JAGQueen

I agree. Article for and by the sprinkler lobby. Here is my experience:

I have a 1900s row house in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, 10 miles outside of DC. I bought the house trashed with the expectation of a full remodel.

Since I would be replacing ceilings, water pipes, etc, I wanted to put in sprinklers. It made sense because my house shares a wall with an ederly lady who has her three adult sons over regularly (They have thier own public housing units, but that is another story). I was worried because there is no fire wall between the (ballon-framed) houses, so if her house went up, mine did also.

The preliminary costing was mixed. I am three blocks from the fire station so my insurance company would not give me any breaks. I get 80+ lbs of water pressure so I would not need a booster pump. Alexandria does require a separate meter because they are worried about what happens if I don't pay my water bill. The new meter would cost $3,000 and has to be installed by the water company that will also add $20 a quarter to my bill for general overhead. The code guys all recommended a wet system because that would save $5,000 or so over the dry system, even though I would have to flush the system every couple of years.

So I went and did the detailed cost estimate. It turned out that most design parameters called for 20 heads for my 1860 foot house. That is typical (slightly under 100 square feet coverage per head, reduced by walls and such). The cost for the heads plus the mountings came in around $60 per head. The piping (that special orange, fire resistant and such piping that you have to use) came in at about $2,000. Plus you need the interior shut off valve for after a fire or accidental discharge, $400. Since it was a wet system, the city requires backflow preventers and taps for flushing, $300. I would not install any alarming system associated with the system, figuring the water flowing everywhere would serve, saving $500 between flow switches, battery backups, bells and such. So I ended up with $4,100 (with glue and all the other misc) for just materials.

Then I talked with the local fire chief. He said it was a nice system, but that $7,000 before code compliance and without labor would be better spent putting fireproofing insulation between the houses. He said that sprinklers are really for suburbs or country houses where the fire department would take 15-25 minutes to drive there, not 1 minute to drive the three blocks.

So, even though a fire chief has a conflict of interest in keeping station houses open, I decided to scrap the sprinklers and put in Roxul (mineral fiber) insulation in the joining wall. No code problems, no maintenance, Cost $1,000 and solved the problem. Especially with the new (to code) wiring going in the house, better solution.

So. I want to know how in the world they are thinking to get the cost down to $0.50 a foot. For my 1860 foot home that is less than $1,000. That is just silliness. Even discounting my labor, I was looking at a minimum of $3.00 a foot. Imagine if I was going to pay a master plumber for more than main connections and QA.

So, the article ignores the distance to the fire station, a significant factor. It ignores fireproofing insulation that could have similar effects. It ignores that, maybe, a partial sprinkler system would be better, since most fires are in the kitchen. It ignores water pressure issues, booster pumps are not cheap. It ignores structural issues (the code guys were not happy about more holes in my historic beams that were already swiss cheese like for electric holes, plumbing holes, drainage lines, security and speaker wires holes, etc.)

I think the editor that let this through needs his finances checked. He should have sent the author back to do some real research and to look at providing the practical, cost based articles that I read FHB for. Actually, I think I just wrote a better article in the last 15 minutes...

Heath

Looks interesting. I would happily read the book and comment on it. I would even see if it had any applicability to the historic home I am renovating...