Home Sprinkler Costs Spark Debate : Fire Safety: Prices for installation in rapid- growth areas vary. Builders are offering the greatest opposition.

The toughest opposition to residential fire sprinklers is from developers who are building homes in rapidly growing cities, where sprinkler costs would be multiplied by thousands of homes.

Estimates for installing sprinklers in new homes range from 70 cents to $1.25 per square foot for tract homes, said Steve Hart, director of the Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board of Southern California, an industry promotion group. A custom home with a cathedral ceiling could soar as high as $2.50 a square foot.

The price tag can increase sharply in areas where water districts assess extra charges for sprinkler systems. Costs also vary with other local requirements, house size and design.

Builders also add their markup, and they usually like to get at least 10%, said Gary Emsiek, Homes by Polygon’s vice president for planning.

Sprinkler advocates argue that the cost is only 1% of a home’s price--often less than the cost of carpeting. In a relatively affordable area like Fontana, it costs about $2,000 for a 2,000-square-foot tract house. However, for somebody building a custom home, the total could be a lot more.

A client of home designer Wayne Holden ended up with a $6,400 bill for a sprinkler system in his 4,000-square-foot Encinitas home. Plans, fees and hardware cost $5,900, and another $500 was a San Dieguito Water District charge for a larger water meter needed for the system.

Costs at other districts vary considerably. The Olivenhain Municipal Water District, which serves other parts of Encinitas, charges $2,850 for the larger meter because of potential extra water use, said assistant manager David McCollom.

Fontana Water Co. doesn’t charge for the larger meter itself, but residents with 1-inch meters pay about $4 a month more than those in unsprinklered houses with five-eighths-inch meters, said secretary Norma Manning.

Holden said the extra cost is what really bothers him about sprinklers, and homeowner’s insurance discounts for the systems don’t begin to offset the cost.

He also points out that with a smoldering fire in a bed or sofa, the room temperature might not get high enough to trigger a sprinkler before a person succumbs to toxic smoke.

“That’s why smoke detectors are absolutely essential,” as well as sprinklers, Fullerton Fire Chief Ron Coleman said. Unfortunately, even when homes have smoke detectors, they often aren’t working, he said.

Homeowners forget to check sprinklers and sometimes paint over them. Even without human interference, sprinklers can’t always control a fire, National Assn. of Home Builders (NAHB) spokesman Richard Morris said.

There are a few situations a home-sprinkler system can’t handle, such as an explosion that could damage it or create a fire too large to handle, said Capt. Ronald Hayton of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. Arsonists and brush fires are others.

Systems are designed to have only enough force for one or two heads to go off at one time, which in most cases is enough to control a fire because the sprinklers activate while the fire is still small. Small rooms usually have one sprinkler, while a living room might need two.

How the sprinklers look in those rooms is one of homeowners’ biggest concerns. Today’s models come in a variety of styles and “designer colors,” and are inconspicuous enough that some people don’t know they have them, said Glendale Fire Department’s Christopher R. Gray, battalion chief and fire marshal.

Sprinkler heads usually protrude an inch or less from the ceiling, although some are recessed or concealed.

But even more than looks, homeowners’ biggest worry about the sprinklers is whether they will go off accidentally and drench the house. That’s unlikely--the heads’ failure rate is 1 in 16 million, said Robert Hagar, director of sales for Fire Chief Inc., a sprinkler installer.

They are not triggered by smoke, so unlike smoke detectors, which can go off at a whiff of overdone toast, sprinklers don’t respond until the temperature reaches a certain level (usually 160 to 165 degrees), which melts solder that holds back the water. The heads respond independently, so if one activates, it doesn’t set off the rest.

However, they’re not perfect.

“If I were to tell you they never had a leak I’d be lying,” Hagar said. But out of nearly 8,000 systems the Fontana company has put in, perhaps a dozen had problems, Hagar said, and those were covered by guarantees.

San Clemente residents were guinea pigs for early home sprinklers, but those systems are still working, Begnell said. Problems he’s aware of include about 1,000 drippy sprinkler heads that were replaced by the manufacturer several years ago.

Builders provide instructions for the systems, which need little maintenance but should be checked occasionally. Most problems are from human error in installation or upkeep, fire officials said, and sprinkler systems are often more reliable than regular plumbing.

But Holden said some people fear water damage so much that they have disabled their systems, which is a misdemeanor in most cities. “Sprinklers cause less damage than fire hoses,” Fire Chief Coleman said.

Once on, systems have to be turned off manually, even if the fire is out. The used sprinkler head is then replaced and the water turned back on. Most systems cannot be turned off without shutting off water to the rest of the house, to help ensure that residents use the sprinklers. They also have alarms to notify neighbors and residents that a sprinkler is on.

The alarm woke Don and Diane Tibbetts to a fire in the room of their 7-year-old son, Jeff, in February, 1988. The fire was caused by a heating pad that eventually ignited the bed.

A sprinkler stopped the fire early enough that damage was only $800. Tibbetts, who was irked at having to spend an extra $2,000 when he built the house in 1986, now can’t praise sprinklers enough. “I wouldn’t have a house without them,” he said.

The Tibbettses live in the Agua Dulce area near Lancaster, a part of Los Angeles County where sprinklers are used when homes are built too far from hydrants or have difficult access.

In places where sprinklers aren’t required, they are often an option--cities may allow developers to save money by requiring fewer fire hydrants when sprinklers are installed or reducing other safety features.

But some cities are reluctant to cut back on anything, even when they require sprinklers.

Building industry officials said they haven’t seen many such trade-offs. Certainly not enough to offset the cost of sprinkler systems and higher insurance rates for builders because of potential water damage, said Bart Doyle, general counsel of the Building Industry Assn. of Southern California.

In apartment buildings, being able to eliminate extra exits and other requirements might save enough to pay for the sprinklers, but there’s not much to cut back on single-family homes, NAHB’s Morris said.

Some Southern California cities require all new buildings--not just homes--to have sprinklers. Others require sprinklers only in certain circumstances.

In Orange County, Stanton requires that new houses more than 3,600 square feet and new apartments with more than two units have sprinklers. Placentia requires sprinklers in new single-family homes and apartments with three units or more, which covers virtually everything.

In Riverside, only homes more than five minutes from a fire station must have sprinklers.

Holden said the homes that really need sprinklers are older ones. Instead of discriminating against new homeowners, officials should be more concerned about existing houses.

Fewer than 5% of fires occur in homes less than 10 years old, Holden said.

That’s because there are more older homes, said Chief Robert La Marsh of the Encinitas Fire Protection District. “We have to start somewhere.”

Trying to make owners of existing homes add sprinklers is an issue nobody wants to touch. That would be “political suicide,” said Andy Rodriguez, Moreno Valley’s building and safety director and fire marshal.

Or, as the BIA’s Doyle put it, “homeowners vote--future homeowners don’t vote.”

Installing sprinklers in an existing home costs 50% to 100% more than putting them in during construction. Rodriguez said such a requirement would be hard to enforce, and some people couldn’t afford it.

So, as much as fire officials would like to see them in all homes, they’re concentrating now on getting them for new housing.

The Orange County Fire Department is urging its 14 contract cities to require sprinklers, and also wants county supervisors to mandate them for unincorporated areas. Several cities have done so. But Villa Park and Yorba Linda decided it was up to homeowners if they want sprinklers, city officials said.

Coleman said firefighters need to do a better job of persuading homeowners that sprinklers can protect their lives and property.

REMODELING MIGHT REQUIRE HOME SPRINKLERS In some cities, a major remodeling job could mean that homeowners would have to add sprinklers to their existing residence and the new area.

In San Clemente, for example, three situations can trigger that requirement:

* A second story added to a house.

* An addition that is more than 50% of the house’s existing square footage.

* An addition of 750 square feet or more, regardless of the size of the house.

Other cities base their remodeling retrofit requirements either on the square footage added or whether the cost represents a specified percentage of the home’s assessed value. And once a house has sprinklers, additions usually must have them too.