Residential Fire Sprinklers .com

Protecting Your Home & Family

With the nation’s model building codes now requiring fire sprinkler systems in all new homes, representatives of 28 national and international organizations concerned with residential fire safety just held a National Residential Fire Sprinkler Summit to discuss opportunities for cooperative advocacy at the state and local level. The summit, facilitated by Chief Ronny Coleman, President of the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition and former California State Fire Marshal, identified inter-organizational communication and sharing of resources as top priorities.

“It’s clear that requiring fire sprinklers in new homes is good public policy, and it’s very encouraging to see such a high level of collaboration among advocacy groups to promote this cause,” said Chief Coleman. “Having all of these groups represented at the Summit meeting was a clear demonstration that we are ready, willing and able to work together as allies to support jurisdictions in their code adoption efforts.”

The IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition is building a network of state-level chapters to enhance communications among state and local fire safety advocates and national and international organizations, which will also facilitate the sharing and coordination of resources.

“There is no doubt that we’ll see some well-organized and well-funded opposition from home builder groups as we advocate adoption of the 2009 International Residential Code’s sprinkler requirement. Nevertheless, we’re prepared to assist local officials in making the case that requiring fire sprinklers in new homes is the best approach to achieving a sustainable reduction in residential fire losses,” said Jeffrey Shapiro, PE, Executive Director of the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition. “The nation’s fire safety advocates are committed to seeing this through.”

About IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition: Founded in 2007, the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition has grown to include more than 100 regional, national and international public safety organizations, including associations representing 44 states, all of which support the mission of promoting residential fire sprinkler systems as a standard feature in new home construction. The Coalition was formed to educate public policymakers on the value of residential sprinkler systems and to support related legislation. More information can be found at www.IRCFireSprinkler.org.

It has been said by some that “if you’re going to speak for residential fire sprinklers in single family homes, it’s imperative that you live in a sprinklered house.” I wish to respond to this claim in order to encourage all supporters of residential fire sprinklers to speak out regardless of the current level of fire protection in their home.

I recently purchased a home which did not have fire sprinklers installed. I have not (yet) installed fire sprinklers in my home; but, I support the passing of residential fire sprinklers in the IRC.

The IRC will only require fire sprinkler installation in NEW single family dwellings (SFDs). It is much more cost effective to install fire sprinklers in new construction when all of the walls are open and all areas of the home are easily accessible. The monetary cost difference for retrofitting a house with sprinklers is sometimes more than double the cost to install them when the house is being constructed.

Take my case for example. The long-term plan for my house is to install fire sprinklers. However, when I do, it is going to be a painful project. There are areas where I am going to have to pull out drywall and (because I have a two-story house) tear up the floor in some areas as well. After all the floor repairs, drywall dust cleanup and painting is done, I will have fire sprinklers in my house. I could see how this would deter your everyday household from retrofitting fire sprinklers into their home.

It is for this reason that the new IRC residential fire sprinkler code requirement IS so important. If the fire sprinklers had been installed when my house was being constructed, then their much lower cost would have been lumped into my 30 year loan. Now, the installation will cost more and would be on a separate loan.

Based on this, I think I am still credible for wanting and supporting residential fire sprinkler requirements to pass even though I do not have them in my existing home. My support of the new requirement is so that future homeowners will not have to wrestle with the retrofit decision versus simply having them installed with the original construction.

Justin Reid is a Project Engineer at RLH Fire Protection out of their Van Nuys, CA office providing fire protection contracting services in California, Nevada and Hawaii. Justin is a registered Professional Engineer in Fire Protection in the State of California. Prior to working at RLH, Justin worked for three years as a consultant at Schirmer Engineering Corporation in their Los Angeles office where he provided building code analysis, performance based design, smoke control third party testing/design and a wide range of other services to numerous clients. Justin graduated from the University of Maryland College Park with a Bachelor of Science degree in Fire Protection Engineering in 2004. While in school, Justin completed an internship at the Schirmer Engineering Washington DC office, worked on Capitol Hill in the Office of Compliance and worked at the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Fire Research Laboratory in Beltsville, MD. Justin is the current President of the Southern California Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers, is a national SFPE Member, NFPA Member and member of the Salamander Fire Protection Engineering Honor Society, Beta Chapter.

The opposition to residential fire sprinkler requirements continues as the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) filed a request to appeal on October 30, 2008 with the International Code Council (ICC). The appeal targets the recent passing of RB64-07/08 to the International Residential Code (IRC) which requires residential fire sprinklers to be installed in one and two family homes and town homes effective January 1, 2011.

RB64-07/08, with public comment 2, passed overwhelming on September 21, 2008 with 73% percent approval from close to two thousand voting members at the final action hearings in Minneapolis. The NAHB appeal contends that the ICC failed to provide a balance of interest in voting.

Specifically, the appeal claims that:

- the ICC did not prevent a single interest group, specifically the fire service, from unfairly dominating the voting at the final action hearings.

- the ICC’s governmental consensus process was manipulated and subverted to advance the interests of a single stakeholder.

- the ICC must take immediate and strong action to eliminate the growing influence of third-part funding to secure votes at the ICC final action hearings.

To view a copy of the appeal click on the following NAHB Appeal to ICC Regarding RB64 and RB66

The appeal is currently planned to be conducted in Chicago with conference call capabilities. Parties involved will be notified of the specific details of the appeals hearing at least twenty days prior.

Further, the appeals board is taking written views from interested parties on the request for appeal. You are encouraged to provide your views on this matter by filing a written comment with Michael Pfeiffer, ICC Deputy Senior Vice President of Technical Affairs.

To view the ICC Appeal Policy click on the following ICC Appeal Policy

Many supporters of residential fire sprinkler requirements find it ironic that such claims are coming from the NAHB organization with a long history of representing their members special interests and using their collective strength to influence the code development process.

The ICC develops its codes using the governmental consensus process. Voting members for the building codes are typical building officials and fire officials from government jurisdictions across the country. Non-governmental representatives are allowed to be members of the ICC, but may not vote on code changes. Further, each voting governmental member must physically be present at the final action hearings to cast their vote. In the case of RB64-07/08, the authorized ICC voting members from the fire service exercised their right to vote by traveling to the hearings and officially showing their support for residential fire sprinkler requirements.

Financial assistance for travel expenses of voting members was offered by both proponents and opponents of RB64-07/08. Such travel assistance does not change the view of the voting members, rather it simply helps to remove the travel barrier that hinders some voting governmental members from casting their vote.

The NAHB claims that the vote was manipulated by the fire service, but supporters argue that the fire service has simply exercised their right to vote and participate in the governmental consensus process. The NAHB obviously is not pleased with the outcome of the vote, but their claims that the fire service has “unfairly” dominated the voting process may be going too far in pushing their agenda. Since when is winning a majority of the vote considered “unfairly” dominating? Isn’t that the objective of both sides of any issue being voted on?

By Andy Johns - Chattanooga Times Free Press

In the middle of a housing slump, the last thing Tina Rice wants to do is tack on a few thousand dollars to the price of home construction.

Which is why she’s against a move requiring fire sprinkler systems to be installed in all new homes, a move that some builders say could add between about $4,000 to $10,000, depending on the size of a house.

“To me it’s like you’re almost getting rid of your first-time home buyer,” said Ms. Rice, the Bradley County building inspector. “The way I look at it, you’re pricing people out of buying a home.”

Ms. Rice spoke out against the fire-sprinkler portion of the 2009 International Residential Code in September while attending the International Code Council’s Final Action Hearings in Minnesota. But the council went ahead and voted in favor of sprinklers, so all one- and two-family residences and townhomes built after Jan. 1, 2011 in areas where the code is adopted must have sprinkler systems, according to an code council spokesman.

Under Tennessee law, however, it could be years before any new homes in the state must have fire sprinkler systems, according to Ms. Rice.

And once the code is adopted, local governments have the option to amend it to exclude certain portions or simply fail to enforce all the rules, according to Michael Colopy, spokesman for International Code Council.

“In other words, this is a model code,” he said. “By itself it doesn’t have the force of law.”

State law requires counties with building inspectors to operate under a code that’s no more than six years older than the code adopted by the state. Since Tennessee only recently adopted the 2006 code, it could be years before the state adopts the newest code.

Hamilton County would probably follow the cue of the state, according to Pat Payne, director of building inspection for the county. Hamilton, which now uses the 2003 code, would do what it needed to remain in compliance with the state, he said.

Proponents of the sprinkler systems say they save lives, which is worth the small cost of installation.

“It’s two Big Macs a month on a 30-year mortgage,” said Wayne Waggoner, executive director of the Tennessee Fire Sprinkler Contractors Association.

The U.S. Fire Administration estimates home sprinkler systems would cost around $1 to $1.50 per square foot in new construction, which Mr. Waggoner said was true on his own house. The sprinkler system in his 3,800-square-foot house cost $3,900, he said.

At that cost, the system is well worth the expense, Mr. Waggoner said, citing the dangers fire pose to property, residents and fire officials.

To read the full article click here.

By Sonja Elmquist - Greensboro News-Record

A firefighter for 17 years, Jim Robinson has seen fire’s effect on people’s lives over and over.

“I’ve stood on someone’s front yard and I’ve handed someone their Bible out of their rubble pile,” Robinson said. His belief: If everyone had sprinklers, “we could pretty much give them their whole house back.”

Now building his dream house far from the city down a narrow gravel road, he’s not taking any chances. His sprinklers were installed Tuesday.

“Do I want my house to burn down? No way,” Robinson said. “A sprinkler system is like having a firetruck sitting in your front yard 24/7.”

What was a choice for Robinson could eventually be a requirement for anyone building a new house.

An international code-making body recently approved a recommendation that could mean that, beginning in 2012, new one- and two-family homes built in North Carolina might be required to have fire sprinklers.

Commonly seen as invasive, messy and expensive, sprinklers rarely pop up high on home buyers’ — and home builders’ — list of add-ons.

But firefighters say that perception doesn’t match reality and could cost lives.

The N.C. Office of the State Fire Marshal supported the adoption of the requirement in the 2009 International Residential Code, said Kristin Milam, a spokeswoman for the agency.

The International Code Council approved the change at its annual conference in September.

Most states, including North Carolina, use the International Residential Code as the basis for their state and local residential codes.

The National Association of Home Builders opposed the change because of the systems’ potential to discharge accidentally and cause water damage. The systems also need maintenance to remain functional, according to news releases of the association.

The earliest the N.C. Building Code Council could adopt the revised international code would be 2012, Milam said.

Two recent fires in the city illustrate sprinkler advocates’ point, said David Douglas, Greensboro’s fire marshal.

“The circumstances are identical, but the outcomes are dramatically different,” Douglas said. According to the fire department:

Ten months apart, each in their own home, Gwendolyn Williams and Tracy Travis heated oil on their stoves. Each walked into another room, forgetting about the oil in the kitchen.

Williams went to sleep. When her smoke detector went off, she remembered the oil, went to the kitchen, saw it on fire and ran outside to call 911. The only damage to her apartment was a mark on the floor where the pot landed when it fell from the stove. Sprinklers had put out the fire before firefighters arrived.

When Travis went back into his kitchen to check on the oil, he found it on fire. He tried to put it out by spraying it with water from the sprayer on his kitchen sink, but when the water hit the hot oil, the oil erupted, burning Travis and spreading the fire.

By the time firefighters arrived, the kitchen was gutted and there was heat and smoke damage to the rest of the 1,300-square-foot house. The house was condemned.

Travis was hospitalized in the burn center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center with serious burns to his head and arms.

Although people are cautioned not to put water on a home grease fire, the 12 to 15 gallons of water dispensed by a residential sprinkler is adequate to cool the oil and suppress eruptions caused by steam from the smaller amount of water coming from a sink, Douglas said.

For the past six years, fires in dwellings with sprinklers have caused far less damage than fires in those without, according to fire department data.

Since July 1, fire damage in homes with sprinklers has averaged one fifth of the amount of damage in homes without sprinklers according to data from the fire department.

For the entire six-year period, damage in homes with sprinklers has averaged about $6,000, while damage in homes without them has averaged about $20,000, according to the data.

But minimizing damage is secondary to the main purpose, which is to save lives.

To read the full article click here.

By ERIN COX - HometownAnnapolis.com

In the wake of a deadly fire last week, Council Chairman Cathy Vitale has revived her plan to mandate a sprinkler system for every new home.

Ms. Vitale, R-Severna Park, introduced a bill Monday night that would expand the county’s sprinkler requirement to include all new single-family homes and duplexes, a move to protect both homeowners and firefighters, as well as the properties.

“When you look at the most recent death in Anne Arundel County related to a dwelling fire, it’s disheartening to hear that it could have been avoided if the home had sprinklers, which could have contained the fire in one room,” said Ms. Vitale, whose husband is a career firefighter with the county. “Sprinklers save lives. It is the simplest of messages.”

A 42-year-old man died Oct. 13 in an accidental home fire on Mace Road in the Bay Ridge area, the fourth fire-related death in Anne Arundel this year. The house did not have working smoke detectors or a sprinkler system, officials said.

Fire officials have been pressing the council for four years to make such a move. Home builders have traditionally opposed across-the-board sprinkler rules for cost reasons.

Ms. Vitale drafted similar legislation a year ago, calling for sprinklers in every new house, adding them to the list of buildings that already require them to pass building inspection. Sprinkler are already required for townhomes, commercial buildings and apartment complexes.

The bill was never introduced. Ms. Vitale said it was held up by the administration’s concerns about the bill’s technical requirements. County Executive John R. Leopold said this morning he has concerns about technical elements in the current legislation but still supports it.

“I would hope to work through those issues because the central public safety policy is sound,” Mr. Leopold said, adding. “There can be no greater priority than public safety.”

As Fire Safety Awareness Month rolled around again this month, Ms. Vitale had new arguments to bolster her bill this year. The International Code Council, which writes building safety codes widely used as a template for local jurisdictions, incorporated mandatory sprinklers into residential building codes last month.

Anne Arundel’s volunteer firefighters have been lobbying for four years for the county to incorporate sprinklers into the building code, said Craig Harman, president of the Anne Arundel County Volunteer Firefighters Association. He said he and seven other volunteers traveled to a September meeting of the International Code Council and helped pass the mandatory sprinkler bill.

To read the full article click here.

By Lew Sichelman - Los Angeles Times

Six people were in the St. Michaels, Md., house when the smoke alarm went off two summers ago. The sound woke one, who was a light sleeper, according to news reports. And she managed to rouse two of her friends. But three others died in the blaze.

The house was just outside the town limits of the Eastern Shore getaway, which had recently adopted an ordinance requiring all new homes to have a sprinkler system. Consequently, it didn’t have one.

Advocates of sprinkler systems say that sprinklers not only would have saved the lives of those three people but damage to the property would have been minimal.

It is the same argument sprinkler proponents have been using for years. And they’ve finally been heard.

In an overwhelming 1,283-470 vote late last month, the International Code Council (ICC) meeting in Minneapolis mandated that sprinklers be required in all one- and two-family homes and town houses built to the International Residential Code (IRC) as of Jan. 1, 2011.

Builders who have been adamantly opposed to sprinklers cried foul. After years of beating back sprinkler advocates, the deck was stacked against them this time when 900 fire officials showed up unexpectedly to vote for the proposal.

The National Assn. of Home Builders won’t talk about the decision. “We are not doing any interviews,” said public affairs representative Donna Reichle. But in the association’s weekly online member newsletter published shortly after the vote, Pinopolis, S.C., builder James Anderson, chairman of the NAHB’s Construction, Codes and Standards Committee, had this to say:

“We welcome the insight and experience that fire officials bring to the code-development process because our codes are focused on life-safety issues. However, it seems clear that these particular officials were focused on one issue only without the benefit of perspective regarding how such mandates jibe with hundreds of other code proposals considered at this hearing. That’s unfortunate, because such reasoned discussion is what the model-code process was designed to accomplish.”

In a statement to the media, NAHB President Sandy Dunn, a builder from West Virginia, said her members were not opposed to sprinklers per se. Rather, they are rankled by mandates “because the evidence is clear that [sprinklers] are not the right solution for every home.”

Even with the code council’s approval, the long-running battle over residential fire sprinklers is far from over because IRC codes aren’t enforceable until they are adopted by local jurisdictions.

“Our members will continue to advocate for cost-effective construction and life-safety measures through the model-code process,” Dunn said in her statement.

The sprinkler mandate will first appear in the 2009 IRC, which will be published by the end of the year. That gives states two full years to adopt the requirement. Forty-six states use the IRC as the basis for regulating residential construction.

The NAHB says its opposition isn’t about money. But isn’t it always about money?

Based on an average cost of $1.50 per square foot and an average house of 2,340 square feet, the typical sprinkler system would add $3,510 to the price of a typical house. And that’s not counting the usual 10% markup.

It’s a small price to pay, fire-safety advocates counter, to save just one life. “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,” Kaaren Mann, a Simpsonville, S.C., mother of a fire victim, reportedly testified at the ICC meeting.

The housing lobby favors hard-wired, interconnected smoke detectors, which are already in the building code, over sprinklers. The rules call for the alarms to be installed in every bedroom and on every floor.

Today, it’s estimated that more than 95% of all homes have smoke detectors. And fire-safety experts say they’ve been a godsend.

Fire deaths have declined dramatically over the last three decades as the detectors have become more common, they say. But they also offer up these sobering statistics: 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 blaze, according to the IRC Fire Sprinkler Coalition, an association of more than 100 fire services, building-code officials and safety organizations in 45 states.

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

To read the full article click here.

By Anna Simon - Greenville News

Two fires that destroyed much of a senior-living complex early Sunday have been ruled arson, Anderson Fire Chief Jack Abraham said Monday.

While investigators piece together clues from the scene, the American Red Cross in Anderson County is working to help residents who lost their homes in the fire find housing, said Mary Thomas, chief fundraising officer for the agency’s Upstate Chapter.

Residents of all 45 occupied units in the complex have had to leave their apartments, Abraham said. Utilities have been turned off because of the extent of the damage by fire, water and smoke, Abraham said.

An investigation by the state Law Enforcement Division Arson Tack Force and Anderson police and fire investigators has concluded that both fires at Heatherwood Apartments were arson, Abraham said.

Abraham said authorities believe the fires are connected, and asked that anyone with any information that may be helpful concerning the investigation of the fires call the Arson Hotline at 1-800-922-7766.

Firefighters responding to a 1:27 a.m. fire Sunday found magazines burning on a table in the lobby. A second fir that appears to have started on the second floor was reported at 4:35 a.m. Sunday and destroyed much of the complex, Abraham said.

Six residents were transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries, along with two police officers who suffered from smoke inhalation, Abraham said. Another 45 displaced residents were taken to a Red Cross shelter.

Many of the displaced residents are staying with family members, but others need assistance, Thomas said.

To read the full article click here.

Residents of Heatherwood Apartments in Anderson were homeless this morning after a “suspicious” fire destroyed much of senior-living complex early today.

The fire was reported at 4:35 a.m., just hours after firefighters had responded to another fire at the same building. City fire chief J