Lisa Roberson – The Chronicle-Telegram

ELYRIA — Drafting legislation calling for all new homes to be constructed with fire sprinkler systems is easy.

The hard part will come if the Elyria Fire Department tries to get it passed.

While fire officials say sprinklers save lives, no cities or municipalities in Ohio have added it to their fire and building codes.

Not that there haven’t been efforts to do so.

Garnering nationwide support is slow going, said Jeffrey Hugo, regional manager of code for the National Fire Sprinkler Association. Currently, only 300 cities across the country require new homes to include fire suppression systems.

“But it’s not for lack of trying,” Hugo said. “The numbers say it all. On average, 4,000 people die each year in this country in fires, and 80 percent of those deaths happen in one- and two-family homes. We’ve solved the problem of fire deaths in every other kind of building — offices, malls and business — by requiring they install fire suppression systems. Yet, we don’t do that in the one place we spend the most of our time.”

In Scottsdale, Ariz., an ordinance was passed in 1986 that required fire suppression systems in new homes. In the first 15 years, there were 49 fires in sprinkler-equipped homes without a single death, while 13 people died in homes without sprinklers.

There are a lot of misconceptions about how fire sprinkler systems work, Hugo said, which only add to heavy opposition.

Cost tops the list.

However, in a community where suppression systems are mandated, the cost is typically 1 to 2 percent of the total home building cost, Hugo said. Costs are higher in areas with no competing companies or mandate.

“Sprinklers are about saving life and property in the place where 80 percent of all fires occur,” Hugo said. “While smoke detectors alert you to fire, fire sprinklers actually work to decrease the fire and lower the heat the fire produces. That’s what makes the difference between having $2,000 in damage versus $25,000 in damage.”

For that reason, fire officials from across the country will travel to Minneapolis this September for the International Code Council’s annual meeting. There, fire and building officials will vote on new fire and building codes that includes language requiring residential fire sprinkler systems. The ICC code serves as the model for state and nationwide fire and building codes.

Getting it passed with the ICC is the first step in getting it adopted in Ohio, said ICC member Mike Long, also a fire marshal in southwest Ohio.

However, nothing guarantees the legislation will be adopted in Ohio.

“But I think it will happen, eventually,” Long said. “We went through this with smoke detectors. It took a long time to get code requiring smoke detectors in homes. Yet, people are still dying. I’m voting for the code because fire sprinkler save lives. It’s as simple as that.”

Still, Long said the biggest opposition continues to be the National Association of Home Builders.

According to smokealarmswork.org, the NAHB does not support measures to mandate sprinkle system use because it contends fire sprinklers in single-family homes are expensive to install, can be difficult to maintain and do not represent a cost-effective safety improvement over smoke alarm systems, the Web site said.

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