And you thought some of the English building regs were OTT?

[John Rumm]

[Andy Burns]

[ARWadsworth]

a.. Dependable Sprinklers not only warn of a fire, they also act immediately to control it - even if no body is present.

Should that not say "no one"?

[Nightjar]

buildings so that it could save the cost of maintaining its fire department.

Colin Bignell

[Cash]

John,

As one who over the years has been involved in repairing several fire damaged dwellings (two with fatalities) [1], I think that sprinklers in dwellings are a bloody good idea, and is one of those where the value of fitting them could well far outweigh the costs in lives saved and reduced injuries. As for the builders shouting about the costs, they will recoupe these simply by increasing the cost of their houses from eye-watering to larcency with the extortionate profits they make on them.

Now if they could legislate for householders to have some training in how a dwelling fire develops when doors are left open at night, along with the very high temperatures created, and how to escape from a burning building, that would be a bonus - but then the shoutsof a "nanny state" would be very loud!

[1] Some of the sights I've seen have been horrendous, and I have a great respect for those professionals that fight the things (and a great awareness instilled in myself and family).

All the best

Cash

Who will now climb down from his high-horse after leaving many of his thoughts on the subject left unsaid.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

I'm fitting sprinklers in my gaff and it's not so much to save my life, although that's important enough; it's so that I don't have to stand at the side of the road watching my house burn to the ground while the local volunteer fire brigade get their act together. I don't mind clearing up some water damage - who gives a s**te about that if the majority of the house is intact.

[David WE Roberts]

It doesn't, of course, say how many of the casualties in the statistics for current deaths were in modern houses, and how many were in old, poorly maintained, overcrowded substandard housing.

From the figures quoted - 36 lives out of a potential 153 - they seem to expect nearly a quarter of the fires and consequent fatalities to be in new builds or conversions. I assume there is the assumption that a sprinkler system will eliminate fires altogether?

Does this mean that new homes are very dangerous, that they expect the housing stock to increase by about a quarter over the next 9 years, or that they are optimising the statistics?

Cheers

Dave R

[Tony Bryer]

Control, not eliminate. My understanding - I might be wrong - is that domestic sprinklers sprinkle rather than dowse. I've got them in my flat, but it is a 43-storey tower. If a sprinkler is set off the fire brigade gets notified automatically - serious money fine if it's your carelessness.

Where I do think sprinklers should be mandatory is in multi-dwelling timber frame buildings. Do I believe that all the required fire stopping is incorporated at the time of construction? No - and if when you do an inspection as a BCO it's missing, what about all the work done between inspections. Will electricians and plumbers doing later alterations pull it out of the way if necessary, yes. Will someone who has taken a fancy to new concealed downlights worry about making holes in the ceiling that is meant to provide fire protection to the flat above? On a good day perhaps.

[Fredxx]

That's the whole problem you don't seem to get. A lot less than £6.7m could be spent in saving one person in other fields. Town bypasses could be just one. I'm sure others here will come up with other suggestions.

[David WE Roberts]

Edited to make it slightly clearer. I note neither of the sprinkler enthusiasts actually tried to answer the question about how reliable the statistics were.

The obvious point being that the claimed saving of life seems to be quite a high percentage of all fatal fires, given that the proposal is to only fit sprinklers in new build (which isn't a massive proportion of the total housing stock at the moment) and conversions.

[Robin]

The DfT "value of a life" figure is around £m2 so it's easy peasey: light more roads/junctions. (DfT were always the government leaders on how to deal with death and injury in cost-benefit analyses because they have to do them so often for road schemes, speed limits etc)

Cash's approach ("no price is too high....") has of course only one logical conclusion: regulation and tax rates are increased until every penny is being spent on keeping people alive "no matter what". So, for example, we would all be compelled to eat the healthiest/cheapest possible diet to maintain life while also freeing up more money to comply with regulations and taxes. Eg building regulations for cameras in every room (retrofitted to current stock) and taxes to pay for the serried ranks of staff in the monitoring units to watch if someone collapses. Then demolish houses and build flats so people live without stairs they might fall down (bungalows being of course far to ungreen). But I am sorry to say I doubt we'd get to the desirable step of sterilisation for those who cannot understand the simple concepts of (i) cost-benefit analysis and (ii) choices.

[Nightjar]

Having seen the speed of a fire brigade boat on a shout in Venice, it is no surprise that you see sprinklers in so many hotels there. They make sense wherever the response time is likely to be slow and, in America, have been proven to be very effective at stopping the upward spread of fire in tall buildings.

Colin Bignell

[Robin]

which is presumably why sprinklers are AIUI the normal means here of complying with the BRs for new residential builds over 30m high. But in a new build house with linked smoke alarms throughout and escape windows upstairs I still doubt they are cost-effective.

[charles]

The sprinklers that I have seen close up - admittedly a few years ago - rely on the fire melting a blockage in the water line. I don't think toast would set those off. Relying on an electrical circuit in the case of fire would not be reliable - using electricity to hold off the sprinkers could result in soggy houses every time here was a power failure.

[Phil]

viable. It certainly does in commercial premises where their use isn't already mandated.

Phil.

[Tim Streater]

When one sprinkler goes off, do they all go at the same time? Am I going to have all my possessions everywhere in the house soaked because SWMBO's doing soss in the oven? (The kitchen smoke detector goes off each time she does this.) Or if I accidentally biff one while carrying a ladder? And how do you turn them off once its clear that the danger is over?

[Andrew May]

JOOI I assume that they would be installed in a kitchen. It is probably the obvious place. But the consequences of a water based sprinkler going off over a chip pan fire (the most common kitchen fire?) could be worse than not having one. We have all been trained to cover the fire rather than throw water over it.

[Dave Liquorice]

Unlikely. They are a small glass bubble holding the water back, this bubble is full of a liquid that expands when it gets hot shattering the bubble and thus letting the water out. From the films I've seen of commercial sprinkler systems the fire has to be quite large (in domestic terms) before they go off and when they do it will be new furnishing and decorating for at least that room. Possibly replastering and new floor as well if it's chipboard...

"... activate within four minutes ..." "... about 150 liters/min ..."

A domestic fire will have quite a hold within four minutes, there will be a lot of smoke about. A typical smoke alarm will have gone off a lot earlier to alert any occupants to "Get Out, Stay Out, Get the Brigade out". Buildings and contents can be replaced you don't need to "save" them. Educating people to have a "fire plan" and to get the F out when the alarm sounds be that in the home or work place.

150l is a large bath full of water, every minute... I wonder where this water comes from? Most domestic supplies can't deliver that sort of flow, so how effective at extinguishing a fire large enough to trigger the sprinkler is a domestic sprinkler?

One also assumes that these sprinkler systems will have an external water flow driven bell and a link to a service centre that can call the Fire Brigade out. If you did have a fire that triggered the sprinklers just after you gone on your two weeks to Malaga, without such systems there wouldn't be much, possibly no, indication that the inside is being drenched....

Then of course how vulnerable will they be to being knocked? Sprinklers are normally installed high up not the relatively low 8' ceiling of a house.

Strikes me of politicians/bureaucrats reacting to "some one died" with "we must do something". Personally linked smoke/heat alarms are enough, along with decent public education. That would have far greater benefit to society but far harder to measure so the bureaucrats won't like it as they can't justify their existence.

Do any of the Fire Services still have the chip pan fire demo vehicles that they used to take around Fetes, Gala Days and County Shows? It's no use telling people how to safely deal with a chip pan fire it'll just go in one ear and out the other. Show 'em, in quite dramatic terms, what happens when you do it wrong. OK I guess the open chip pan is getting to be a thing of the past these days but it will still highlight the dangers of fire. Most people these days do not have any real experience of fire, most homes no longer have open fires, people don't have bonfires to dispose of waste (garden or otherwise), kids don't make camp fires.

[NT]

Actually the consequences of financial foolishness are worse than that. The NHS has a budget of about =A310k per qaly, so each 6.7 million spent saving one life with sprinklers eats up enough resources to save

670 lives. In that particular example, the money sources are to an extent different, but when it comes down to household budget and safety, there are plenty of things that could be done with that 6.7million that would save many more lives.

NT

[Dave Liquorice]

Except that an accidental activation will cost similar amounts to a small flood to replace/repair the damage. A fire large enough to trigger the sprinklers will still require at least that room to be stripped and rebuilt and the rest of the house will have smoke damage.

Commercial is different, sprinklers have their place where early control of a fire is important. Warehouses, places packed with lots of flammable materials (in the broadest sense), tall buildings where escape from upper floors isn't possible by "climbing down the knotted sheets" or jumping.