Most Coastal States Opting Out of Fire Sprinkler Mandate
Firefighter groups celebrated a victory in 2007 when the International Code Council voted to include a fire sprinkler requirement in the International Residential Code. But the celebration was a little premature: that code requires state action to implement, and at the state level, advocates of code-mandated sprinklers are still swimming against the political tide. In state after state, authorities have adopted the new code — but without the part about fire sprinklers.
On July 26, Virginia became the latest state to say no to the sprinkler rule, when the state Board of Housing and Community Development voted to leave sprinklers out of the code. Steve Calhoun, a staff coordinator for the board, says members expressed concerns about sprinkler system cost. Instead of a mandate, the board voted to include some incentives for builders who voluntarily included sprinklers — including reducing the required space between homes in a dense development, reducing the width of required access roads, and allowing reduced water pressure and flow in fire hydrants for new neighborhoods where homes were sprinklered. And Calhoun told Coastal Connection that the board plans to revisit the issue in future years: “This issue is not dead.”
A week before the Virginia board vote, Leesburg Today reported that sprinkler advocates could already see the writing on the wall (“Firefighters Expect To Lose Push For Home Sprinklers Mandate, For Now,” by Erika Jacobson Moore). One frustrated firefighter, Loudoun County Fire-Rescue Chief W. Keith Brower, told the paper the process was “broken” and “staff-driven,” saying, "It is staff that is driving and directing the code process ... [and] really pushing the interests of business and not safety."
But in most states, it is the elected state legislature, and not any administrative staff or board, that has shot down sprinkler rules. Florida’s legislature voted to remove mandatory fire sprinklers from the statewide code in May. The Georgia legislature’s measure, HB 1196, also became law in May, and provides that “no building code shall include a requirement that fire sprinklers be installed in a single-family dwelling or a residential building containing no more than two dwelling units.” The Alabama legislature has overwhelmingly passed HB 264, which prohibits any locality from either requiring sprinklers or prohibiting them in one-family or two-family dwellings. South Carolina’ legislature and governor took similar action, prohibiting any local enforcement of the ICC sprinkler requirement until at least 2014, reports the Charleston Regional Business Journal (“Governor signs bill delaying fire sprinkler mandate till 2014,” by Ashley Fletcher Frampton). You can add New Hampshire to the list: HB 1486, passed into law this week, takes the sprinkler mandate out of the state code (but sets up a committee to study the issue). And Maine held hearings this month on its new code, and appears set to move forward with no sprinkler mandate, reports Portland TV station WSCH Channel 6 (“Fire sprinkler requirement debated again,” by Chris Rose).
Maryland is one coastal state where the 2009 IRC has been adopted without amendments. However, some localities are taking up the issue of the sprinkler mandate. Worcester County, Maryland, has code ordinances on its books that date back to the 1980s, and refer to obsolete code documents created by model code organizations that no longer exist, reports the Del Marva Daily Times (“Sprinkler requirement puts kink in building law,” by Jenny Hopkinson). Local officials want to clean all that up, but they say the sprinkler rule in the 2009 IRC doesn’t make sense for their county, according to the paper: “Commissioner Virgil Shockley said that requiring all single-family homes to have residential sprinklers is not practical in a county where the majority of residents are not served by public water. Well pumps are often not strong enough to make the system work, he said.”
But county officials aren’t sure they’re allowed to opt out of the statewide rule. So for now, they may postpone any action at all — leaving local builders still subject to the dated standards already on the county books.
