? Federal Law on CO detectors ?

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cadpoint

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Occupation
Electrician - but not by NC Law.
Reading about Fire Alarms this AM I thought I?d look up the local manufacture of F/A that?s in the neighborhood and was surprised to find this Article on a potential federal law that has passed the House.

carbon monoxide (CO)

I believe in NC our F/A Code is based on 1996 cycle?
 
awesome. I can't stand reading in the paper every week that someone died from CO poisoning. Regardless of the cause, it is such a sad waste of life. Same applies to houses without working smoke alarms. IMO houses without sprinklers shouldn't be allowed to be built.
 
nakulak said:
IMO houses without sprinklers shouldn't be allowed to be built.
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Why not?

I bet you'd save more lives by mandating roll cages in cars and requiring drivers to wear helmets.

I like it better now, where people have some choice.

There's gotta be a million different things we can do to make our lives safer, do we really need to government requiring each one?
 
All of you, please stop posting as there is a chance that you may get carpel tunnel or strain your eyes reading these posts.

Or you could possibly split your side when Larry is on a roll.:)
 
M4gery said:
Why not?

I bet you'd save more lives by mandating roll cages in cars and requiring drivers to wear helmets.

I like it better now, where people have some choice.

There's gotta be a million different things we can do to make our lives safer, do we really need to government requiring each one?
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You might lose that bet. There was a study done in Prince George's County, Maryland over a 15-year period (1992-2007) after they had required sprinklers in new construction. In 13,217 residential fires without sprinklers there were 101 fatalities. In 245 residential fires with sprinklers there were ZERO fatalities. Property damage was reduced by 90%. I tend to be a "live free or die" kinda guy, but maybe you shouldn't be allowed take your 5-month old into the "undiscovered country" with you.
 
gadfly56 said:
You might lose that bet. There was a study done in Prince George's County, Maryland over a 15-year period (1992-2007) after they had required sprinklers in new construction. In 13,217 residential fires without sprinklers there were 101 fatalities. In 245 residential fires with sprinklers there were ZERO fatalities. Property damage was reduced by 90%. I tend to be a "live free or die" kinda guy, but maybe you shouldn't be allowed take your 5-month old into the "undiscovered country" with you.
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I'm not following your point. This is what you said:

In 13,217 residential fires without sprinklers there were 101 fatalities.
In 245 residential fires with sprinklers there were ZERO fatalities.

Is that really that great? 245 fires is a very limited test compared to 13,217. If we tested anther 245 fires with sprinklers and only 4 people got killed (very possible), that would make it MORE likely to be killed with sprinklers in your home. So those stats really aren't telling me much.

Further, how does that compare to the hundreds of thousands of people who are seriously injured or killing in car accidents each year?

I still maintain that you'd save more bloodshed from helmets, 5 point harness, and roll-cages. If you're out to save the world, sprinklers in homes is far from the best place to start.

BTW, who is pushing for sprinklers in homes? Plumbers associations and manufacturers? The same type of people who pushed for AFCI's?

maybe you shouldn't be allowed take your 5-month old into the "undiscovered country" with you.
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You know what the real killer is? 5 gallon buckets. We could save 30 children a year from drowning if we just ban 5 gallon buckets. Or better yet, let's tax and license buckets, that'll work even better. :grin:
 
M4gery said:
I'm not following your point. This is what you said:

In 13,217 residential fires without sprinklers there were 101 fatalities.
In 245 residential fires with sprinklers there were ZERO fatalities.

Is that really that great? 245 fires is a very limited test compared to 13,217. If we tested anther 245 fires with sprinklers and only 4 people got killed (very possible), that would make it MORE likely to be killed with sprinklers in your home. So those stats really aren't telling me much.

Further, how does that compare to the hundreds of thousands of people who are seriously injured or killing in car accidents each year?

I still maintain that you'd save more bloodshed from helmets, 5 point harness, and roll-cages. If you're out to save the world, sprinklers in homes is far from the best place to start.

BTW, who is pushing for sprinklers in homes? Plumbers associations and manufacturers? The same type of people who pushed for AFCI's?

You know what the real killer is? 5 gallon buckets. We could save 30 children a year from drowning if we just ban 5 gallon buckets. Or better yet, let's tax and license buckets, that'll work even better. :grin:
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The expected death rate for 245 residential properties would be 2. Granted there are not so many fires recorded in sprinklered structures, but the statistics are taken over a 15-year period which would tend to smooth out any annual variations. I suppose we could wait another 15 years to be sure, as more and more sprinklered residences will become involved in fires as they become more prevalent and other maintenance related fire conditions become more common. The key indicator here is property damage. Fatal fires had 9x the property damage. Non-fatal fires in non-sprinklered residences had 2x the property damage. These figures are not surprising, as fatal fires will tend on the whole to be more extensive than non-fatal fires. If property damage can be used as a "leading indicator", we might expect a 90% reduction in residential fire fatalities as a result of sprinkler use.

Passenger car fatalities for 2000 were ~21,000 and injuries were ~2.1 million. Nationally the compliance rate for seat belt use is about 80%. It's unlikely that there are a lot of gains to be made in seat belt compliance absent information suggesting that something on the order of 70% - 90% of fatalities and serious injuries are the result of failure to use seat belts. Likewise, roll cages, helmets and 5-point harnesses would seem to be problematic unless you can show the number of which kinds of injuries or fatalities you would prevent with each method. As an engineer, my mantra is "Show me the metrics".

And even though I work for a fire protection company, pushing for sprinklers isn't going to help us one bit. It's all going to be the plumbers picking up this work. If I ever have the opportunity to build or have a house built, it'll have sprinklers in it whether or not the law requires it.
 
Why wait to built a new house when you can retofit the house you live in now. That's if you are living in one. I've done some reserch and I'm considering installing my own system in one of my rental houses myself. It's really not that hard. The only thing is that you need to get an approved engineer to sign off on the plans and have it tested by a certified sprinkler company.
 
CO Detectors

CO Detectors

My fiancee and I just moved into our house a few months ago. Our biggest hurtle was getting the certificate of occupancy. We ahd my dad(carpenter) here dad(carpenter) and my uncle (electrician) Check out the whole house to make sure it was good to go for the inspection. They did 3 months worth of work the felt needed to be done to pass inspection. When the isnpector came out he looked for smoke and CO detectors. SO we ended up failing for not having the CO detector! It just goes to show how important they are becoming these days!
 
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