St. Tammany News

A residence can go from 78 degrees to a ceiling temperature of 1800 degrees and floor temperature of 400 degrees in less than three minutes. Sprinkler systems are triggered at 135 degrees and can help keep a residence from reaching the flashover point.

This information was part of a discussion on the installation of residential sprinkler systems when building new residential construction in Covington. The work session preceded a recent Covington City Council meeting and centered on the costs of the systems, their effectiveness in saving lives and the enforcement and/or inclusion of the systems in the city's building codes.

The National Fire Protection Association sets codes and standards regarding fire. The confusion arose as to whether the city is obligated to follow the NFPA codes or Louisiana state building codes regarding single and two-family residential dwellings.

From a practicality standpoint, the cost of adding sprinklers to residential buildings would drive housing costs even higher than they currently are, making housing less affordable. Also, there is a lack of trained professionals that even know how to install the new residential systems, which will cause even more of a rise in cost.

Currently, new codes involving hurricane protection and other more stringent code adoptions have added 3 to 4 percent each to the cost of a new home. With the addition of residential sprinklers, the new housing cost could jump as much as 14 percent, said Clif Siverd, president of the St. Tammany Home Builders Association. He said the addition of a sprinkler system is premature when homeowners are not even required to have fire extinguishers in their homes.

Chief Richard Badon of the Covington Fire Department said flashover is a point at which the soft materials in a house catch fire and burn quickly. Humans do not survive flashover, even firefighters with special equipment built to withstand temperatures of 1,000 to 1,200 degrees have difficulty when flashover occurs. The purpose of residential sprinklers is to keep the temperatures down to a point that prevents or at least delays flashover.

At the work session, no one was disputing the effectiveness of the sprinklers in a residence, just the cost. With a shortage of affordable housing, Maureen Clary of Habitat for Humanity said this would price even more homes out of the reach of most people.

Commercial sprinkler systems cost about $5 per foot. Residential systems have evolved into a simpler system with almost no management or maintenance need. However, few plumbers have the expertise to install them, said Trey Blackall, City Council president.