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Good convincing arguments against Residential Fire Sprinkleres

Little_Guy

Little_Guy

REGISTERED
Joined
Oct 21, 2009
Messages
19
Location
SW Washington
All the talk and articles I have seen was in support for sprinkler systems in homes. I did find a article developed in 2008 from a company called Fire Smarts, LLC that made a statement that really sounded home the Fire Sprinkler issue for me. They said that in 2007 the residential fire sprinkler industry had a 100 million market. Then they said that it was time for the fire sprinkler industry to stand up and be prepared for the transformation that was going to happen when they finished the code changes for the IRC. The new estimated market potential was 3+ Billion. I am in the wrong business, I need to start a residential sprinkler company and get a part of that 3+ Billion.

As many of you may know, Washington State Building Code adoption process approved by the state legislature has adopted the 2009 I code Family. Instead of making a decision at the state level they moved the residential sprinkler section to the appendix sections of the code. Now we have to either agree with the overwhelming forces of the Fire Services or fight the fire sprinkler requirements at the local levels.

Local governmental bodies need to hear what he issues are and not the hype. I will enforce whatever my council adopts, but I want to make sure that they get all the right info.

Does anyone have any clear dissertations that discuss both pro and con or any con because there is lots of pro out there from the Fire Sprinkler Coalition.
 
Here's one consideration: [highlight]NFPA reports 99.45% survival rate with smoke alarms![/highlight]

Proponents of RFSS have summarily dismissed the age of a home as a contributing factor in their statistics. This takes improvements in smoke alarm provisions out of the equation.

Older homes are less likely to be equipped with multiple hard-wired interconnected smoke alarms as would be required today. Current code provisions for smoke alarms address previous issues identified with unreliable power supplies and lack of audibility in sleeping rooms.

Data from 2000 to 2004 was presented in a January 2008 NFPA report, though apparently not widely circulated:

The chances of surviving a reported home fire when working smoke alarms are present are 99.45%
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In 2000-2004, an average of 1,020 people per year (34% of the home structure fire fatalities) died in homes with working smoke alarms.
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Two-thirds of the smoke alarms in U.S. non-confined homes structure fires with this equipment were powered by batteries only. These fires resulted in 73% of the associated deaths. The 15% percent of incidents with hardwired smoke alarms with battery backup resulted in 10% of the deaths. The 14% of reported fires with smoke alarms that were hardwired only resulted in 12% of the deaths.
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Now that NFPA is reporting that working smoke alarms support a 99.45% survival rate in a house fire, then the potential improvement to life safety by adding RFSS is about half-a-percent.
 
I almost hesitate to say this but... Cost must be discussed. To quote any single figure for the cost of installation for the whole country is insane. The national average per square foot to build a single family dwelling in our jurisdiction had to be modified by +17.6%. So do some research to see if it will cost $2.68 or $6.00 a Sq. Ft. in your jurisdiction. It may certainly may make a difference in the decision at any level of government.
 
peach, I have to disagree. The national debate may be over but at the state, county, and municipal level the debate is still going on.
 
Many places are writing it out of their adoption process....the more costly it becomes, the less politically attractive it is... (oh in places where you are on a well.. so you need a generator.. and an automatic transfer switch)..

I don't like seeing them mandatory.. I don't disagree that they may be a good idea
 
I was trying to delay raising the volatile cost-issue, and express the level of safety already built-into the codes. However, cost must be a consideration; to that end, a cost analysis is reached at the bottom of this entry with links to referenced data.

Based on the average of 375,200 reported house fires per year and 0.55 deaths per 100 fires in homes with smoke alarms, we could anticipate 2,064 home fire fatalities per year if every home had a working smoke alarm. The report identifies that 73% of those deaths occurred in homes with battery-powered smoke alarms only. We can assume that these would not be interconnected such that occupants in bedrooms may not have been alerted.

That leaves 557 annual home fire fatalities (2,064 x (100%-73%)) who died in homes with hardwired-interconnected smoke alarms. Assuming every new home meets current code requirements for smoke alarms, this should be the number that installing RFSS in new homes could begin to impact nationwide.

US Census data indicates an inventory of approximately 94,992,034 single-family homes (129,065,264 x (100%-26.4%)) and a population of about 307,006,550. Based on the current fatality rate of about 2,970 per year in residential fires, that equates to about 3.1 deaths per 100,000 homes annually, or approximately 1.0 per 100,000 people in the US population. Imagine if every home had hardwired smoke alarms, that number would be expected drop to around 0.6 fatalities per 100,000 homes and 0.2 per 100,000 people.

For perspective, compare those numbers to NHTSA data for last year:

12.25 deaths per 100,000 population

14.47 deaths per 100,000 registered vehicles, and

17.89 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers.

Despite the greater risk accepted by the public with vehicle travel, it is still a tough choice knowing that about 557 people could potentially be saved annually by installing RFSS in every home. Maybe people should enjoy a greater safety in their home than on the road, but at what cost?

The value of life can be considered at $129,000 per year of life or $1.54M, which correlates to about 30 years when comparing these two independent sources - seems reasonable.

So, then we could say the value of saving 557 lives is $858 million dollars. Divide that by the figures reported in the Washington State assessment of barriers to voluntarily installing sprinklers of $1.50 to $8.50/SF and we can buy 101.0 to 572.5M SF of RFSS protection. Based on an average home size of 2,519SF, that would allow for 40,108 to 227,280 homes to have sprinkler systems installed annually. That would not even cover half of the half the homes being built in a year, as the US completed nearly500,000 homes last year, over 1 Million in 2007, and around 1.5 Million in the years prior.

Sprinkler protection for 500,000 homes at 2,519SF using the low-ball estimate of $1.50/SF across the board equals nearly $1.9 Billion dollars. If we rebound to pre-2007 construction rates, the cost of sprinklers nationwide could range from $5.6 Billion at $1.50/SF to $32.1 Billion at $8.50/SF.

Based on this analysis, the cost exceeds the perceived savings such that RFSS does not appear to make economic sense. Certainly persons desiring RFSS should be able to install them voluntarily, but a mandatory requirement is not cheap insurance.
 
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I was trying to delay raising the volatile cost-issue, and express the level of safety already built-into the codes. However, cost must be a consideration; to that end, a cost analysis is reached at the bottom of this entry with links to referenced data.

Based on the average of 375,200 reported house fires per year and 0.55 deaths per 100 fires in homes with smoke alarms, we could anticipate 2,064 home fire fatalities per year if every home had a working smoke alarm. The report identifies that 73% of those deaths occurred in homes with battery-powered smoke alarms only. We can assume that these would not be interconnected such that occupants in bedrooms may not have been alerted.

That leaves 557 annual home fire fatalities (2,064 x (100%-73%)) who died in homes with hardwired-interconnected smoke alarms. Assuming every new home meets current code requirements for smoke alarms, this is the number that installing RFSS in new homes could begin to impact nationwide.

US Census data indicates an inventory of approximately 94,992,034 single-family homes (129,065,264 x (100%-26.4%)) and a population of about 307,006,550. Based on the current fatality rate of about 2,970 per year in residential fires, that equates to about 3.1 deaths per 100,000 homes annually, or approximately 1.0 per 100,000 people in the US population. Imagine if every home had hardwired smoke alarms, that number would be expected drop to around 0.6 fatalities per 100,000 homes and 0.2 per 100,000 people.

For perspective, compare those numbers to NHTSA data for last year:

12.25 deaths per 100,000 population

14.47 deaths per 100,000 registered vehicles, and

17.89 deaths per 100,000 licensed drivers.

Despite the greater risk accepted by the public with vehicle travel, it is still a tough choice knowing that about 557 people could potentially be saved annually by installing RFSS in every home. Maybe people should enjoy a greater safety in their home than on the road, but at what cost?

The value of life can be considered at $129,000 per year of life or $1.54M, which correlates to about 30 years when comparing these two independent sources - seems reasonable.

So, then we could say the value of saving 557 lives is $858 million dollars. Divide that by the figures reported in the Washington State assessment of barriers to voluntarily installing sprinklers of $1.50 to $8.50[/url]/SF and we get 101.0 to 572.5M SF. Based on an average home size of 2,519SF, that would allow for 40,108 to 227,280 homes to have sprinkler systems installed annually. Unfortunately, the US generally completed nearly500,000 homes last year, over 1 Million in 2007, and around 1.5 Million in the years prior.

Sprinkler protection for 500,000 homes at 2,519SF using the low-ball estimate of $1.50/SF across the board equals nearly $1.9 Billion dollars. If we rebound to pre-2007 construction rates, the cost of sprinklers nationwide could range from $5.6 Billion at $1.50/SF to $32.1 Billion at $8.50/SF.

Based on this analysis, the cost exceeds the perceived savings such that RFSS does not appear to make economic sense. Certainly persons desiring RFSS should be able to install them voluntarily, but a mandatory requirement is not cheap insurance.
 
Aegis, sorry about the cost factor this early in the discussion. But anybody that discounts cost needs a little reality check. Cost is just one point and I hope this thread will stay with the OP. jp
 
A good argument is the cost of water service, when I challenges the water district raising their rates the district manager told me: "Well if the sprinkler industry can make billions on this we ought to be able to make a few million, we need money too." Most of my building has been homes from 5,000 to 10,000 square feet in Zone 3, so I guess my meter installation charges would be $135,880, where's Homer when we need him?

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First you need to establish a need for fire sprinklers in residential dwellings. Since the inception of required smoke detectors in residential dwellings, how many deaths have you had in your jurisdiction in homes that were equiped with working smoke detectors? You will probably have to gather this info on your own because NFPA and the sprinkler industry have convienently not collected this info. They will cite some bogus reason for the information not being relevant but in the end the "need" for sprinklers is all about the obscene amount of money the sprinkler industry will make. As an example in my jurisdiction of 20,000+ citizens their have been zero deaths in homes constructed since smoke detectors became mandatory in new construction.
 
Residential dwellings cover a wide variety of buildings. What about the vacation home or hunting cabin that might be occupied one month of the year? Does the NFPA standard even allow deactivating such a system when the building is not occupied? If so, how do we ascertain that it will be re-activated later? I don't believe that there are any such exceptions in the IRC.
 
After further consideration of the economic analysis offered above, it fails to provide a complete picture as to the human toll.

The cost of residential fires to human life was too low, considering only the value attributed to a life, not the cost of care prior to death or the cost of care for injuries that may be prevented with RFSS.

Therefore, the actual cost of burn fatalities should be higher. If about $1,720 average for fires in homes with RFSS, multiplied by 172,700 fires would be about $300 Million. This would net a savings of about $5.2 Billion per year in property losses if every home had RFSS.

Adding the $3.6 Billion we arrive at $8.8 Billion dollars to be saved annually, considering human and property damages from fire. That appears to pencil based on the current annual estimate of $6.3 Billion to put sprinklers in every new home. Except, as there are many more homes without sprinklers, there may be little to no savings realized for years. And, if construction of new homes picks up again, it’s not hard for the numbers to be upside down again if annual installation costs of RFSS grows to $12.6 or $18.9 Billion.

So, when considering property damage the costs may somewhat seem to align. However, this is on a global scale. Every new home is paying the cost of its new sprinkler system, and may or may not ever experience a fire. Further, the lender on my home loan requires that I carry insurance – so sprinklers or not, the home is, in some manner, protected.

If the issue is solely life safety, the decision to not adopt RFSS legislation seems justifiable, both from an economic perspective and given that a residential fire survival rate of 99.45% is already achieved with smoke alarms.
 
The best argument against residential sprinklers is the Canada Mortgage & Housing Study of 1998 still stands as to the effectiveness of money spent, this was confirmed in a followup study in 2005

The best argument for sprinklers is that homes built with roof trusses, I Joists, or one of many forms of styrofoam are so flammable and can collapse so easily and quickly that sprinklers should be required if any of those three materials are used in the construction of homes.

 
Based on the current fatality rate of about 2,970 per year in residential fires, that equates to about 3.1 deaths per 100,000 homes annually,
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500,000 homes last year, over 1 Million in 2007, and around 1.5 Million in the years prior[/url].
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Sprinklers would be installed in new homes only so that would equate to saving only 46.5 lives. Sprinklers will not save lives in the existing 85 to 90 million homes that do not have them.
 
Great article Conarb! MLCabin, I think it would be even less than 46.5 in year 1.

The lengthy analysis above assumes an infinite number of years into the future when all homes were equipped with RFSS. This was to offer the "best-case-scenario" and limit the proponent's challenge that if this approach were not applied, no advances to provisions may ever be undertaken due to the cost to implement the change.

Regarding year 1: With 95 million homes, where 1 million of those are new, that's about 1.05% of the homes in the nation being new with RFSS. So, of the 202,500 fires where sprinklers could have prevented injury x 1.05%, 2,131 would be new and have sprinklers. Based on an injury rate of 38.5 per 1,000 fires, requiring sprinklers in every new home in the nation could theoretically reduce the number of injuries from house fires nationally by 82 people in year 1.

Using a fatality rate of 2.75 per 1,000 fires (557 persons in 202,500 fires) to represent the number that could be saved by sprinklers, where 2,131 of those homes would have sprinklers, that would save about 6 lives in year 1 at a cost of just over $1,000,000,000.00 ($1 Billion) per life saved.
 
There is an excellent argument that the requirement for them could actually DECREASES safety. Take the documented facts related to deaths in homes with proper moden alarms--more houses being built with modern alarms brings overall safety up. Now if we add the cost of sprinklers to the already high cost of construction, how many people are now eliminated from purchasing a new home which trickles down, surpressing building and keeping more of the oldest housing stock (without good alarms and other accepted safety factors) being occupied as opposed to removed or renovated? In other words, if the added cost keeps more people in substandard houses (maybe older mobile homes as well), it has not added to saftety--it has actually taken away from it.
 
Falls are the leading cause of death in homes.

If "safety" was the primary goal, building codes would have required padded flooring before they required fire sprinklers.
 
To take this discussion in a slightly different direction: what would it cost for all those 'old' homes to be retrofitted with inter-connected hard-wired smoke detectors?

The reason I ask: the IRC requires that remodels and additions have hard-wired inter-connected smoke detectors installed, if it is accessible to do so. Otherwise they can use battery operated smoke detectors.

How many building officials actually require the hard-wired inter-connected smoke detectors in remodels and additions when 'it will cost too much'? When do you force compliance as opposed to enforce the code requirements? Just asking.
 
We require it in existing construction when the attic can be used to to comply, but that doesn't help if it is a multi-story structure.
 
Yes We require the retrofit for hardwired & interconnected smokes in remodels, when accessible, and will accept battery power smokes when not. I believe this is the ICC's way to get more smoke detection into existing homes. The cost is reaesonable compared to sprinklers.

How often do you hear the local newscaster say "The house was not equipped with smoke alarms" or "Smoke alarms were not working" when reporting on the latest house fire?
 
Thank you mtlogcabin. Even the more expensive wireless would probably be less expensive than paying the electrician to run the wires! Excellent rebuttal now for the 'I can't afford it' argument.
 
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