October 31, 2009|By Jamie Smith Hopkins | Jamie Smith Hopkins,jamie.smith.hopkins@baltsun.com
A requirement for sprinkler systems in all new single-family homes survived a challenge this week from homebuilders, who objected to the several-thousand-dollar cost in a down housing market.
International Code Council members, gathered in Baltimore for hearings on the 2012 version of a residential code that influences building regulations across the country, voted down a proposal by the National Association of Home Builders to scrap the sprinkler requirement. The vote on the floor backed sprinklers in new single-family homes by an "overwhelming" margin, said Joseph Zurolo, Maryland's deputy fire marshal.
The ICC's code isn't in itself mandatory, but states, counties and cities across the country adopt it - either in whole or in part. The sprinkler requirement is in the current code but doesn't apply until 2011. Homebuilders proposed a change to the 2012 code so all buyers would instead be offered sprinkler systems as an option.
The decision to keep requiring sprinklers isn't final until a vote at an ICC conference in May.
Still, sprinkler supporters called the Baltimore voting a major win. That's because opponents now need a two-thirds majority to remove the requirement from the code, said W. Faron Taylor of the International Residential Code Fire Sprinkler Coalition.
"We're disappointed," said John E. Kortecamp, executive vice president of the Home Builders Association of Maryland.
"The state's likely going to end up adopting it, so the battle moves to the counties. ... We still think it should be a mandatory option."
Taylor, a retired deputy state fire marshal, said nine counties in Maryland already require sprinkler systems in new single-family homes.
Sprinklers have been mandatory in newly constructed townhouses throughout the state since 1992, he said.
"We have not had one single fire fatality, either to a civilian or firefighter, in a townhouse in Maryland that's protected by sprinklers," Taylor said.
