peel back effect
OPINION

Eichler: Cold weather reminds of sprinkler advantages

Posted

Every municipal elected official and code official should be taking a look to see what edition of the International Residential Code their community is using and reviewing the requirement for residential fire sprinklers. Municipalities should take a lesson from Newark, Lewes, Milton and Delaware City, which all require residential fire sprinklers in different styles of individual housing. When damage estimates are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the cost of a fire sprinkler system is incredibly minimal. And now that commercial tank and pump systems are available that reduce, if not eliminate, the need for a tie-in to the purveyor water line, the cost to install a system continues to be economical.

If you’re not convinced of the effectiveness of sprinklers, regardless of the setting, go to the National Fire Sprinkler Association website, nfsa.org, and sign up for its newsletter. Take a look at “Spotlight on Fire Sprinklers” to learn more about these life- and property-saving systems. And, once again, I do not benefit in any way from the installation of these systems.

We still have many cold days in front of us and must do all we can to prevent fire fatalities and losses. Check those smoke alarms and build with residential fire sprinklers.

Final question: Did your community delete or edit the residential fire sprinkler requirement from the adopted code edition used by your building officials?

Paul Eichler

Delaware Fire Sprinkler Coalition

Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.

Members and subscribers make this story possible.
You can help support non-partisan, community journalism.

x
X