New Study Shows Fire Sprinkler Requirements Are Not Detrimental To Housing Starts
July 16th, 2009 by Residential Fire Sprinklers .com
A recently completed research report concluded that the presence of sprinkler ordinances has no negative impact on the number of homes being built. In fact, in the comparison of two sets of counties, the municipalities actually saw an increase in construction in the year after regulations became effective, compared to the adjacent counties without sprinkler ordinances.
Conducted by Newport Partners, Comparative Analysis of Housing Cost and Supply Impacts of Sprinkler Ordinances at the Community Level compared residential construction in suburban Anne Arundel and Prince George’s Counties, Maryland, and Montgomery County, Maryland, and Fairfax County, Virginia. Prince George’s County and Montgomery County have sprinkler requirements; Fairfax County and Anne Arundel County do not. The counties were selected based on their demographic matches to each other.
Newport Partner’s analysis was based on an extensive review of annual single-family building permits, the U.S. Census Bureau Surveys of Housing and Households, and analysis of local documents before and after sprinkler requirements were imposed. In addition, Newport conducted interviews with builders, trade association staff, and local government officials to provide insight into the housing landscape in these counties pre- and post-requirements. According to the report, “None of the statistical or interview information demonstrated that the requirements led to reduced housing supply.”
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 16th, 2009 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Blog, Fire Research, News. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.
October 4th, 2009 at 7:45 pm
i do believe this ordenece is a bad thing for people who own a house and want to remodel it . They require me to put them in my house of 60 years old . The public water system does not supply the correct pressure and the cost of adding the equipment is now a third of the coast of my remodel . I do believe this is a bad thing , and As I surch the web , I have found all the studies are done by and supported by sprinkler companies and I do believe we are not getting a good revieew . And they have not been around long enough to know if they are saving lives . Feel free to contact me any time .
November 13th, 2009 at 4:31 am
the reason for the sprinklers is an addition to a house provides more square fottage for disaster. The history of sprinklers goes back over a century and residential sprinklers almost 40 years in comparison seat belts have only been installed in cars for 30-40 years and baby car seats even less.
As far as the cost i agree it does add up. When it come to letting a homeowner choose between safety or cost the cash is always the winner it requires someone with the best interest of safety to make that decision. If forensics have not found so many well done people in houses with smoke detectors without batteries this conversation may not be taking place