By: | WCBD News 2
Published: May 23, 2012
Published: May 23, 2012
No one disagrees that fire sprinklers save lives. But there's a huge disagreement over whether they should be required in all new homes in South Carolina.
The International Residential Code, which South Carolina follows, requires fire sprinklers in new homes built after July 2011. The South Carolina Building Code Council is scheduled to meet Wednesday to decide whether the state will follow that part of the code. So far, 37 other states have rejected it. California and Maryland are the only states that have decided to follow it and require sprinklers in new home construction.
Firefighters and other proponents kicked off a new campaign Tuesday aimed at building public awareness and support for the code requirement. A demonstration showed how effective sprinklers are.
One room, with a chair, table and couch, went up in flames in about three minutes after a firefighter set a curtain in the room on fire. No accelerants were used. Another room, of the same size and with similar furniture, had a fire sprinkler. Ten seconds after the firefighter set the curtain on fire, the sprinkler went off and put out the flames, before they touched any of the furniture.
Princilla Lee Bridges is one of the people on the new "SC Faces of Fire" billboards that are part of the campaign. She told reporters, "On March 23rd, 1992 home sprinklers were not in my home. As a result I was injured and suffered 49 percent burn surface areas on my face, upper torso and hands."
Cathy Hedrick told the story of a firefighter who responded to a home fire and was searching for anyone in the home. He found a seven-year-old boy hiding in his room, who had not gotten out because the smoke alarm didn't wake him up. The firefighter and the little boy died in the fire. "I am the mom of that firefighter," she said.
But the Home Builders Association of South Carolina is fighting the requirement. Executive director Mark Nix says he's not against sprinklers but thinks whether to install them should be up to homeowners.
"Most of the housing stock in South Carolina and in the United States is not new. It's existing stock. What we need to do is focus our attention on where the fires are, in the older houses. We need to have a goodeducation practice. We need to have good working smoke detectors in those houses as well," he says.
The National Fire Protection Association says your chances of surviving a fire in a home with a working smoke alarm are 99.45 percent. Nix says with odds that good, making sure homes have working smoke detectors is much more important, and cheaper, than requiring sprinklers.
The cost of putting sprinklers in new homes is part of the disagreement. Nix says, "Every invoice I've received is always in that $4 to $6 a square foot range." That would add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home, and he says a study by a USC economist said that added cost would price more than 17,000 families a year out of the housing market in South Carolina.
But sprinkler supporters say they don't cost half that. Charlie Stewart, a plumbing contractor who's installed sprinklers in more than 200 homes, says, "Our cost has consistently been, the lowest being one we did in the Daniel Island/Mt. Pleasant area for $1.37 (per square foot) and the highest being I think about $2.25."
Randy Safer, regional director for the National Fire Protection Association, says, "Asserting that sprinklers are not necessary because there are smoke alarms is like saying seat belts work so well no one would want an airbag in a car."
He says he recently installed sprinklers in his existing home and it cost him $1.50 a square foot.
In Maryland, which requires sprinklers in new homes, a study in one county found that sprinklers had saved two lives. When officials factored in the cost to install sprinklers in all new homes, they concluded that each life saved cost about $160 million.
The International Residential Code, which South Carolina follows, requires fire sprinklers in new homes built after July 2011. The South Carolina Building Code Council is scheduled to meet Wednesday to decide whether the state will follow that part of the code. So far, 37 other states have rejected it. California and Maryland are the only states that have decided to follow it and require sprinklers in new home construction.
Firefighters and other proponents kicked off a new campaign Tuesday aimed at building public awareness and support for the code requirement. A demonstration showed how effective sprinklers are.
One room, with a chair, table and couch, went up in flames in about three minutes after a firefighter set a curtain in the room on fire. No accelerants were used. Another room, of the same size and with similar furniture, had a fire sprinkler. Ten seconds after the firefighter set the curtain on fire, the sprinkler went off and put out the flames, before they touched any of the furniture.
Princilla Lee Bridges is one of the people on the new "SC Faces of Fire" billboards that are part of the campaign. She told reporters, "On March 23rd, 1992 home sprinklers were not in my home. As a result I was injured and suffered 49 percent burn surface areas on my face, upper torso and hands."
Cathy Hedrick told the story of a firefighter who responded to a home fire and was searching for anyone in the home. He found a seven-year-old boy hiding in his room, who had not gotten out because the smoke alarm didn't wake him up. The firefighter and the little boy died in the fire. "I am the mom of that firefighter," she said.
But the Home Builders Association of South Carolina is fighting the requirement. Executive director Mark Nix says he's not against sprinklers but thinks whether to install them should be up to homeowners.
"Most of the housing stock in South Carolina and in the United States is not new. It's existing stock. What we need to do is focus our attention on where the fires are, in the older houses. We need to have a goodeducation practice. We need to have good working smoke detectors in those houses as well," he says.
The National Fire Protection Association says your chances of surviving a fire in a home with a working smoke alarm are 99.45 percent. Nix says with odds that good, making sure homes have working smoke detectors is much more important, and cheaper, than requiring sprinklers.
The cost of putting sprinklers in new homes is part of the disagreement. Nix says, "Every invoice I've received is always in that $4 to $6 a square foot range." That would add thousands of dollars to the cost of a new home, and he says a study by a USC economist said that added cost would price more than 17,000 families a year out of the housing market in South Carolina.
But sprinkler supporters say they don't cost half that. Charlie Stewart, a plumbing contractor who's installed sprinklers in more than 200 homes, says, "Our cost has consistently been, the lowest being one we did in the Daniel Island/Mt. Pleasant area for $1.37 (per square foot) and the highest being I think about $2.25."
Randy Safer, regional director for the National Fire Protection Association, says, "Asserting that sprinklers are not necessary because there are smoke alarms is like saying seat belts work so well no one would want an airbag in a car."
He says he recently installed sprinklers in his existing home and it cost him $1.50 a square foot.
In Maryland, which requires sprinklers in new homes, a study in one county found that sprinklers had saved two lives. When officials factored in the cost to install sprinklers in all new homes, they concluded that each life saved cost about $160 million.
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