It was not a good day for us in Michigan yesterday. The Habitat for Humanity proposal to remove the residential fire sprinkler requirement from the code was accepted 10 to 2 by the Michigan Construction Code Review Committee (2 nay votes to deny the proposal were labor and fire service).
The room (large 250 plus?) was filled to overflowing with the fire service or advocates of sprinklers being out numbered about ten to one by the homebuilders. The Michigan fire service lead by the Inspectors association came out in very good numbers and put up a well organized fight as compared to the other states The hearing began at 9:30 and concluded at 2:00 PM. The key arguments put forward by the homebuilders were as follows. - Sprinklers should be an option not mandatory, - The cost of installation and other associated cost are too high. - The necessity for mandatory installation is not justified given the number of fire deaths. The home builders and Habitat representatives pounded away at those three points. A couple of other side issues we need to be aware of which I think could get legs in other states are as follows. The fact that a number of states have now removed the requirement during their code adoption process was mentioned a couple of times. That momentum is going to be troubling for us in the future. The homebuilders suggested on a number of occasion that the sprinkler requirement is being pushed by a greedy group of sprinkler manufacturers , suppliers and contractors. In other words the motivation is not life safety as much as it is profit driven. Aside from the above points there were the normal myths and misconceptions expressed by those who obviously have not taken the time to look into the technology, the requirements of 13D or the issue as a whole. These were very frustrating and repeated by most in the proponent of the code change. I was fascinated that they utilized 2 buses of advocates and they were well beyond home builders. They were just about every interest group including homebuilders, building officials, private interest, every habitat for humanity chapter from the state, and other low-income groups. The only comment made by the members of the committee came prior to a motion to adopt. The comment came from a committee member who is a homebuilder and I understand is also a firefighter. He said that he would be voting to support the Habitat motion not because he thought the sprinkler requirement was not appropriate but that the economy and depressed home building market could not endure further pressure at this time. He stated he would vote in favor in 2012 if the economy turned around. Time for Plan B here in Michigan and we will see what that is. But if you are interested in serving on some committees to help us on our 2012 push, let me know -- Michael O'Brian Code Savvy Consultants O: 313-618-6401 F: 313-557-0294 [email protected] www.codesavvyconsultants.com www.inspector911.com _______________________________________________ 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)
