fire sprinklers

Towers of Ilium will now endeavor to address a rather difficult and controversial topic: fire sprinklers in single family homes. An article in today's Boston Globe described a debate at the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Safety over whether or not fire sprinklers should be required in all new, single family homes. Code currently requires sprinklers for multi-family dwellings and single family homes over 14,400 s.f. (which is a bit larger than the average American house size).

In principle, I am in favor of improving the safety of architecture, but I am skeptical about the positive benefits that would be derived from implementing this law. Most house fires that I read about in the newspaper that cause loss of life or injury seem to happen in older homes, and particularly homes in poorer neighborhoods. Because Massachusetts has some of the oldest housing stock in the nation it is a statistical certainty that the majority of fires would occur in an older dwelling. Since older dwellings would be exempt from the new law requiring sprinklers, it would take decades before we could assess the benefits thereof.

I am interpreting this as a wedge issue, however, and I think that adoption of this code for new houses will lead to a push for an extension of the code to existing dwellings. The requirement for sprinklers would be triggered when a homeowner undertakes a significant renovation (and much debate will ensue over what constitutes "significant"). This would have a dramatic effect, but it could exacerbate the safety situation by discouraging property owners from undertaking renovations, or exerting more effort than they already do to avoid regulations. The most vulnerable and poorest houses could potentially deteriorate at an even faster rate and would still lead the statistics in fire injuries and deaths.

A question I would like to pose to James Shannon, president of the NFPA, and any other member of the ICC who owns a single family home: Have you installed this in your house?