RESIDENTIAL FIRE SPRINKLER SYSTEMS -
COST FACTORS: What needs to be done about them?
by
Richard M. Patton, P.E.
Fire Protection Engineer
Fire sprinkler systems are here to stay. Twenty
years ago the opponents of the fire sprinkler system
were fighting to keep them out of hospitals, nursing
homes, high rise buildings, and hotels. They lost.
Today, the battle is being waged on the residential
front. Sooner or later sprinklers will win there too, for
two basic reasons.
1. When all costs are factored in, sprinklers
provide more safety at lower costs than any
other fire protection system or service..
2. The public will not forever tolerate a 6,000 fire
death rate per year, involving many children,
when there is a close to 100% cure available.
Contrary to popular opinion, I do not consider the
building industry to be the enemy of the fire sprinkler
system. I have long held that the real but hidden
enemy of the fire sprinkler system is the fire code
system in America. The fire codes establish a
mandated (buy it, or we shut down your business)
marketplace which I believe exceeds $100 billion a •
year. (No one has ever added up all the hidden costs
of fire safety--another story.) The fire sprinkler system
has the potential to be so cost effective as to threaten
much of this market.
A few years back I personally designed an
innovative fire sprinkler system for a 12 level hospital
in Kansas City, which bid for 38 cents per square
foot. Then, because the hospital was "fully
sprinklered" we reduced the "four hour" construction
to three hours, and did other things that reduced the
total cost of the hospital by an excess of $5 million
(over 10% reduction in the cost of constructing the
building).
I believe that builders sometimes (not always) fight
the sprinkler system because the codes have
overpriced the sprinkler system, and because so
much other "fire safety" is built in that there is
skepticism relative to any and all "safety" issues.
In order to ease the transition to sprinklered
dwellings I recommend all of the following changes in
our thinking.
SPRINKLER DESIGN
There is no doubt that the National Fire Protection
Association has produced sprinkler codes that have
overpriced sprinklers, sometimes (believe it or not) by
as much as a 4 to 1 ratio of mandated price to
achievable price. What few are aware of today is that
2 JUNE, 1987
2 FIRE PROTECTION CONTRACTOR
these codes have often also reduced the quality of the
system.
Today, there is a residential fire sprinkler
committee in operation in the Office of the State Fire
Marshal (California), and if I can influence that
situation, residential sprinklers that are better as well
as less costly will result.
WATER CHARGES
It is improper for a water company or a city to
increase a water connection charge to a home
because it is sprinklered. This practice should stop.
Incidently, proper sprinkler design codes would make
an "upgrading" of a connection to a home to feed
sprinklers unnecessary.
INSURANCE COSTS
Today, the fire insurance industry is working
overtime to not recognize the full value of a fire
sprinkler system and to not give all the rate reduction
that is justified. Of course, fire is the business of the
fire insurance industry. But, when loss ratios drop, as
they will in sprinklered homes, eventually the insurer
will be forced competitively to give proper reductions.
Probably a 75% reduction in the fire portion of the
homeowner's policy is justified in a sprinklered home,
at least.
HOME DENSITY
Fire walls between adjoining dwellings, and clear
space between dwellings, are just two of the "hidden"
costs of the fire and building codes. Sprinklers can
justify reductions in fire wall construction, and
separation distance. Increased land density can be a
very significant cost factor. In fact, although this is
"heresy" to the "fireproof building" gang, I will say that
a sprinklered home sheathed entirely with wood
paneling (no gyp board) is probably 10 times safer
than a gyp board sheathed home without sprinklers.
It's not the building fire that kills, it's the contents--the
furnishings--fire. The gyp board simply creates a wgooq
furnace" within which the contents burn like wood in
the stove. The sprinkler system terminates the fire.
TAXES
There is a desperate need to educate the legislature
relative to fire safety and the needless killing of
thousands of children and the elderly each year in
home fires. I recommend that a coalition of fire chiefs
"assist" all legislatures to get together during 1987 and
enact a "reversal tax" on sprinkler systems in the
homes. Here's how it would work. Say the home is
worth $100,000; the sprinkler system is added for
$2,000, with an apparent net tax value of $102,000. It
is morally wrong, however, to obstruct a life safety
addition by taxing it. The sprinkler protected home
needs less fire department, less water supply, less
hospital care. Instead of adding the sprinkler cost to
the home, it should be subtracted from the tax base.
In the above example, the tax base for the home
should be $98,000; not $102,000. I believe it is far
better to put a dollar into controlling fire in the home
(while small) rather than paying the high cost to
restructure a child's face.
FIRE DEPARTMENT/WATER SUPPLIES/
ACCESS
Fully sprinklered developments will need less
protection from paid fire departments, and may be
safely served by water supplies that will deliver fire
flows in the 500 to 1,000 gpm range, rather than the
1,000 to 2,000 gpm range. Access regulations for fire
trucks can be modified in fully sprinklered
developments, often with major savings. And fire
departments can buy smaller, more maneuverable
apparatus. Sprinkler protection can make the
development of some tracts of land, remote from a
fire department, feasible.
BUILDING CODE STUDY GROUP
For 100 years and more, those organizations
(private-not government) that self established
themselves as America's fire safety authorities (the
model building codes, the National Fire Protection
Association and Underwriters Laboratory) operated
under a "master plan" of fire safety. That "master
plan" was based on fireproofing the interior of the
building, compartmenting it into small sections or fire
areas, such as one floor of a high rise or one hotel
room (one house also is one fire area). Into this
framework they built in gypsum and concrete, fire
doors and wired glass, fire dampers and fire retardant
sheathing, fire alarm systems and smoke detectors,
and enclosed stairways and fire rated corridors, and
much, much more. Let's call this fire safety, Plan A. It
was all aimed at three things.
1. Detect the fire and sound the alarm (but not put
the fire out automatically).
2. Rush like hell to the stairways and exits.
3. Contain the fire within one "fire area" until
everybody was outside the building, and the fire
department arrived.
Too often, the fire was quicker than the runners.
There are new concepts of fire safety today, many
of which I promoted against the wishes of the "code
authorities" and they are based on controlling the fire
automatically, and keeping the occupant safe from the
fire, even while in bed.
Let's call this Plan B.
I say that when Plan B is engaged, much of Plan A
becomes redundant.
Along with the movement toward Plan B, I believe
the builders and the developers should become
actively involved in a program to study all of the
myriad items built into the fire and building codes
(under Plan A) and begin to back out some of the
redundancies and the excessive costs. The builder is
becoming strangled by the fire regulations. He should
become more involved.
AN EXAMPLE
Terry Carrol, Fire Chief of the Northside Fire
Protection District (20 miles N.E. of Sacramento) was
concerned over a large barn being built in an area
where a barn fire could trigger a brush fire. Fire
sprinkler system estimates, however, were in the
$60,000 range, mainly because of water supply (fire
protection) costs. We installed an innovative sprinkler
system for $30,000. One of the cost cutting items was
to walk away from the $12,000 (we had quotes) U.L.
approved fire pump and install, instead, an excellent
commercial centrifugal pump and drive costing $850.
Based on my 30 years experience as a fire
protection engineer, I believe similar outrageous
prices for products that are certified as "fire service
approved" are common. This situation will not change
so long as the builder pays the prices, passes them on
to the customer, and does not get involved in a
corrective process.
PAST HISTORY
About 15 years ago I was meeting, as a consultant,
with the Building Owners and Manager's Association.
Most believed that sprinkler systems were not needed
in high rise buildings and should be opposed (a view
also shared by the fire codes). I argued that the
system was inevitable in a new high rise and that the
industry had two choices.
1. Become involved and be certain that when
sprinkler regulations became mandatory an
economial type of system would be allowed.
2. Ignore the situation, or blindly oppose it, and by
so doing allow the code makers a free hand to
impose a system that was structured to be as
expensive as they could make it.
They opted for number 2 and today the sprinkler
system (and other "life safety systems") imposed on
the builder of the new high rise is outrageous.
The lesson is, get involved when regulations are
being created, and make them sensible. Do not walk
away and let the "code system" set the parameters.
Blind opposition, without careful planning, often
serves the needs of those who are intent on not only
making new regulations, but on maximizing the price
at the same time.
The sprinkler can be a high cost addition to an
already too high base of fire regulations, or it can be a
key Jo open the door to the fire regulations fortress
so that the light of reason and common sense may
enter the dungeons.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Richard M. Patton is a Registered Professional
engineer and a licensed fire protection contractor in
the state of California.
You may communicate with him by writing: Patton
Fire Protection Systems, Inc., 5316 Roseville Road,
Suite P, North Highlands, CA 95660, or by calling
(916) 338-0943.