Below is an e-mail that was sent out by Jerry Rombach, Executive Director of the Home Builders Association of Greater Southwest Illinois last night.
>>> > 9/22/2008 5:00 PM >>> Code officials overwhelmingly caved to pressure from the fire sprinkler manufacturers at their conference in Minneapolis last week, and beginning 2009, unless specifically amended out by local jurisdictions, home builders will be required to install sprinkler systems on all new residential structures. This action does several things: > Places an extremely expensive mandate on new home buyers > Provides a false sense of personal safety on those families > Creates a class system that says we value the lives of new home owners over all others (you'll note that fire sprinklers are not mandatory in existing homes) Not content to argue for adoption on the merits of sprinklers, the industry pulled some questionable tactics to offer free travel and hotels packages, to code officials, as well as "single vote" junkets. At a time when the housing industry is suffering, and the nation's economy is suffering because of it, this will place yet another burden on an already over-regulated, over-mandated industry and its customers. It's not often that our national, state and local HBAs lose such a big issue affecting the industry and consumers. The strength of our arguments and research generally prevail. Rest assured the HBA...and we hope our members...will carry this battle to city halls and county board chambers for years to come. That fight starts this week, with a series of letters to mayors, selected aldermen/trustees, county board chairs and members, and local media outlets. Without your help, I simply won't have the strength to carry the message by myself. You can be certain that our industry will be vilified for our position should we press on. Proponents of sprinklers and the public who don't want new housing anywhere, will paint you as insensitive child killers who willingly put greed and profit ahead of the lives of fire fighters and your customers. For more details on the vote and what's next, background information on the issue, or to comment or ask questions, please don't hesitate to contact me. Jerry Rombach Executive Officer Home Builders Association of Greater Southwest Illinois 618-343-6331 Bill Minkel, Sprinkler Designer Member NFPA Dallas, TX _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list http://lists.firesprinkler.org/mailman/listinfo/sprinklerforum For Technical Assistance, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send an email to:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Put the word unsubscribe in the subject field)
