Home sprinklers should be choice, not mandate

I just read your Jan. 12 article titled “Firemen’s Association to state: Make builders install home sprinkler systems.” Since our association was mentioned several times in the story, I wish we would have been contacted and offered a chance to respond to the comments that were made by the Firemen’s Association.

Home builders will always support stringent fire safety code changes when they make sense, such as hard-wired, battery-operated smoke alarms. However, as a society, we cannot afford to deny needed housing for the sake of new requirements without proven benefits. While they should remain an option for homeowners who choose them, fire sprinklers in single-family homes are expensive to install, can be difficult to maintain and do not represent a cost-effective safety improvement over smoke alarm systems.

Ever since the ICC implemented the sprinkler mandate in 2009, 47 states have either declined to adopt the mandate or passed legislation forbidding a mandate to install sprinklers in one- and two-family homes. It is vital for you to understand the competitive disadvantage that a fire sprinkler mandate would create for New York state. With every neighboring state rejecting a fire sprinkler mandate, this would only exacerbate New York’s reputation as the most over-taxed and -regulated state in the county.

The housing market in New York and our economy have suffered greatly over the last several years. Gov. Cuomo stated that taxes are driving people out of this state and are the greatest obstacle to the state’s long-term health. Make no mistake: This fire sprinkler mandate would be nothing more than another $10,000 to $20,000 tax on anyone buying a new home in this state.

Sprinkler mandate supporters have questioned these figures, but they are consistent with the numbers released in their own report (NFPA Fire Research Foundation 2013 Cost of Residential Sprinkler Final Report, issued September 2013), which states that the cost for installing fire sprinklers in three houses in Greenburgh, N.Y., averaged $13,333 per house and ranged between $8,000 and $21,000.

But you must understand that there are so many hidden addition costs that homebuyers are not even aware of, especially if their homes are being built in a district that has private water (just fewer than 1.9 million New Yorkers are in this category, per the National Ground Water Association) or antiquated infrastructure. These addition costs include tap fees (some as high as $4,500) mandated by local water purveyors, larger water lines and storage tanks for private water.

Gov. Cuomo recently signed legislation that would require home builders to provide paperwork to prospective buyers on the benefits and costs of installing fire sprinklers in their homes. This new law makes home builders the biggest promoters of fire sprinklers in New York. The New York State Builders Association and the New York State Association of Realtors were the leading proponents of that legislation, and FASNY and other sprinkler mandate supporters vehemently opposed this bill. Maybe you should have asked them why that is.

We believe, like most New Yorkers, that this new law is the reasonable approach. We think that informed consumer choice is the correct answer here. Home builders have no desire or motivation (financial or otherwise) to deter homebuyers from choosing to include fire sprinklers in their new home. Builders would profit from such a decision.

The fact, which seems to be ignored by a lot of people, is that homebuyers choose not to install fire sprinklers — thus, this overzealous desire by some to mandate them. We know there is a viable solution to this issue, but it is not mandating fire sprinklers on the already overwhelmed taxpayers of New York.

The next time you write a story regarding our industry, I would at least expect you to extend the courtesy of contacting me. Thank you.

Lewis A. Dubuque

Albany

The writer is executive vice president of the New York State Builders Association.