Inspector requiring afci for fixed electric baseboard heating

[iwire]

Anyway when your talking about a 300,000 new build I would welcome the extra 5-800 bucks to have that extra level of safety...

Put that money toward a Home Fire Sprinkler System. :smile:

http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/citizens/all_citizens/home_fire_prev/sprinklers/

Sprinkler Facts

Sprinklers save lives.

Sprinklers are the most effective fire safety device ever invented. Look at this comparison with smoke alarms and with no fire protection at all. The National Fire Protection Association reports that people with smoke alarms in their home have a 50 percent better chance of surviving a fire. Adding sprinklers and smoke alarms increases your chances of surviving a fire by over 97 percent.

http://www.firesafehome.org/sprinklers/firesprinklers.asp#Sprinkler Facts

 

[Twoskinsoneman]

Put that money toward a Home Fire Sprinkler System. :smile:

http://www.usfa.dhs.gov/citizens/all_citizens/home_fire_prev/sprinklers/



http://www.firesafehome.org/sprinklers/firesprinklers.asp#Sprinkler Facts

Cool enough why not both?:smile:

 

[don_resqcapt19]

I have much more confidence in a sprinkler system saving lives over an AFCI and would support code rules that require sprinklers in dwelling units. And as a matter of fact the newly revised International Residential Code does exactly that. However I expect that like the some local amendments to the the NEC, the IRC will be adopted in many areas without including the fire sprinkler rules.
I would have no problem with a rule in the NEC that exempts dwelling units that have a sprikler system from the AFCI rule.

 

[M. D.]

I remember back when the expansion of the requirement for AFCI was being debated , there was a comment made that the price increase on the cost of the protection would knock , I think it was like 10 to 15 thousand people,.. out of the pool of potential buyers for a given house ,.... I can only imagine what a sprinkler system would do to the affordability of a home ..

 

[charlie]

It is interesting to me that the AFCI cost more that the number of fires that they will be expected to prevent with no lives saved. I am making up the numbers but the fact are real. Consider 10,000 homes with two fires lost and compared to the cost to install AFCI circuit breakers in those homes will cost more than the cost of the loss to the insurance companies. The smoke detectors will protect the occupants so there will be no loss of life. The AFCI are like insurance and should be the choice of the occupants.

If it goes through, the requirements will be changed so you will be permitted to use Type NM to the first receptacle and then put in the AFCI. This will drop the cost dramatically and they will become like GFCIs. :smile:

 

[iwire]

I remember back when the expansion of the requirement for AFCI was being debated , there was a comment made that the price increase on the cost of the protection would knock , I think it was like 10 to 15 thousand people,.. out of the pool of potential buyers for a given house ,....

I am sure it was said, the question is who said it and how accurate was it?

I can only imagine what a sprinkler system would do to the affordability of a home ..

I do not know, I have seen figures of $1.50 to $2.00 per Sq ft. for home type sprinkler systems.

Another point to consider is your homeowners insurance will have lower premiums if you have a sprinkler system, AFCI do not lower your insurance costs as far as I know.

I thinks Wrentham MA already requires them in new home construction but I am not certain.

 

[M. D.]

I am sure it was said, the question is who said it and how accurate was it?....

It was Jeff inks representing the National Association of home builders at a meeting way back in 04 arguing against the expansion of AFCI (page 93) http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/PDF...ript071404.pdf

I will assume that many wil say this is bull ,.. and perhaps to some degree it is ,.. but without a doubt the cost of this one code cahage has an effect.. This one code chage has added an anual cost of over 2 billion dollars.. or so I've read..
The question is how much is too much ,.. and what effects does it have ..

Volume I NFPA Standards Concil Meeting July 14, 2004

Our numbers based on the same average median
income of the price of a new home is coming anywhere
from $800 to $1100. To give you an idea, talking about
the cost impact before, for every, I'll toss it out, for
every $1,000 you increase the cost of a house, you are
knocking of 250,000 potential home buyers out of the
market, that is home buyers, potential home buyers in
that medium price income range.
You take that to actual number of buyers
currently looking for a new home at the time that cost
increase occurs, you're knocking out around 25 to 30,000
buyers from that new home by raising that by $1,000.
It has a very, very real impact.​

 

[charlie]

. . . Another point to consider is your homeowners insurance will have lower premiums if you have a sprinkler system, . .

I am not so sure that this is a true statement. I have heard that insurance costs actually go up in the northern states because of frozen pipes and paying off for water damage. No fire, just busted pipes.

 

[480sparky]

I am not so sure that this is a true statement. I have heard that insurance costs actually go up in the northern states because of frozen pipes and paying off for water damage. No fire, just busted pipes.

True dat!

 

[iaov]

This whole thread just reaffirms what I have thought all along which is that AFCI's are an unneccesary bit of engineering over-kill, and a big PIA!!

 

[winnie]

http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=111728&page=7

.... I can only imagine what a sprinkler system would do to the affordability of a home ..

If you want some interesting reading, look at the reports on sprinkler system requirements in Scottsdale, AZ.

In a nutshell, sprinklers have performed better than expected and have saved both money and lives.

What Scottsdale did was they first made sprinklers optional, but offered developers who used sprinklers reductions in other fire safety requirements (usually thinks like building density limits or road requirements). Once the sprinklers had proven themselves, they switched to requiring sprinklers.

-Jon

 

[charlie]

Scottsdale, AZ . . . sprinklers . . . have saved both money and lives. . .

HMMM, how far north is Scottsdale? I wonder if lives were saved if they had smoke detectors installed to wake up the occupants in the event of a fire?

Bottom line is that I doubt that sprinklers have saved either money or lives. :smile:

 

[480sparky]

.......Bottom line is that I doubt that sprinklers have saved either money or lives. :smile:

I don't recall any (reputable) fire supression outfits that claim to save lives. They promote mostly mitigation of fire damage.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

It is interesting to me that the AFCI cost more that the number of fires that they will be expected to prevent with no lives saved.

Charlie,
If the AFCIs do prevent a fire, they may very well save a life. You could look at the number of dwelling unit fires of electrical origin that result in death and apply that to the number of such fires that the AFCIs are likely to prevent to come up with that number.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

I am not so sure that this is a true statement. I have heard that insurance costs actually go up in the northern states because of frozen pipes and paying off for water damage. No fire, just busted pipes.

Charlie,
Can you cite a source for this statement?

There were no instances discovered of insurance penalties or extra fees associated with the use of residential sprinkler systems due to concerns such as system leakage.

The above quote is from this report.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

I don't recall any (reputable) fire supression outfits that claim to save lives. They promote mostly mitigation of fire damage.

“More than 8 in 10 fire deaths occur in homes, yet the likelihood of someone dying in a home fire is cut in half when sprinklers are present,” said Gary Keith, NFPA’s vice president of field operations.
"The National Institute of Science and Technology reports a potential 82% reduction in fire deaths should fire sprinklers be installed in all residential
occupancies."

 

[iwire]

Bottom line is that I doubt that sprinklers have saved either money or lives. :smile:

Wow, I could not disagree more with that statement.

From our friends at the NFPA.

http://www.nfpa.org/itemDetail.asp?...ent/Automatic sprinkler systems&cookie_test=1

• Sprinklers typically reduce the chances of dying in a home fire by one half to two thirds in any kind of property where they are used. Together with smoke alarms, sprinklers cut the risk of dying in a home fire 82 percent, relative to having neither.
  
• NFPA has no record of a fire killing more than two people in a completely sprinklered public assembly, educational, institutional or residential building where the system was working properly.
  
• Sprinklers are highly reliable. When present in the fire area, they operate in all but 7% of fires large enough to activate the system. Human error was a factor in almost all of the failures. The system was shut-off in almost two-thirds of the failures.
  
• Only one or two sprinkler heads were activated in 81% of the fires with wet pipe sprinkler systems operating and in 56% of the fires with dry pipe systems operating.
  
• When sprinklers are present, the chances of dying in a fire are reduced by one-half to three-fourths and the average property loss per fire is cut by one-half to two-thirds, compared to fires where sprinklers are not present

 

[iwire]

True dat!

We have no idea if this photo that has been passed around the Internet for years has anything to do with fire sprinkler systems.

 

[iwire]

I am not so sure that this is a true statement. I have heard that insurance costs actually go up in the northern states because of frozen pipes and paying off for water damage. No fire, just busted pipes.

Here is a link to an 'anti sprinkler' page from home builders and even they admit an average of 5% to 10% reduction in insurance rates and in some cases 15%.


http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=82243