We're required to have one. I forget how much it is, but it's required by the city, so it's in there. SF Bay Area. If it's required, doesn't he HAVE to put it in? Or you can't pass inspection, right? If your drywall is up already, then its his responsibility to retrofit and put one in. I'd be upset, definitely. If you're almost done with the house, then shouldn't you be grandfathered in? Good luck!

If the "law" was passed after the permit was issued it is not a requirement.

Thank you for your response. The law goes into effect jan 1 2011. The permit was obtained before the law was passed. I guess we will have to budget and get it retrofitted in the future

The law is unlikely to be retroactive.

This is a crazy requirement IMO. My understanding is that it is part of the NEC phased in over the next couple of years. Townhomes first (maybe already or 2011), then single family homes.

These things are not cheap. Think at least $2 a sq foot and probably could be $5. In the building I work - 4000 sq feet, we just had to spend $18000 on updating ours (and we have a drop ceiling). It is probably 20 years old and much needed to be replaced. Obviously commercial property has different requirements that have been around for awhile.

All this for the number one cause of fatal fires - smoking. Add in old electrical systems, inadequate heating (causing use of portable systems) - things that aren't in new houses - and you have very few fatalities. Arson is far and away the biggest cause (other than the above) and how many people are really worried about that?

Then think of the flooding damage from small cooking fires and the potential for leaks.

Anyway - OP - you are fine. You only need to follow codes that were in place when you were permitted. But if you are thinking of finishing any new space (say a basement), you certainly might have to install a sprinkler and the cost will be quite high. Might want to finish that space now....

Sorry for the quasipolitical rant but do we really think the country needs new houses to keep getting even more expensive?

For the foreseeable future mandatory requirement of sprinklers for one and two family dwellings will be determined locally even if it is included in the IRC or other residential building codes.

These rapid response limited systems would be designed and installed under NFPA 13D (NFPA 13 and 13R are for commercial and multi-family properties).

The NFPA did a survey and found that "The cost of sprinkler systems to the home builder, in dollars per sprinklered square foot, ranged from $0.38 to $3.66."

Finishing of additional space or other forms of renovation after completion of a new house would not trigger the sprinkler requirement unless the cost of renovation was substantial enough to warrant sprinklers in the whole house and that threshold would be defined in the building code or the city regulation. In some jurisdictions that trigger is when the whole house sprinkler system would cost less than 15% of the total renovation cost.

Sounds like something the insurance lobby would push for.

There was a town around here that made them mandatory and the rule was quickly overturned when it was determined that it would add approx. $10k to the price of an average house. Average meaning 1500 square feet and not expensive. It seems like there are other low cost things that could reduce loss from fires before mandating something like that. How about requiring smoke detectors in laundry rooms? Require fire extinguishers in kitchens? Charge smokers a heck of a lot more?

The leading cause of house fires and house fire deaths is basically...stupidity. Cooking causes the most house fires (putting a dish towel near the stove) and smoking causes the most fire deaths.

The only type of home fire I worry about is electrical (caused by the wiring or appliance). And it is the reason we fired an electrician after finding several frayed wires in new construction.

The sprinklers are part of IRC 2009, but states or cities can opt out of it. Many places are adding it in January. It seems like a good idea, and you would think you would get a break on insurance, right? Wrong. I know someone who built with them, and he gets no discount because of the risk of water damage. I'm still trying to decide whether we'll go with them or not when we build.

If you 'want' the sprinkler in the future.....at least run all of the piping now before the sheetrock goes up especially if you have a two story house. MUCH less exp to do now.

There is a lot of misinformation going around about home sprinkler systems apparently generated by professional trade and interest groups on different sides of the issue. The most prevalent is exaggeration of the costs of residential sprinkler system installation and water damage when activated.

$10,000/1,500 s.f. = $6.66/s.f. which is closer to what a commercial/multi-family sprinkler system might cost in a city under NFPA 13 as required for the past 30 years. A sprinkler system in a single family residence under NFPA 13D might be a third of that cost which is a small percentage of the cost of a house.

Residential sprinklers systems bear little resemblance to commercial sprinkler systems; they use plastic pipes and have smaller heads that respond more quickly with less water in order to more effectively suppress or extinguish a fire before it can spread beyond the room of origin which is the goal of the local fire service but it has the disadvantage of having first to be alerted and then to travel to the house, then deploy their equipment and personnel and then find the fire.

It should be obvious that water from one quick response sprinkler head in one room in a house fire would discharge a small fraction of the water a fire department would need to suppress the same fire 15 minutes later perhaps in multiple rooms not to mention the potential for damage from smoke and flames throughout the house. Fire services don't sprinkle a fire with water; they knock it down with water under pressure.

The primary opponent to residential sprinklers is the NAHB which represents large commercial builders and the primary proponent is the NFPA and fire service organizations. Insurance companies adjust their rates as the likehood of damage changes so they really don't have a dog in this fight. Some offer discounts for sprinklers and some don't depending largely on the market.

I designed multi-family housing in the 70's when the only spaces that had to be sprinklered were the corridors and elevator lobbies if the building was over 70 feet tall. Now all spaces in a multi-family building must be sprinklered if there are three or more units. Our children will probably see the day when home sprinklers are considered an important safety feature just like air bags have become in cars.

Change is slow but inevitable. Providing a safe environment for your family is addictive.

Installing only the piping requires that the system be professionally designed, submitted to and approved by the local authorities, installed by an authorized installer and pressure tested all according to NFPA 13D.

The only savings achieved by not installing the complete system now (if that would be allowed by the building department) would be the cost of the sprinkler heads ($5 to $7 each) and pressurizing the system which would be offset by the cost of temporarily covering the holes in the ceiling so they don't look bad.

Here is a link that might be useful: home sprinkler demonstration

Here in our county if the fire department is so many minutes from your house you need to install the sprinkler system. It is around $10,0000+ CAN for an average home in cost.

But many building features cost way more up here in Canada then in the states. I have a had time trying not to get too jealous for what you can get there for so little compared to here, but we are used to being ripped off, lol. For example the tray ceilings many here at GW and on the web have had a room done with real wood for $1000 or so, here the prices for Particle board tray ceilings are around $2600.

In my state, residential sprinklers have been required since 1/1/10 for townhouses and on 1/1/11 will be required for all new 1&2 family dwellings.

Average cost: $1.50-$1.60 per square foot for dwellings on a public water system.

That's about $3500 for a 2000sf house....far less than a small granite countertop or a couple rooms of hardwood floors.

If you have a well, the cost could be more because the flow of the well will need to be able to handle the demand of the sprinklers and a backup generator may have to be installed to run the pump in the event of electrical failure.

There are other systems that can be designed that do not require the generator such as gravity systems fed by a storage tanks in the attic.

Systems are designed to operate for 6 minutes.

Enough time to allow a safe escape.

Our state NAHB sued the State 2x and lost both times to have the sprinkler provision removed from the Code. The NAHB will likley appeal to the the State Supreme Court before January. We expect them to lose again.

Statistically, Most fires occur at home and most fires occur at night while occupants are sleeping.

Sprinklers can give a few extra minutes of safety to escape when one is disoriented and/or in panic.

Often cited is the city of Scottsdale AZ IIRC which has had a mandatory sprinkler requirement for all residential dwellings since the early 80s....and has not had a fatality from a residential fire since.

Unattended cooking is the leading cause of residential fires and the incidents peak from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.with the highest incident day being Thanksgiving.

Although fire incidents drop when people sleep, fatal fires are at their highest late at night and in the early morning. Forty-six percent of residential fatal fires start between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m.

My first reaction to this thread was irritation (ala David Cary).

My second reaction (ala macv and manhattan42) was triggered by the memory of a firefighter who woke me up 40 years ago at 3 a.m.. I lived in a duplex. My attached neighbor started the fire with a faulty space heater. The structure burned completely. I watched it from the curb only because the firefighter broke down our front door and saw my foot peeking out from under a pile of bedding.

Makes you think about the usefulness of sprinklers, doesn't it?

We are in a high risk wildfire area (obviously!) and were required to put sprinklers in our rebuild. Our home is approx. 1200 sq ft. and the lowest bid we got was around $5,000 for the entire job. It took about 2 weeks for the sprinkler company to engineer the plan and get it approved by the powers that be.

I don't know how usefull they'll really be. I doubt if we had sprinklers before that it would have saved our house. But who knows? The main difference being we would be filing a water damage claim instead of a fire claim.

For a sprinkler system to offer protection from a wildfire it would have to be on the exterior of the house.

"I doubt if we had sprinklers before that it would have saved our house."

Sprinklers aren't designed to save your house.

They are designed to save your life.

Historically, alarms, protected egress paths, and smoke evacuation systems have been considered life safety measures and sprinkler systems have been considered property loss reduction measures. With the introduction of quick response residential systems the distinction has become meaningless.

None of these systems is intended to protect people or buildings in a forest fire. I suspect gryane is putting us on.

sorry - I guess I might be uninformed on this topic, but I honestly thought the sprinklers were there to help stop (or at least slow) a fire in the home. I guess no little sprinkler system could be powerful enough to do that in a wildfire situation. We did loose our home to a wildfire in 2007. Luckily we got a call from a neighbor informing us of the fire but still only had about a half hour to evacuate. Never did see the firefighters at our place.

Sounds like the folks that install sprinkler systems are gouging people like the folks that install geo. It's new and improved and charge insane prices!!!!!

Gryane, we are also rebuilding a home that burned during a wildland fire. Sprinklers dont help that. Your building envelope is either ember resistant or not. Sprinklers provide 5 minutes for you to get your family out if a fire starts in the house. I hope your local fire department is giving you advice on how to build in a high fire hazard area. Thats my job for a local fire department in Lake Tahoe.

Obviuously people are on both sides of the fence about the issue. What it boils down to is that i feel safer knowing that Ihave the spinklers in the house. Currently I live in a townhome and we have it in all our rooms. We will have to go throught he added expenses of putting it i. My builder suggested putting it in rooms where fires would most likely start for now and then we can add to the other rooms. I felle safer woth them,knowing we have 2 small girls

IMHO if you want sprinkler protection you shouldn't do it half way, plan to add to it later, or invent your own installation standards; install the system in compliance with NFPA 13D and have it properly tested and approved.

Sprinklers are required by code in Arizona. It's nice for peace of mind. Amortized over the time you'll be in the house it seems like cheap insurance.

It's also worth checking with your insurance company to see if you get a discount for having the system.

So we got the price back on how much it would be to place the sprinkler system-$15,000. My builder says all the homes he has built previously up until the law was passed did not have sprinkler systems.He does install smoke detectors. There is some comfort there. At this time we certainly can't afford to put in the system and will do it at a later date

That seems expensive. What is the total protected area of your house?

So what happens with these things during false alarms? Or when the fire alarm goes off because you burned your eggs? Or if your turkey got a little too smokey? etc. etc.

Is it automatically tripped by a fire alarm going off, regardless of the reason or cause? I assume it is, as a fire detector has no brain.

I wouldn't want water pouring out of the ceiling because I got a little carried away with frying up some chicken.

The issue for me boils down to this: They are a necessity in commercial or multi-family residences, for safety and human life reasons. In single family homes? I'm not so sure. Seems to be more in the line of a "luxury" to me. Every cent and dollar added on per square foot adds up and puts a home just out of grasp to more people.

We now have advanced fire detectors, whole-house fire detector systems, the ability to hook up your fire detector systems to your alarm company, etc. That seems like enough to me. If you properly maintain your fire detectors, there would be no need for a sprinkler system to give you a little bit of extra time, because that's the point of the fire detector - to give you extra time before the smoke/fire reaches where you are/consumes the home.

Sprinkler systems, atleast the ones we investigated, are triggered by heat, not smoke or the activation of any other fire alarm. If the heat at a sprinkler head reaches a certain temperature, I think it's 130F, that sprinkler head will activate.

Totally Confused

@macy-the total finished sq ft of the house is 3800
The guy reported that we would need to install a water tank for 3K+ to sustain the sprinklers

Most fire deaths in the US occur in private residences.

Most private residence fire deaths are due to careless smoking.

Most private residence fire damage is due to unattended cooking.

Private residence smoke detectors and sprinkler heads operate as entirely separate systems but an activation signal from either one or both can send a signal via telephone to a private security company that could then call the local fire department.

Private residence smoke detectors are for the purpose of alerting occupants of a possible fire when you are sleeping or to a fire in an unoccupied part of the house when you are awake. Since someone would normally be awake and in attendance when cooking is in progress, smoke detectors are not required to be located in cooking areas.

A private residence sprinkler system uses the quick response type that operates only when the temperature at an individual head is greater than 135 degrees and they are normally located in the center of spaces rather than directly above cooking appliances. Burning eggs could not possibly cause a sprinkler head to operate but if a large grease fire on a stove top raised the temperature at a sprinkler head above 135 degrees you would not still be in the kitchen; you would be outside trying to reach the fire department. Seeing a sprinkler head put out a fire in your home is a very is one of the most

"Fire detectors" detect heat and provide an alarm signal and are used where sprinklers and smoke detectors are not permitted (some kinds of electrical rooms and elevator shafts, etc.) I can't think of a location in a private residence where one would be required.

It makes much more sense to me now...that sprinklers would be activated by heat instead of from a smoke detector.