Are fire sprinklers worth the cost?

Many of the decisions homeowners make come down to cost vs. benefits. Are the benefits provided by an item or service worth the cost?

The arguments for and against residential fire sprinkler systems are no different. Many builders are reluctant to include them because they add cost to the home they are trying to sell, while a number of municipalities, pressed by tight budgets and shrinking fire departments, are inclined to require new homeowners to purchase the systems.

Prospective homebuyers are left to figure out whether they can afford to include the systems in their new homes or, in some cases, if they would rather live in a community where they are not required.

Approximately 70 Chicago suburbs currently have some form of residential fire sprinkler law on their books. Some, like Mount Prospect, only require them in manufactured homes and condominium conversions. Others, like Rolling Meadows and Vernon Hills require them in homes larger than a certain square footage. Still others, like Long Grove, Park Ridge and Barrington, require fire suppression sprinklers in all new residential construction.

The main argument made by fire professionals, the National Fire Sprinkler Association and others is that modern lightweight construction techniques, while perfectly sturdy under normal conditions, fail quickly when subjected to fire and high heat conditions.

“Lightweight truss construction fails very quickly when subjected to fire,” explained Mike Schmitt, fire marshal for the Village of Long Grove. “It uses a gusset plate with teeth that go into the wood and when it heats up, the teeth pull out of the wood and the construction falls apart. And many beams today are glued with gypsum and the glue fails under fire conditions.”

Schmitt said in most cases, you only have 15 to 20 minutes before structure failure and fire sprinkler systems keep that from happening by holding the fire in check until firefighters can arrive.

“The people who live in my jurisdiction are my clients and so are the firefighters in our department. I want to keep all of them safe and the truth is, there has never been a multiple fatality fire in the United States in a sprinklered building,” Schmitt said.

Some argue that smoke detectors are just as good, but Schmitt disagrees. “They are good, but it has been demonstrated that children, the elderly and the highly intoxicated can all sleep right through them.”

Builders, on the other hand, argue that stricter codes mandating fire sprinklers in homes have hurt their sales and put an undue burden on an industry that is already suffering because of the weak economy.

Town and Country Homes, for instance, installed sprinkler systems in more than 100 of their homes at Cider Grove in Huntley before the summer of 2009. Huntley had an ordinance requiring their installation from July 2004 until January 2009 when the dictate was reversed by elected officials.

“Stricter codes drove up the price of the homes in Huntley,” said Rich Ackman, vice president of purchasing for Town and Country, “and builders complained and eventually they retracted their ordinance.”

Town and Country has continued to offer sprinkler systems as an option to homebuyers in Cider Grove, but since they have not been required, not one buyer has opted for them, Ackman said.

“Today's consumer would rather spend their money on putting things in their home they can enjoy, instead of such an expensive feature,” he said.

Ackman estimated that fire sprinkler systems added between $8,000 and $11,000 to the base cost of their homes at Cider Grove, depending upon the square footage. “There are lots of material costs and it takes several days to install the system,” he said.

Ackman said prospective homebuyers also object to the fact that the system has to be inspected yearly by a licensed company and if you leave the house during the winter for an extended vacation, you have to ask someone to monitor it to prevent the sprinkler pipes from freezing if the heat fails.

Jamie Reap, vice president and CEO of United States Fire Protection Inc. of Lake Forest, dismissed that argument.

“We avoid putting pipes in the attic spaces and try to keep them in warm areas of the walls, but it is never prudent to turn your heat all the way down when you leave a house in the winter,” Reap said. “But every sprinkler-equipped house has horns and strobes on the outside of the house that alert neighbors that the system has been activated. They would know very quickly that there was a problem and could go in and manually turn off the water.”

New homes and their furnishings are simply less fire safe than yesterday's homes, Reap asserted. Fifty years ago there were more natural fibers like cotton in upholstery, for instance. Today there is more nylon and polyester used in upholstery, which burn differently and cause toxic fumes. The plastic content in most modern homes is much higher than it used to be, and the engineered and glued lumber that is used in today's lightweight construction is another troublesome issue. Finally, there are the volume ceilings and wide open floor plans that are currently so popular.

“Older homes were more compartmentalized, so fires smoldered longer. Today with the open floor plans, there is a much greater oxygen supply for the fires to feed on,” Reap said.

Most fire systems installed in the Chicago area are free-standing systems using either copper or CPVC pipes to distribute the water throughout the walls and ceilings of the house. In most cases, a single water service comes into the house from the municipality and then once inside the house, it Ts off into the sprinkler system and the regular water service to showers, sinks and toilets. Sprinkler heads are concealed either in the ceiling or at the tops of walls. Inside each sprinkler is a glass bulb containing a liquid that is sensitive to heat. When it gets hot enough in a room, the glass bursts and allows a plug holding the water back to come out and the water to flow from the sprinkler.

“They go off one at a time in reaction to the heat, not like what you see in the movies where they all go off at once,” Reap said.

The idea is to put a little bit of water on a fire when it is little. Reap said that the average sprinkler puts out only one-tenth of the water put out by the average fire hose.

In order to be effective, an entire house (except attics, closets, small bathrooms and garages) needs to be sprinklered, including the basement. Reap said that most sprinkler systems in new homes cost between $1.75 to $2.25 per square foot but the square footage of the basement also must be included in your computations. The cost of retrofitting an existing house with sprinklers is considerably higher — 30 to 50 percent more, he said. But it can be done. In fact, Reap retrofitted his own house, built in 1986, and found the disruption relatively minimal.

And insurance companies are starting to recognize the value of sprinkler systems by offering policy holders with fire sprinkler systems discounts of eight to 15 percent, Reap said. “In a few years I predict they will see that they are paying out considerably less in claims when homes are sprinklered and they will begin offering even bigger discounts.”