A Few Thoughts...
Grenfell, London...close to 100 dead.
Honolulu, Hawaii... at least 3 dead
If you know a builder, realtor, water company representative, waste water treatment operator, building code official, municipal legislator, insurance representative or even a firefighter, fire officer or fire chief, the requirement for sprinklers in all types of living occupancies should be a topic, if not the topic of discussion with any of these people. The counter arguments against sprinklers are old, tired and not applicable.
If the opposition mentions installation cost, ask what the cost is to recover from a fire is. Financially and emotionally. There is very little first time buyer construction going on these days, because no one can afford the new homes being built. But eventually, long after the builder is gone, those existing properties will be the starter homes.
Got a 55+ neighborhood going up in your area? Ask everyone involved what part of the population suffers the most residential fire deaths. Those buying these homes. 65 and older residents account for over 25% of the annual residential fire fatalities.
Talk about water usage and water conservation. I think it is still cool to be "green". 25 gpms from a sprinkler vs. 150 gpm from a fire hose. Which do you want to clean up from? Who is your water purveyor? Want a good stock tip? Water purveyors....as a private business, they are in it for the money, which means they answer to stockholders. Buy their stock...be a stockholder...grasp another way to change the thinking about sprinklers.
How about those insurance types? Same idea. Which claim would they rather pay out on? $10,000 for water clean up, or hundreds of thousands of dollars from total destruction. Again, they don't provide the product because they are nice guys.
Ask that friendly builder where he will be in five years when the Smiths have a fire in their home. Will he be right there to help out? My guess is no where to be found. Take settlement check and on to the next one.
Finally, to whoever is opposing sprinklers, ask them if they can account for what that family brings into the dwelling and how that family behaves there. No one can do this except that family. A man's/ woman's home is his/ her castle. Yet when that "castle" burns and lights off the house next door, its a bigger problem. Don't believe me, go ask the families of Chestnut Ridge, outside of Magnolia, Delaware. A house fire as a result of a random, freak, out of the ordinary incident is rare and we know it. Compare those numbers to the amount of unattended cooking fires we run. Oh, unattended cooking.....a behavior type fire that will affect contents before structural members. Install the sprinklers and recover sooner.
Enough ranting for tonight. We are working on getting the green light for side by side burns in Delaware for sprinkler demonstrations.
All the above is my rambling. Any questions, concerns, complaints should come to me.
Thanks,
Paul
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