STATter 911: NAHB responds to study of Prince George's County sprinkler study. Faults study for not including smoke alarms.

Thursday, October 8, 2009

NAHB responds to study of Prince George's County sprinkler study. Faults study for not including smoke alarms.

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The National Association of Home Builders has provided a response to STATter911.com's request for comment about our story on the new study of the first county in the United States to enact a residential sprinkler requirement for new homes. The study found that Prince George's County, Maryland has not had one fire fatality in a sprinklered single-family home or townhome since sprinklers were mandated in 1992.

Calli Barker Schmidt, who is NAHB's director of environmental communications, sent this statement by email earlier today:

According to the United States Fire Administration, there were NO reported fatalities in the state of Maryland in homes that were equipped with working hardwired, interconnected smoke alarms between 2002 and 2006. That is why NAHB believes that making sure every home has working smoke alarms should be our safety priority, not mandating expensive sprinkler systems for consumers who overwhelmingly don’t want them. Because the Prince George’s County study inexplicably ignores the question of whether these homes lacked smoke alarms, it adds little to the body of knowledge on keeping people safe from house fires.

When made aware of NAHB's position on the study, Prince George's County Fire/EMS Department Chief Spokesman Mark Brady sent the following message by email:

Having a working smoke alarm increases the chances of surviving a home fire by about 50 percent. Having a working smoke alarm and a residential fire sprinkler nearly guarantees your survival.

Maryland State Fire Marshal Bill Barnard also had something to see about NAHB's response:

The fire service recognizes the value of working smoke alarms. As you are aware, smoke alarms are for notification only; they do nothing to extinguish a fire. Check out the OSFM website under the tab on the left side of the page, Safety and Prevention. There are a couple of years worth of Fire Death reports that include smoke alarm performance data. You will see there are several fatal fires each year where the smoke alarm was reported to have functioned.

# posted by Dave Statter @ 6:00 PM

Comments:

Well Dave, and others, should check out the fire sprinkler demonstration done by NIST. They constructed 2 identical dorm style rooms one with a sprinkler and one with out. Both had a fire in a trash can. You can guess what happens. That video has a greater shock feature supporting sprinklers.

Dave you can ask NIST for a copy they can email it to you or send you a CDRom, I have the CD Rom.
Let me know you can borrow it.

So a smoke detector is supposed to replace a sprinkler. DUH! So now you are awake and aware of the fire, but it still doesn't go out. So ok, maybe the number of lives saved or lost would have changed but not the MILLIONS of dollars in property damage.

Bubba

# posted by

Anonymous : October 8, 2009 6:21 PM

Dave,

If you had identical $500,000.00 next door to each other. What is the difference in PG County, in the homeowners insurance, for 1 home with and 1 without sprinkler system.
I'd love to know the PG county estimated insurance savings attirbuted to this mandate. I'm sure its substantial.

# posted by

Anonymous : October 8, 2009 7:34 PM

Thank God for this code cause the fire department is absolutely terrible!

Mr. Natural

# posted by

Anonymous : October 8, 2009 9:51 PM

NAHB's response is not surprising. As long as no lives are lost, but the house has to be replaced, so in NAHB view, they will be "building another home." Remember, follow the money.

# posted by

Anonymous : October 8, 2009 10:15 PM

What about the fatality in the P section of Bowie this year? That was a spriklered house!

# posted by

Anonymous : October 8, 2009 10:17 PM

I dunno, maybe I'm getting old. But, if I have a sprinkler going off and getting me wet, would that NOT be an "alarm"?

# posted by

Anonymous : October 9, 2009 8:46 AM

Dave,

I think the best comparison of smoke alarms versus sprinklers comes from Ed Mann, Fire Commissioner from Pennsylvania - If I am standing next to you and your coast catches on fire, which would you rather I do - tell you your coat is on fire (smoke alarms) or toss a glass of water on you and put the fire out (sprinklers)? What level of protection do you want for your family?

# posted by

dlewis533 : October 9, 2009 10:06 AM

The insurance savings is/was running about 10-15% which is a paltry amount considering how much the ins co saves when compared to a full blown house fire. Of Course, the insurance companies aren't known for giving money back either

# posted by

Anonymous : October 9, 2009 2:55 PM

perhaps we should look to DC to get their impression of sprinklers in a fire situation.. wait no , forget it.

# posted by

Anonymous : October 11, 2009 8:20 AM

I've never seen a smoke alarm suppress a fire- they usually are found melted handing on the wall or the remnants lying on the floor. A properly designed and operating sprinkler system can supress a fire from expanding and in some cases actually extinguish the fire in its early stages.

The home builders are associating "warning" (which can be ignored or defeated by a simple thing such as neglecting to replace a battery) vs. a sprinkler system that can actually slow down the progress of any fire that starts (or even extinguish it in some cases.)

With the cutbacks in available fire suppression services in many communties, you would thing that this early suppression effort would enhance life safety and minimize overall property damage (and keep taxpaying properties on the community's property tax roles!)

# posted by

Anonymous : October 12, 2009 11:45 AM