Fire officials push for mandatory sprinklers in homes

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina fire officials told Channel 9 they're pushing to make sprinklers mandatory in new homes. They said sprinklers save lives and property but many homebuilders question if it's worth the cost, and whether the costs of sprinklers could make homes unaffordable.

Homeowner Antoinette Pinckney said she's seriously considering the need for sprinklers in her next home. Now, she is trying to make a hotel feel like home as she awaits the arrival of her baby boy.

"It's very stressful," Pinckney said.

She'd been preparing his nursery in their west Charlotte home until an electrical fire destroyed it in June.

Channel 9 was on the scene moments after she escaped with her daughter.

"Everything that we have had built over the years into that house is gone," Pinckney said.

Her husband built the family's home and now they're focused on making their next one as fire proof as possible.

"Definitely having sprinklers installed," Pinckney said.

Cherryville Fire Chief Jeff Cash believes sprinklers should be mandatory in new homes.

"Residential sprinklers are effective in saving lives and reducing property damage, and from the firefighters’ perspective, it also helps save the lives of firefighters," Cash said.

The National Fire Protection Association estimates a sprinkler can put out a fire in less than two minutes.

Research from Underwriters Laboratory found that due to lighter, more combustible building materials the amount of time you have to escape a fire has dropped from 17 minutes to roughly four minutes over the last 40 years.

House fires have killed 39 people in North Carolina in 2017.

"That's where we are losing people in single family dwellings, the apartments, hotels motels they all have sprinkler systems," Cash said.

The International Residential Code has required sprinklers in new one and two-family homes and town homes since 2011.

In 2010, after receiving stacks of letters from firefighters and victims supporting a mandate and from homebuilders fighting it, North Carolina's Building Code Council opted out of the requirement.

"It all comes back to the cost," Cash said.

Homebuilders like Mike Carpinelli worry sprinklers will drive up housing costs.

"I think the cost associated with protection that's going to be in place, just doesn't make sense to me," Carpinelli said.

Carpinelli estimates it could cost more than $10,000 to install sprinklers in a 1,500 square-foot home.

The NFPA estimates the cost at a $1.35 per square foot, just over $2,000 for a home that size.

A sprinkler contractor based in Charlotte told Eyewitness News that the $1.35-per-sprinkled-square-foot estimate would be more appropriate and fitting for a track home builder that would install the systems in multiple homes, not for custom homes.

Eyewitness News Anchor Brittney Johnson asked Carpinelli if he thinks the estimates are too low.

"I think that's awfully low," he said.

Cash said builders are focusing too much on the price tag.

"I understand the economic side of it but what cost do you put on human life," Cash said.

After everything she's lost, Pinckney is willing to pay whatever it takes to protect her family.

Scottsdale, Arizona, officials mandated sprinklers in 1986. Researchers looked at the impact and found that over a 15-year period, sprinklers saved more than a dozen lives.

In North Carolina, Alamance County officials just started offering a 50 percent discount on new home permits if sprinklers are installed.

California, Baltimore and the District of Columbia are the only states that mandate sprinklers in new homes.

Cox Media Group