Anaheim Sprinkler Laws for New Homes Ignite Debate Over Cost, Safety

When Anaheim last week became one of the few cities in the country to require sprinklers in all new homes, it took sides in a growing nationwide debate over whether sprinklers save thousands of lives or simply add thousands of dollars to the price of every new house.

The emerging battle over mandatory fire sprinklers pits two familiar foes against each other: firefighters who argue that the devices can prevent deaths and millions of dollars in losses, and building industry officials who say those claims are exaggerated and that the price of sprinklers--about $2,000 per home--will further discourage home buyers in an already expensive market.

About 500 communities in the United States now require sprinklers for single-family homes, apartments and condominiums, contrasted with only half a dozen in 1981, according to Operation Life Safety in Washington, an affiliate of the International Assn. of Fire Chiefs. Orange County led the country in 1980, when San Clemente became the first city to require sprinklers in new homes.

“It’s an encouraging thing that has started to spread,” said Harvey Seymour, spokesman for the Insurance Information Institute. “Up until now, the best ammunition was smoke detectors. But nothing works as well as sprinklers.”

Smoke detectors, now installed in three-fourths of America’s homes, are credited with saving up to 1,000 lives a year, according to the Insurance Information Institute in New York City. Sprinklers can save more lives, firefighters say.

A 1988 report by the National Bureau of Standards estimated that adding sprinklers to one- and two-family homes could reduce fire deaths by as much as 60% to 70% a year, “a savings of about 2,500 lives a year.”

Of 55 fires involving residential sprinkler systems studied by Life Safety since 1986, the devices saved 44 lives and millions of dollars in property, said director Jim Dalton. “And there has never been a multiple loss of life in a fully sprinkled building,” Dalton added.

In Georgia, Cobb County Fire Chief David Hilton credits a 1981 ordinance with saving at least 18 lives.

In Less Than 1% of Homes

Yet because sprinklers exist in less than 1% of American homes, reliable data about them is scarce and often incomplete. Most of the information is anecdotal, as in a recent Napa, Calif., fire in which a sprinkler extinguished flames on a baby’s quilt and saved the child, said Orange County Fire Capt. Hank Raymond.

But laws requiring the sprinkler systems will not come easily.

“We have a serious affordable-housing problem,” said John Withers, spokesman for the Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California. “To rush ahead and require sprinklers on a mandatory basis is ill-advised, given the tremendous costs involved and the marginal benefits.”

Opposing mandatory sprinklers can be about as popular as opposing apple pie and baseball, builders battling the ordinances concede. But they say consumers don’t want sprinklers, that the systems cost too much when home prices are already steep, and that insurance savings and safety claims by sprinkler proponents are unfounded.

“Houses today are safer than they have ever been,” Withers said. “Virtually all fire fatalities are in structures more than 20 years old. If you want to be totally safe, let’s go back to adobe huts. How far do you go, and at what cost?”

And building industry officials contend that sprinkler systems may not be as reliable as proponents maintain. Mechanical problems, human error and tampering may cause them to fail. Withers said sprinklers can malfunction. He cited the system that flooded a Los Alamitos warehouse when the 1987 Whittier earthquake shook the Southland.

Concerned With Liability

Withers said his concern is liability. He wonders who would be accountable if the system fails in a fire: builders, the subcontractors that install the systems, or the sprinkler’s manufacturer?

Sprinkler technology, itself, is simple. Each sprinkler head, typically installed in the ceiling, is soldered to hold back the water until it is needed. When there is a fire, heat melts the solder on the head and releases the water automatically.

The San Clemente Fire Department says that only five sprinkler heads have failed since 1980 in the 6,000 residential units in which the systems are installed.

Raymond, of the Orange County Fire Department, said he has heard complaints from homeowners that the sprinklers keep running after being triggered, flooding a room.

But the damage is usually confined to one room because a single sprinkler head usually contains a fire there, he said. Rarely are two heads triggered. And sprinklers extinguish the fire 97% of the time before firefighters arrive, he said.

“Quick-response sprinklers release from 13 to 25 gallons of water a minute,” Raymond said. “Compare that to the 125 to 250 gallons a minute from a firefighter’s hose, and you’re looking at a dramatic difference in water damage.”