Watch out - more expense coming to new and refurbished homes.

"The Welsh Environment Minister, John Griffiths, has announced plans for all new and converted residential properties in Wales to be fitted with sprinkler systems.

Regulations for this will be introduced in September 2013. This will save a predicted 36 lives and prevent an estimated 800 injuries between 2013 and 2022.

He also announced publication of the results of a cost benefit analysis by BRE Global into the proposal. The report has been published on the Welsh Government website. It concludes that the introduction of sprinklers will reduce the risk of death and injuries and damage to property.

The Minister said: "We must seek to prevent avoidable death and injury from house fires and need to accept that there is a cost to introducing sprinklers into new properties.

"These proposals are significant and important in taking forward fire safety. Wales will be at the forefront of reducing fire risk and cutting the number of avoidable deaths and injuries caused by fires in residential premises."

Work is due to begin on the development of regulations and the technical requirements necessary to introduce the Measure which will be subject to public consultation."

All very good and I fit sprinklers in care homes and otehr flats where people with restricted mobility might live but at about £2-3k per individal home I wonder whether this extra cost is justified? The other problem will be the availabilty of the required flow rate and pressure from the mains but I guess all that will come out in the consultation.

Yep, only these are to connected to the water, rather than the electricity main! Sledgehammers and nuts?

Hi,
I knew a consultant working on the design for this many years ago. My main concern was the inadvertant triggering of the sprinklers and maintenance. A flooded house can cost 10's of thousands to repair. With 30 million homes it's sure some will be damaged. Then there's the cost of planning permission and installation. There's a sad fact that most fire deaths happen at night because there are fewer people about the alarm gets raised late and by the time a fire engine arrives lives have been lost. Staffordshire fire sevice changed their main priority from "response time" to prevention. After many years of static fire deaths the rate fell dramatically. My personal view is that fire alarms well maintained and checked are a far better solution.

Richard

I have experience of these things going off and nearly going off. First of all I believe the statistic that is banded about a false alarm rate of 1: an awful lot! In the first instance sprinklers were fitted to block of flats occupied by older people. The block had an underground car park but as a cost saving the sprinklers were left out of that. Within a month of the place opening a car fire spread rapidly and was so fierce that the flames came out of the entrance, up the side of the building and then back in windows above the entrance. The sprinklers worked, the building was saved and the occupants evacuated. In the second instance someone put a microwave on top of a hob and set it alight. In this case the plastic cover was just turning suggesting that the fuse was about to go when the fire put itself out due to lack of oxygen and/or fuel. In both cases the smoke alarms operated many minutes before the sprinklers activated (or nearly went off). So with a building occupied 24/7 by people who are awake it is very likely that action taken on activation of the smoke/ heat alarms will cause evacuation to start many minutes before the sprinklers operate.

We still fit them though as we house mainly older people and sprinklers have the associated benefit of reducing the requirement for fire doors (especially within flats). I have never heard of a false activation.

I have also fitted one to my own place (a new build) as we are many miles from a fire station, it is a totally wooden structure, and more importantly they will handle a fire that could occur when the building is empty of people. BUT to legislate to fit them everywhere is totally crazy. Houses in urban areas, occupied by ambulant people and fitted with serviceable smoke and heat alarms do not need sprinklers.

Posted By: pmusgroveabout £2-3k per individal home

What is it that costs so much? I don't know much about it, so I'm imagining some metres of pipe and a dozen or so sprinklers.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: pmusgrove</cite> Regulations for this will be introduced in September 2013. This will save a predicted 36 lives and prevent an estimated 800 injuries between 2013 and 2022.</blockquote>

36 lives in 9 years doesn't sound very like many.

Something like 600 a year die from falling down stairs or steps in England and Wales. They going make all new houses bungalows?

Come to think of it, why not have the smoke alarm turn off the power to the building? Would deal with electrical fires. Can a 'smart meter' do this?

Hi,
For domestic installations what would be the requirement for function testing / checking. Would I require an HSE bod at home with an umbrella. Genuine question.

Mike up North

Reliability in this case wouldn't primarily be concerned with them not going off, it would be concerned with the accidentally going off and causing a lot of damage.

I suspect the reason that sprinklers are pretty reliable is two-fold. Firstly the majority of older systems around are heat activated with no electrical components and are very simple devices where a glass vial holds a mechanical water valve shut, this shatters when the liquid inside expands due to heat. Secondly, the majority are fitted to the type of building where the high cost of accredited installation wasn't a major issue, I suspect.

<blockquote><cite>Posted By: WillInAberdeen</cite>Come to think of it, why not have the smoke alarm turn off the power to the building? Would deal with electrical fires. Can a 'smart meter' do this?</blockquote>

By the time an electrical fire is detected turning the electricity off probably has little effect other than plunging the house into darkness.

I doubt if they will even work to BS xxxxxx.yyy

When I installed one in a house there was an insane row about what would happen if the water main was off or of too smaller size, they wanted tanks in the roof 3000 ltrs, or a guarantee from the water company about supply.
In the end after weeks of silly talk they let us off with a bigger mains pipe to the road adding cost £££

A number of questionds here. The cost at the moment is due to:

1. A small market and hence small number of providers.
2. A need to get them commissioned by a specialist who is able to issue a certificate to say that it has been installed according to BS....
3. The pipes actually have to be large bore and fire proof. They come at present in the main from the US.
4. There is a requirement for a lot of pipes 'cos at the moment you need a sprinkler for about every 12sqm (from memory).
5. You need for a 4 bedroom house with any room over 12sq m to provide a flow rate of at least 80l/min at more than 1 bar.

The example given above was probably a fine mist system which is not in general usage here (I think). If the house is well alight then they are very useful in putting the fire out before the fire brigade arrive. However if the house had been fitted with an alarm system and the occupants had been around and able to do something I would bet that the brigade would have arrived before the fire had taken hold sufficiently to cause a lot of destruction.

I would never have a sprinlker system installed with anything other than a mechanical fuse as fitted today. Otherwise too many flase alarms before a malfunction when it is really needed.

Forget power off when the alarm goes off. Evacuating a building at night with people woken from sleep is bad enough with some light about; in the dark it would be even more difficult - hence the need for emergency lighting which goes on when the alarm is activated.

These are all the reasons why they weren't put in council houses where I used to work. How could you guarantee water pressure at all times - the Water Co. wouldn't. So do you have a tank back up? etc, etc.
What eventually happened was that landlords with Houses in Multiple Occupation could see a real benefit in saving their buildings from fire damage. So they, their insurance companies and the Council took the pragmatic view that something was better than nothing. Systems were simple, sprinkler in kitchen and bedrooms, no loft tanks, just needed mains pressure to be x bar(I forget actual Bar). Anyway, a system for a five bed house was less than the cost of the fire doors.

No doubt the Welsh Ass. Government will not take a pragmatic approach and this will just be an opportunity for some accreditation agency to take the pee.
This could be simple and cheap for most but will be made expensive and difficult for all. Bureaucracy, don't you just love it?
When we were self building I priced a self install, off the self system, for £300 (copper pipe, Kitchen sprinkler head, bedroom head and hallway). This required mains pressure. However, our (mains) water is pumped from the village down the hill and power cuts = no water. That's why we would really need a loft tank for sensible cover. When that and the bigger joists were costed in, it became too expensive (£,000s I seem to remember).

Posted By: tonythey wanted tanks in the roof 3000 ltrs

Posted By: pmusgroveYou need for a 4 bedroom house with any room over 12sq m to provide a flow rate of at least 80l/min

Thinking about circumstances like JSH's, how much water do these things need? I'd have thought that if the fire hasn't gone out within a couple of minutes of the sprinkler starting to sprinkle it's not going to. Run away! Are they, perhaps, thinking of cases where the sprinkler stops the fire spreading without actually putting it out?

The domestic sprinklers we trialled used very little water, putting a fire out within seconds of activating and caused hardly any water damage - can't remember how many litres (10 years ago !) but not much more than a bucket. BUT that's if you turn the water off as soon as the fire is out!
Form my memory;
1. Sprinkler heads were only fitted in areas most commonly associated with fire; Kitchen (chip pans) and bedrooms (smoking).
2. Copper pipe used to connect heads.
3. Head would only activate if fire in same room, so the bedroom heads would not activate if the fire was in the kitchen.
4. Not whole house coverage. So no sprinklers on the stairs, landing, hall etc.
5. Not designed to save building but contain fire to allow occupants to get out (in all ours tests, however, the sprinklers put the fires out in seconds)
These systems were cheap and simple, we wouldn't be able to persuade landlords to fit them if they weren't.
Anyway, I'm sure things have moved on since then and become much more complicated and expensive. But there is a real possibility that if someone somewhere has kept things simple, lives could be saved without much cost. But my experience of central government gives me little confidence in this.