INDOOR FIRE SPRINKLERS
Despite overwhelming evidence that residential fire sprinklers save lives and property, they’re only present in 7% of home structure fires
According to NFSA The average expense to install sprinkler systems in new homes is about $1.35 per square foot. With the average construction cost of a single-family home at $114 per square foot in 2019, that’s paying a little more than 1% of a home’s value for 24/7 fire protection. When the expense is spread over a 30-year mortgage, it’s less than the price of a cup of coffee per week.
https://nfsa.org/2020/09/15/the-true-cost-to-install-a-residential-sprinkler-system/
( Note: That is cost to add sprinklers to new home while being built. To retrofit into existing homes can be $3 to $7 a Sq Ft. )
Please join our effort to make exterior sprinklers / home hardening / defensible landscaping mandatory in wildfire risk area in California and hopefully in all other States. Click Contact Us to leave message & your email address for updates and if you need a referral for a licensed & certified contrator for any of these fire preventive solutions for your home. Thank You !
The Residential Sprinkler Is Born
"Like so many modern fire-safety stories, it began in May 1973 with “America Burning,” the report issued by the National Commission on Fire Prevention and Control. The Commission was charged with studying the fire problem in the United States and making recommendations to reduce loss and improve safety. One key recommendation was that “the proposed U.S. Fire Administration support the development of the necessary technology for improved automatic extinguishing systems that would find ready acceptance by Americans in all kinds of dwelling units.” The report noted that residential sprinkler systems would save lives and reduce injuries from fire and reduce the direct and indirect costs of fire loss.
The same month “America Burning” was released, the NFPA Committee on Automatic Sprinklers appointed a subcommittee to develop NFPA 13D, Installation of Sprinkler Systems in One- and Two-Family Dwellings and Manufactured Homes. Life safety, rather than property protection, was a primary goal of the proposed standard, as was the need to make such systems affordable. Automatic sprinkler systems had been in existence since the late 1800s, but their use was primarily for industrial and commercial properties; the first edition of NFPA 13D, issued in 1975, was based on expert judgment and the extrapolation of the best information available at the time.
Prototype testing involved 60 fires, using both smoldering and flaming scenarios, initiated in the living room, kitchen, and second-floor bedroom. Data relating to gas levels and temperatures, as well as eye-level smoke obscuration, were recorded in each test. The data produced from the extensive testing conducted during this period informed the 1980 edition of NFPA 13D, a complete re-write from the previous edition.
With the publication of the second edition of NFPA 13D, however, no product had been listed for use specifically in a residential property. But quick-response residential sprinklers had been developed to put water on a fire faster than in a commercial or industrial property; the intent of these new systems was to control the fire with the cost-effective sprinkler configurations and the water resources available in a typical residential home, giving residents time to escape. In theory, the final step toward implementation was for these new residential sprinklers to receive the necessary listing. In April 1981, Grinnell Model F954 passed the requirements of UL 1626 and received the first listing as a residential sprinkler.
See Smoke Alarms page for important info and Richard Patton's fight to ban and recall dangerous ionization alarms.
THE DARK HISTORY OF THE FIRE PREVENTION INDUSTRY AND FIRE SPRINKLERS
California was the 1st State to mandate fire sprinklers for new homes. What happened after that goes to show that politics as usual is crooked as a cork screw and politicians votes can be bought and payed for by special interest groups. The 2 articles below clearly show why only 2 States California and Maryland and District of Columbia are the only ones to pass mandatory fire sprinkler legislation to date.
What has stopped mandatory exterior sprinkler legislation in light of all the destruction and devastation over the last 20 years ? Could it be special interest groups, politicians and others within the fire safety industry that make decisions about fire codes put $ over public safety as a group insurance companies behind NFPA had kept indoor sprinklers out of homes for over a century ? The articles below certainly suggest it is the likely reason !
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-fire-sprinkler-war-state-by-state
https://www.propublica.org/article/fire-fight-the-homebuilding-industry-war-on-sprinklers
The NFPA National Fire Protection Association who writes U.S. fire codes was established by a group of fire insurance companies in 1896 and wrote the 1st fire codes for commercial industrial buildings but kept sprinklers out of homes for over a century. Why ? According to Richard Patton the Fire Insurance Group put profits before peoples safety ! If all homes had fire sprinklers fire insurance would have become far less profitable for them and the Fire Sprinkler companies that installed them.