from the fire consuming the wood-framed building under construction and started a fire on the roof of the adjacent, occupied apartment buildings.

“There were sprinklers on all floors but not in the attic areas,” O’Neill said. “We plan to adjust that in the future.”

The apartment building under construction did not have sprinkler systems installed when the fire started. It did have drywall “fire-stops” in the attic areas up to the roofline, however.

O’Neill said the building design for the occupied apartment buildings, which included required cement-block emergency stairwells, allowed about 200 people to escape the fire without injuries.

Firefighters had adequate water pressure and volume but the intense heat (3,000 to 5,000 degrees) turned the water aimed at the fire into steam before it could reach the burning wood, he said.

“The fortunate thing about Conshohocken is that this is a lesson in revitalization,” he said. “Eight thousand people are working there and 650 people are living there. The buildings worked because they were designed to get people out.”

O’Neill said that when his company builds the 309 apartments in two new buildings in Conshohocken, sprinkler systems will be included in unoccupied, attic areas.

West Norriton Engineer Joe Estock said similar apartment buildings built by O’Neill at Riverview Landing in West Norriton had sprinklers in attic areas, outdoor balconies and storage areas, in addition to the required apartment installations.

Zoning Officer Tom Cinaglia said Tuesday night he was unsure if the six Riverview Landing apartment buildings, which contain about 300 apartments, have fire stops in the attic areas.

View more articles about the Conshohocken Apartment Fire

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By Michael Tucker - Belgrade News

In the smoldering debate over fire-protection regulations in Gallatin County, three plywood structures resembling dog houses were set ablaze Friday in an effort to illustrate the benefits of fire retardant as opposed to sprinkler systems.

The sprinkler debate has been ongoing for at least a year now, and up to bat next on the agenda is Falcon Hollow, a new proposed subdivision located off Gooch Hill Road west of Bozeman.

The developer opted to require sprinklers once fire flows were deemed inadequate, but now developers want a new option - lumber treated with fire retardant, according to county documents. Developers said a new well and future plans for a holding tank coupled with the proximity of the Rae fire department, should be enough to throw out the sprinkler requirement.

County Commissioner Steve White, along with construction and fire-service interests, took part in a demonstration Friday designed to illustrate the effectiveness of spray-on retardants

Three plywood dog houses were stuffed with paper and lit on fire. One house was not treated and two homes were coated with two different fire retardants.

The untreated structure was engulfed in flames while the treated homes were largely unaffected, save for some scorching and smoke damage.

But that’s where the issue is being played out.

Based on statistics, firefighters have said smoke is the main killer in structure fires - not the actual flames.

While fire retardants can be effective tools, they don’t address the entire issue, Big Sky Fire Chief Jason Revinsky said. While every fire is different, statistics indicate most blazes start from the contents of the house - the bed, the couch or kitchen cabinets ignited by the toaster.

And even though all of the dog houses in Friday’s demonstration didn’t go up in flames, they all had one common feature - the paper that started the fire, Revinsky said.

“The newspaper acts as the contents in the home, and every house had the same amount of smoke from the newspaper,” he said. “This is what kills people in a structure. The majority of the time, it’s smoke.”

But fire retardants can slow down the progression of a fire, enabling firefighters to keep a handle on the situation, said Greg Heath of Dependable Paint and Drywall, a local company that sells fire retardants and which hosted the demonstration.

“The goal is to keep fire from getting out of hand,” he said. “We aren’t going to put the mattress out.”

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eNews Park Forest

The Village Board recently passed an amendment to the Fire Prevention Code lowering the square footage requirement for sprinkler protection in new commercial structures and mandates residential sprinklers in new single-family homes.

The measure lowers the square footage requirement from 5,000 square feet to zero for commercial structures.

According to Fire Chief Robert Wilcox, residential sprinklers are a simple solution to lessen the possibility of deaths in the event of fire, “A public policy decision like this can potentially save the lives of residents and firefighters alike,” Wilcox told members of the Village Board.

Fire Sprinklers react to temperatures in each room and respond when heated to their designed temperature setting, Wilcox said. He noted that in most residential fire scenarios, a single fire sprinkler will control a developing fire.

Chief Wilcox said the cost for the added security feature to a home can be nominal. Studies have shown that the in­stallation of a fire sprinkler is roughly one-percent of the construction cost of a new home.

Sprinklers also provide enhanced safety of firefighters. According to the National Fire Protection Association, no firefighter has lost their lives in sprinklered buildings since 1983 - except in occurrences of explosion or flash fire.

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How many times have you left the house in the morning and wondered, “Did I turn off the stove?” With our busy lives, the safety of our homes and families are sometimes relegated to the back of our minds – an afterthought as we hop in the car to start the day.

Fire departments across the country want you to make sure that the stove burner is turned off or the damaged electrical cord you’ve been meaning to fix is your top priority during Fire Prevention Week, October 5-11. The theme of this year’s campaign, “Prevent Home Fires,” focuses on preventing the leading causes of home fires – cooking, heating and electrical equipment, and smoking materials.

According to the latest statistics from the nonprofit National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), there were an estimated 396,000 reported home structure fires in 2006, resulting in 2,580 civilian deaths, 12,500 civilian injuries and $6.8 billion in direct damage in the United States. Home fires caused 80% of civilian deaths and 76% of injuries.

While the statistics are daunting, most home fires are easily preventable when we narrow our focus and take personal steps to increase our safety. One way to do this is by proactively combing through each room in your home to find signs of danger and fix them. Fire departments are encouraging residents and their families to put their safety first by performing a home hazards inspection during Fire Prevention Week. You can download an inspection checklist at Home Fire Safety Inspection.

There are also a number of simple steps that you can put into action to keep your home safe from fire:

• Cooking: Stay in the kitchen when you are frying, grilling, or broiling food. If you leave the kitchen for even a short period time, turn off the stove.

• Heating: Keep all things that can burn, such as paper, bedding or furniture, at least 3 feet away form heating equipment.

• Electrical: Replace cracked and damaged electrical cords; use extension cords from temporary wiring only. Consider having additional circuits or receptacles added by a qualified electrician.

• Smoking: If you smoke, smoke outside; wherever you smoke, use deep, sturdy ashtrays.

As firefighters and fire safety educators, fire prevention is always on our minds. We hope that you use the checklist and home fire prevention tips to put your safety first during Fire Prevention Week, and year-round.

View more articles for Fire Prevention Week

A national perspective on the cost of installing residential fire sprinklers is examined in a new report Home Fire Sprinkler Cost Assessment , released today by the Fire Protection Research Foundation, an affiliate of the National Fire Protection Association. According to the report, the cost of installing sprinkler systems to the home builder averaged $1.61 per sprinklered square foot. Sprinklered square feet is the total area of spaces with sprinklers.

The cost of sprinkler systems to the home builder, in dollars per sprinklered square foot, ranged from $0.38 to $3.66. This cost includes all costs to the builder associated with the system including design, installation, and other costs such as permits, additional equipment, increased tap and water meter fees – to the extent that they apply.

“There’s no question that an investment in a residential fire sprinkler system can prove to be a life-saving decision, but when seeking cost information to make that decision, people are often hard pressed to find true costs.” said Kathleen Almand, executive director of the Fire Protection Research Foundation. “We found that professionals in the field and the average person were in great need of reliable information in this area – the findings from our latest research project provide costs based on actual data.”

Case studies that examined installation costs and insurance premium discounts associated with the installation of home fire sprinkler systems were conducted for 10 communities, nine distributed throughout the United States and one in Canada. They are: Pitt Meadows, BC (Canada); San Clemente, CA; Fort Collins, CO; Huntley, IL; Matteson, IL; North Andover, MA; Carroll County, MD; Prince George’s County, MD; Wilsonville, OR; and Pleasant View, TN.

Communities were selected based on diversity in terms of sprinkler ordinance longevity, geographic location, housing style, and sprinkler system variables such as the type of piping material and the water supply source (municipal or on-site). Three building plans were collected from builders and sprinkler installers within each of these communities, along with sprinkler system cost data and other related cost and system information.

“More than 8 in 10 fire deaths occur in homes, yet the likelihood of someone dying in a home fire is cut in half when sprinklers are present,” said Gary Keith, NFPA’s vice president of field operations. “Installing a home fire sprinkler system is a huge step in the right direction when protecting people and property. This national cost assessment will help jurisdictions, building professionals, insurance companies, the fire service, and members of the general public interested in making informed decisions about home fire sprinklers.”

The Fire Protection Research Foundation Project Technical Panel included: David Butry, National Institute of Standards & Technology; Mike Chapman, Chapman Homes; Keith Covington, Third Coast Design Studio, LLC; Paul Emrath, National Association of Home Builders; Jeff Feid, State Farm Insurance; Tony Fleming, Metropolitan Fire Protection; J. Dennis Gentzel, Office of the Maryland State Fire Marshal; Michael Kebles, Las Vegas Valley Water District; Gary Keith, National Fire Protection Association; Ron Murray, UA Local 290, Portland, OR; James Tidwell, International Code Council; Paul Valentine, Mt. Prospect Fire Department; and Kenneth Zaccard, Hanover Park Fire Department, representing IAFC.

The Fire Protection Research Foundation plans, manages, and communicates consortium-funded research on a broad range of fire safety issues in collaboration with scientists and laboratories around the world. The Foundation is an affiliate of NFPA.

NFPA has been a worldwide leader in providing fire, electrical, building, and life safety to the public since 1896. The mission of the international nonprofit organization is to reduce the worldwide burden of fire and other hazards on the quality of life by providing and advocating consensus codes and standards, research, training, and education.