Automatic fire sprinklers

Prewires are pretty common in new construction these days. A relative bought an entry level home a couple of years ago that came with it, as did the last (somewhat higher level) house I had built. The spinkler system has an independent bell tied to a flow switch. I added a relay and brought it into the house alarm.

Reply to
Robert Neville
Loading thread data ...

,

Just read a statistic in a trade magazine ( I don't know the source) One in four residences have an alarm system of some sort. I don't know what they mean by "sort".

Reply to
Jim

Ok... First off Bob, we are all talking about an additional system on a home which will cost all of maybe $10,000 maximum on an average sized home... If you can not afford that cost on a home which will preserve lives and the home itself in the future and would rather be spending it on a fancier bathroom or kitchen, then you really should be living in a high rise tower with small brick lined rooms and an elevator ride of two minutes up and down...

It is NOT an immediate out of pocket expense to most people as they have a mortgage to build the house in the first place...

Second, fighting a fire costs a LOT more than the $10,000 a residential fire suppression system would cost... Think of a small town which has four fire apparatus... For a big enough fire they would all be at that one house dealing with it... That is an awful lot of water being pumped and diesel fuel to power the pumps... Now your community may have a mutual aid agreement with nearby communities to cover the now empty firehouses or to send additional manpower to a working fire, but that costs quite a bit of money for each truck sent by a neighboring community... Equipment and hoses are frequently worn out or damaged in fighting fires so that can add to the cost as all of that equipment must be replaced for your fire department to be at full functioning capacity...

So why shouldn't the government place a tiny portion of the burden of the costs of such work on the owner of the home by requiring automatic fire sprinklers be installed in homes... The fact that it will cost LESS to finish putting out any fires which have spread to the attics or roofs of fire sprinkler equipped homes and overhaul them AND that such systems will SAVE LIVES isn't enough for you, you feel that there should be no requirements at all...

As for your Oakland Bay Bridge babbling bull, that bridge is older than 50 years... Construction started in 1933, and the bridge was modified in 1989 after another span collapsed during the Loma Prieta earthquake... Could it be that a 70-something year old bridge which has a high maintenance cost and a history of span failure even AFTER it was structurally upgraded more than 20 years ago should be replaced to make traveling over the Oakland Bay Bridge? You also neglected to mention in your "analysis" that 42 people were killed on a newer structure which was built starting in 1955 which totally collapsed in that same area... Yeah, the Cypress Street Viaduct killed many people in

1989 and it is connected to the Bay Bridge so to say that the highway system over in that area is what it needs to be safety-wise, you are full of it... So should CalTrans just take the risk that another major earthquake won't occur and pancake the entire eastern span of the Bay Bridge and have a major insurance loss in the Billions of dollars range for the structure, never mind the wrongful death and property loss claims for the thousands of cars and people who were killed when the whole thing gave way? Seriously, get a clue... Just because you see no logic to something, that doesn't mean that it isn't there -- just that you are UNABLE to see it past your biases and ignorance...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

,

That is a piss poor excuse... Do you have door locks on your doors in small-town Midwest too? Or is the town so small and safe that everyone would be on red alert the moment a strange car pulled off the main road at the blinking traffic signal at the one intersection?

Wow... Sadly the ridiculous things that are being offered as challenges and/or excuses against requiring automatic fire sprinklers in homes are surprising me... Which shouldn't, I mean airbags became a requirement in cars because people were failing to use the seatbelts... In many accidents the combination of airbag and seatbelt will save your life...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

Good point, about bridge availability.

But the probability of the entire bridge failing is small. Plus California has speciality contractors that excel at putting bridges & freeways back into service VERY quickly.

You can buy a lot of "down time" for $10 billion.

And you have to factor in the probability of failure over time (ie probability of failure on a per year basis)

cheers Bob

Reply to
DD_BobK

Evan-

What a pleasant reply......my point was, cost of systems (all of them) vs number of lives saved; that is $ per life saved.

Instead of insults, how about commenting on the numbers.

Instead of $10 billion on a new bridge, how about a less expensive bridge (less of a showpiece) , safe but more cost effective?

btw I worked on CalTrans research projects for years. I know the bridge designers at CalTrans in Sac. I also know that the politicians had WAY too much influence on the project, it was not driven by safety & structural engineering.

Instead of overspending on this particular bridge design, how about another lane on the 5 between LA & SF? That might save way more lives..... year after year.

Or individual safety upgrades throughout the state; tree removals, extra guard rails, crash barriers.

My point is...... expenditures do not take place in a vacuum.

Fire sprinklers MIGHT be a wise expenditure but maybe there are other choices that will save more lives for less money.

cheers Bob

Reply to
DD_BobK

Evan-

Now to consider the economic costs of fire sprinklers in new construction.

Before the "Great Housing Boom & Bust", the US built about 500,000 new homes per year.

At $5k to $10k per house for fire sprinklers we're talking about $2.5 billion to $5 billion per year. Yes, the cost is financed over 30 years but it is still capital ( the money was borrowed, someone loaned it) that could be applied to other uses in society.

According to the CDC numbers ~2500 people are killed in house fires in the US every year. Most people live in the "old homes", so how many of these 2500 people will be saved by this switch in new construction?

So what is the cost per life saved?

btw good luck suing the state of California for "wrong death" because a bridge or freeway falls on someone. The number of people killed by freeways & bridges over time is vanishingly small.

Spending money on "low return" so called "life saving" schemes is the real tragedy.

Technology like smoke detectors is way more cost effective, as are other potential ideas.

Do you think that air bags are a good thing? And cost effective?

formatting link

cheers Bob

Reply to
DD_BobK

$10,000. may seem like no big deal to those who can afford a new home your right they will spend 40k on a kitchen but what you are effectively doing is killing the ability to obtain a lower end house they are now out of range for exactly the people who need the protection in the first place instead of being able to afford a home they must settle for an old home or trailer home with all its problems instead of possibly knocking down an old home and rebuilding and living in a safe new home. like I said what have we been doing to protect those in older homes when it comes to affordable options to protect them jack Shit. Habitat for humanity has to cut down how many homes they can build every year because of all the new requirements. so 3- 5 family's each year in a city which has habitat which would have had a safe new home do not. Check the stats on how many low end new homes have been built since ICC went into effect in many states.

Reply to
nick markowitz

Nick,

Did you imagine when you started this thread it would explode into so much conversation?? And did you notice that we have a lot more lurkers that have now decided to participate??

It just boggles the mind some times. ( @@ )

And for my .02 cents on the topic. I have seen the CONTROLLED video of a fire with out sprinklers and then with. And yes it is impressive. The problem I see is that fire does not always do it the Controlled way. Sprinklers will only help is certain situations, not all.

The problem as I see it is that it will take another 40 years in order to get enough stats to decide if the decisions that were made in 2010 were actually a good cost effective thing to do. Right now the decision was based mostly on projections of what it would be IF. I would think it would have been by far better if the law would have read like this. ================================================ Sprinklers in new homes are a voluntary install. If you voluntarily decide to install there will be a tax incentive to do so or $XXX.00. If you choose not to install there will be a small tax that will be applied to a escrow account that will help all Fire Departments in your state or you local area. ================================================ I know my wordage is not the best (not going to spend the time to use my legal format) but you should get the idea.

That would be a law that I could support. Clean, simple and effective. Unlike what was done which for the most part once again crammed it down the throat of the Pennsylvania people. Oh, then there is the thought that maybe this is a way of "job creation" that they keep talking about.

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

Not really. There are a number of places (ATL for instance) where residential sprinklers have been mandated since at least the 80s. For certain things (high-rises, nursing homes, hospitals and other places where the fire strategy is "defend in place" we have numbers from the early 1900s. All of the studies show (1) less damage- water, fire and smoke (2) NO-- as in not a single) multiple fatality fires (3) fires are kept small and often put out before the FD gets there (4). only the head(s) closest to the fire are set off and (5). the chances of accidental discharge a vanishingly small (and usually secondary to bad installation instead of the head itself). The question that is really at the center is the risk/benefit analysis comparing savings with costs of installation and upkeep. That I don't have a good answer for.

Reply to
Kurt Ullman

? "Evan" wrote

Right, it is not an immediate out of pocket expense, it is a finance payment that will be huge over time. On a 30 year mortgage at 4%, that is $47.47 for 360 months or $17,186. Adding that much to the cost of a home can be devastating to the small house market for lower incomes.

Multiply $10000 times the number of houses in the town. Is that not greater than the cost of fighting a few fires every year? While you may be able to justify the cost over one house, you cannot over an entire town.

Because it is not a tiny cost and putting sprinklers in every house would not eliminate the fire department. They still need that equipment and people to operate it. Put some real numbers together and lets talk. Right now you are blowing silly scenarios out your ass with no facts to back it up.

The fact that it will cost LESS to finish putting

Let's see the numbers. I have doubts, but I'm sure you can remove them.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Bullshit... Airbags are supplemental, they work best when deployed on someone who is belted in...

They will stop you from hitting the steering wheel and windshield if you aren't wearing your seat belt...

Seat belt laws don't *MAKE* people wear them, even when it is a primary offense that the police could make a traffic stop if they observe you not belted in...

Airbags are not just there to make it easier on the people properly wearing seat belts, they are a last ditch effort to save the idiotic who don't wear belts too...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

Ok Ed,

If someone can not afford an extra $18k when building a house, they should be building a house... They should be living in the public project housing in a nasty city on welfare...

I hear people piss and moan about houses and the market, too many idiotic people bought "investment properties" with not one clue how to either "invest" nor rent them out...

Don't cry over the market -- you are supposed to buy a house because you want to live there for a very long time, not because you want to upgrade to the next biggest and best thing when you have paid down your mortgage enough to have 20% down on another house you aren't able to afford...

Buy a house that you can afford and live within your means, not a house which has a mortgage payments you can't really afford if you were honest, those 2 shiny new leased cars in the garage/driveway and the lastest and greatest shiny electronic toys...

~~ Evan

Reply to
Evan

:

You keep missing the point, if someone wants a house full of sprinklers or a car with airbags and seatbelts fine but don't have the government mandate it

Reply to
mleuck

If you look at the legislative history of the airbag you will see that you are wrong. In 1977, when President Carter appointed former Ralph Nader lobbyist Joan Claybrook to head the NHTSA. Claybrook actively sought to establish an effective safety restraint law and her efforts partially paid off when Transportation Secretary Brock Adams ordered all new cars to have automatic safety belts **OR**air bags by 1984.(This was also called the passive restraint law because of the either mandate where the driver/occupants did not have to do too much more than just sit in the seat. (emphasis mine). After a little hooha under Reagan, (State Farm vs Auto Mfrs Assoc) the Department of Transportation issued new regulations ordering Auto producers to install air bags between 1986 and 1989. But it left one loophole: If, by

1989, states comprising two thirds of the US population implemented mandatory seat-belt use, the federal regulation would not apply. (In other words if there were mandatory seat belt laws, then there was no need for airbags). IN '91 Bush the Senior signed a law saying airbags would be mandatory in a couple of years, of course by then, most automakers were offering them as standard for marketing reasons. It was known, FYI,
Reply to
Kurt Ullman

seat belts, they are a last ditch effort to save the idiotic who don't wear belts too...

Reply to
DD_BobK

Evan-

So everyone should live their lives according to the plan that you endorse?

cheers Bob

Reply to
DD_BobK

? "Evan" wrote

There are people like that, but there are many hard working people buying or building modest homes that plan to live in them for life and $48 a month extra is difficult. I can not only name you a half dozen families in that category, I can also show you their unburned houses that have never had a fire.

I agree, Evan, but not everyone lives like that. Building a 5000 sq. ft. McMansion? Perhaps a fire abatement system is not a big deal, but for a modest two bedroom ranch house, it is. There have been many houses built like that over the years. How about Habitat for Humanity houses?

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

The problem is community's that have run these model sprinkler programs have good water supply relatively flat etc etc. which makes a big difference I can look out my window and I am even with water tank on hill what kind of pressure you think we have here. They always cite this community outside philly with sprinklers again a flat community with all new 18" water lines Then you have to wonder how many systems are actually still turned on after first hard freeze I will bet at least 20% will not work. but as usual no one wants to talk about it it is always rosy glasses. guess there going to have to find out 20 years out what bad mistakes where made. just like with this new pex pipe looks great now what about 20 years from now.

Reply to
nick markowitz

here want to see some code double talk here is a comment on new arc fault protection they ant put into old wiring which actually provides no protection

From Electrical contracting magazine Analysis: As aging wiring systems become more of a concern in the electrical industry, the Code is taking a proactive approach to providing protection of these systems. Many areas of a dwelling require the use of AFCI protection in an effort to help avoid electrical fires. When AFCIs were first introduced into the NEC, the substantiation for their inclusion was based largely on electrical fires in older homes. With the inception of these devices, the Code began protecting new and future wiring systems but didn=92t address the older ones that contained many of the fires discussed in the AFCI arguments. This change expands the AFCI requirements to older homes. Because these older homes often don=92t contain an equipment grounding conductor, installation of an AFCI circuit breaker does very little in the way of protecting the branch circuits. The receptacle-type AFCIs also provide a significantly lower level of protection, but they will be required, nonetheless.

Reply to
nick markowitz

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.