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New home burns built 2019, man dies

You have to give credit to the NFPA for their ability to push their message.

While loss of any life is regrettable we need to appreciate that there will always be some lives lost due to fire. Then the question is where do we draw the line? Influencing the answers are a number of economic and political considerations.

With regards to the economic tradeoffs are somebody will inevitably say that you cannot put a value on human life and from a moral perspective that is likely, but the reality is that when we adopt laws we often implicitly, by our actions, place a value on human lives. What I do not hear from the NFPA is any recognition of this reality.

The report of one instance of a loss of life due to fire does not prove anything.
 
Mark K said:
What I do not hear from the NFPA is any recognition of this reality.
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That would be political and business suicide. “Our goal is to save the life of everyone who can afford to implement all of our regulations”.
 
Correction their goal is to impose their ideal on everybody.

If by "engineered, lightweight construction materials" you mean the typical engineered wood trusses commonly used in house construction consider the implications of the alternates.

One of the things that California is concerned about is the availability of reasonably priced housing. So if in order to reduce deaths due to fires to 0 we increase cost of housing which implies more homeless individuals. But a homeless person has a higher likelihood of dying. So is an individual who dies in a fire worth more than the death of a homeless person.

The real problem is a failure to talk about these tradeoffs.
 
Mark K said:
Correction their goal is to impose their ideal on everybody.

If by "engineered, lightweight construction materials" you mean the typical engineered wood trusses commonly used in house construction consider the implications of the alternates.

One of the things that California is concerned about is the availability of reasonably priced housing. So if in order to reduce deaths due to fires to 0 we increase cost of housing which implies more homeless individuals. But a homeless person has a higher likelihood of dying. So is an individual who dies in a fire worth more than the death of a homeless person.

The real problem is a failure to talk about these tradeoffs.
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We use CMU construction with metal studs and often roofs are concrete in SFRs so one size does not fit all.
 
Today’s homes burn hotter and faster because of unprotected lightweight construction and modern furnishings.

There's your most likely culprit, furnishings. Instead of solid wood and cotton or wool, you have plastic throughout. And yes, lightweight construction.
 
The issue I always have with the SFD sprinkler issue is that I really question how many of the systems will be still in working order after 10 years.

This is not a single solution problem. Sprinklers are just one of many solutions. Others include more sophisticated detection and alarm systems and encapsulating lightweight building materials.

I think all of us would agree, the best solutions are the ones that require no interaction by the building occupant.

I'm reminded of when I was an energy advisor working for the federal government here in Canada. Mechanical ventilation systems have been required here for some time and most of the homes I went into had theirs turned off. Their reason? It's too expensive. The funny thing was, these were all heat recovery ventilators. Most of them cost around $100 a year to operation (both operate the fans and re-temper the outside air). These people usually had major issues with indoor air quality. In a couple of cases, they had serious issues with mold. So, they spent about $5,000 each to save the $100 a year. People don't make good decisions. People will defeat the operation of sprinklers or simply will allow them to fall into dis-repair, resulting in expensive systems that do absolutely nothing.

I feel it is most important to understand what the problem is that we are trying to solve. Is it that the house and contents burned? No. We can build a new house and for the most part, you can buy more stuff. It is the loos of life that is the issue. As Mark pointed out, it is very unlikely that we can prevent all deaths in buildings.

When we broached the issue of sprinklers in SFDs here, we looked at the most recent major additions to the code: energy efficiency. Before this section made it into the code, we had numerous people constructing energy efficient homes, so we knew there was a perceived value. Sprinklers on the other hand? Not a single one. I had houses built by firefighters on their days off. Houses built for fire fighters. One even built for the deputy chief of the fire department. Not a single house had a sprinkler in it. But these same people turned around and told us this should be a requirement. How can I inform my elected officials that this should be enacted if the people who are pushing for it do not do it?
 
Our local fire marshal likes to quote "no one has ever died from fire in a house that had sprinklers." Don't know if it's true but it sounds good. He also likes to tell the story of a local body shop that fought the addition of sprinklers in his new shop. He lost that fight and installed the sprinklers. A few years later some careless employees left some rags piled up and overnight they spontaneously combusted and caused a fire. Sprinklers put it out and saved his million dollar shop. He called later to thank the department for requiring the sprinklers.

Also factor in the difference in cost of insurance. There's a significant discount in insurance if the building is sprinklered.
 
I have been to waaaayyyyy more frozen and exploded sprinkler pipes than successful activations.....I'm not anti-, I just want all of the data to take part in the decision making process....
 
My limited understanding of sprinkler systems has me questioning why you can install a sprinkler system in a SFD and are not required to have it annually inspected, but all the areas around here require that all buildings with public access with sprinklers are required to be inspected annually.

Having lived 85% of my life with a private well and septic, well has 3 gallon a minute max, not sure what good it is going to do when you don't have the supply to run it, yes I get the fire service can connect a pumper, but 1,100 sqft ranch.

The same goes for the NJ IRC modification adding & requiring R314.7.5 Monitoring service.

NJ does not require 110 interconnect smokes to be maintained or monitored, however if the homeowner has a fire alarm system installed, the modified building code now requires the system to be maintained and monitored per NFPA 72.
 
At present I have a person seeking a home in my jurisdiction. He happens to be one of our larger fire sprinkler contractors. I have know him a long time. I joked that he could be the first to have a fire spinklered home and he said he will do it. Knowing he will be on a well I joked with him asking if the tank would be part of the interior decorating!

The lot he is considering is just across the street from the CMU Block contractor who built his home out of a new insulated block product.

I think I would rather have the block one.
 
tbz said:
My limited understanding of sprinkler systems has me questioning why you can install a sprinkler system in a SFD and are not required to have it annually inspected, but all the areas around here require that all buildings with public access with sprinklers are required to be inspected annually.
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The state and almost all jurisdictions have not adopted the IFC in PA so commercial building sprinklers also lack codes for annual inspections.
 
I think in addition to all of the above comments we should consider whether the sprinkler system actually activated? Response time of fire department? Existing water pressure for the sprinkler system? And like everything else in life there are probably many other things that come into play here that i just can't think of off the top of my head.
 
I have seen way too many systems that did not get maintained. some were years of no inspections. We also see sprinkler systems that fail from corrosion, damage, etc. and the water damage often is huge. Just this year alone I know of 3 commercial facilities that had non-fire discharge of froze broken piping resulting in water damage.

Oh and we had several instances of autos crashing into buildings! (that's where we need the brick and mortar)
 
steveray said:
NFPA research shows that the risk of dying in a reported home fire is about 80 percent lower where sprinklers are present......Yep

Last I checked it was 99.62% survival with HW smoke and CO 99.88% when you add sprinklers....0.38% to 0.12%...80% lower....Don't you love statistics....
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Source please of your statistics.
 
The intent of residential sprinklers to afford the occupants extra time to exit the dwelling in the event of a fire whereas, NFPA 13 and 13R systems are designed to protect the occupants and contents. Even among fire marshals their is confusion. I have seen several allow new developments to install residential sprinklers instead of storage tanks for the fire department to draw water from.

The other big issue is water companies. Many are requiring a separate dedicated feed for the residential sprinklers, which is not required by the IRC or NFPA 13D. The main driving factor for the dedicated feed is liability in the event they need to shut the water off to the residents.
 
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