This is the story of a 3 year old house with an attached garage.  An accidental fire started in the garage and the fire company was alerted.  There were not any nearby hydrants, so pumper trucks were needed.  The story goes on to detail what the outcome might have been without a sprinkler system versus the actual outcome.

Without a sprinkler system (estimated):

• Several dozen fire fighters would be needed
• 1-2 hours to control & extinguish the fire
• Might have spread to other parts of the house
• Damage could have been in the hundreds of thousands
• Residents may have to relocate during repairs

With a sprinkler system (actual):

• Sprinkler activated and fully extinguished the fire before the fire fighters arrival
• Only required one crew of 6 fire fighters
• Only suffered several thousand dollars of damage
• No injuries to home owners or fire fighters

This type of story makes me think every home should have a sprinkler system, so why don’t they? Here is a story from last year in our local New Jersey Business News from the builders perspective called “Mandatory home sprinklers raise cost issue”.  They raise some good points and definitely give me a reason to pause.

Finally, here is an article on Wikipedia on the subject of “Fire Sprinkler System”.  This article details the history, usage, operation and the various types of sprinkler systems available.  This answered many of the questions I had.  So what do you think, should a residential sprinkler system be mandatory in all new home construction?  What about additions and remodeling?  We would like to hear your opinion, go ahead leave us a message in the comments.

photo credit: Diacritical

“I’ve never dealt with a company that made decisions so quickly,” said Floyd Brunning, a partner at Paul Davis Restoration, the company that put the building back together again.

It is nice to see that the company’s quick decisions led to an equally quick restoration.