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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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In my town it is residential sprinkler systems, even though we haven't had a deadly fire in 100 years. The fire chief's car even has "residential sprinklers save lives" on the side of it. Guess what the other half of his family does? You guessed it: residential sprinkler systems.

To be fair, residential sprinkler systems have been mandatory in the IRC since year 2011, so your jurisdiction is not necessarily being corrupt here.

They are one more point of failure and horrific water damage, all for no real net increase in safety.

The NAHB also opposes this code provision, considering it a waste of money when three-quarters of house-fire deaths occur in houses that don't even have working smoke alarms.

In my town they didn't implement it until 2018 and it is not a state wide requirement. Most states don't require them and about half leave it up to the towns. Thanks for the link, it allowed me to find the list of states https://www.nahb.org/-/media/NAHB/advocacy/docs/top-priorities/codes/fire-sprinklers/fire-sprinkler-state-adoption-2019.pdf?rev=fb2e43a2c10249c79234ac4ef2405470&hash=93C19612CC1E730D343D25624862D0A8