Going Green: Home Sprinklers Save Lives & Conserve Resources

Builders and homeowners are constantly looking for products and home systems that conserve energy and resources and make their home more environmentally friendly. The home building industry has been aggressively looking to deliver more green products and home systems to consumers.

One home system that has been inherently green for more than 25 years is a residential fire sprinkler system. By design, it is a fundamental system to saving lives and property. Through the suppression of fire, it conserves resources, energy and the environment. And most importantly...it saves the live of those in your home.

Residential fire sprinkler systems save lives and protect property.

Since home fire sprinklers work quickly to contain the fire, thereby minimizing the release of poisonous gases, which are released when items in your home actually catch on fire. Because the fire is quickly contained - the risk of property damage is greatly reduced. For example, the City of Scottsdale, Ariz., enacted a sprinkler ordinance for all new residential construction in 1986. The Scottsdale Rural/Metro Fire Department released a study after 15 years of the code. They found that the average fire damage to a sprinklered home was $2,166; fire damage to an unsprinklered home averaged $45,019.

Residential fire sprinkler systems conserve water.

According to the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, 90 percent of residential fires are contained with the operation of a single sprinkler. That single sprinkler discharges between 8 - 20 gallons per minute (gpm). This is a big difference from the fire department, which will release 90 - 160 gpm of water per hose to extinguish a fire.

Residential fire sprinkler systems protect the environment.

A fire in a home with a sprinkler systems installed gives off very little smoke because the fire is contained quickly and efficiently. Only a small amount of toxic gases within that smoke is released into the atmosphere. Homes without the system that catch fire release a smoke that is very toxic to the atmosphere, because it is burning items within the home.