davegoldensteinenber

My wife & I built a passive solar, 1800 sf timber framed house in Western Washington 2 years ago. Our house is placed to receive maximum solar exposure in the winter, with roof overhangs to provide shade in the summer. We rely on ceiling fans to help cool in the summer & wood heat in the winter. We harvest our own firewood from our 5 acre woodlot with a total heating/cooling cost of around $20 per year.

We were incredibly fortunate to have my dad - who is an impressive architect work closely with us on the design & site placement for our house. He can be reached for comment here: http://www.wjbingham.com/

We built a 600 sq ft Mother-in-Law over 2 car garage in King County, WA 1996 with sprinkler system at a cost of around $9.17 per sq ft.

Cost to design a 10' coverage per sprinkler head in a 20' x 30' building was $1,500.

The fire sprinkler permit purchased through the county was around $500.

The install performed by licensed/bonded sprinkler outfit was around $3,500 (did not include the required 220v electrical service to power booster pump).

The booster pump is cast iron/connected by threaded orange pvc pipe. Lucky for me that I was home on the evening that the pvc pipe threads finally blew out of the constant pressure pump. Shop vac worked pretty good to remove more than 200 gallons of water from the garage floor.

Reports from other builders in the area - include leaking sprinkler heads - ruined flooring, drywall, etc. The installers bond does not cover other trades repair work - when the sprinkler system fails.

Reality check: why hire a fire department if every building will have a fire sprinkler system?