An architects group says the new, stricter standard for fire protection in public buildings isn’t needed
Martha Quillin, Staff Writer
The News & Observer
Copyright 2007 The News and Observer
RALEIGH, N.C. — Two months after the state enacted a building code requirement meant to prevent tragedies like the deadly 2003 Rhode Island nightclub fire, a group that represents architects wants it eliminated.
The fire at The Station nightclub in Warwick, R.I., killed 98 people and spurred the writers of building codes across the country to start requiring sprinklers in clubs, restaurants and school cafeterias that seat as few as 100 people. Before the change, the threshold was generally 300 people.
The stricter standard went into effect in North Carolina on Jan. 1. The state Building Code Council will consider repealing it at a Tuesday meeting in Washington, N.C.
The state chapter of the American Institute of Architects says the requirement adds unnecessary cost that is especially onerous for schools and mom-and-pop restaurants in rural areas with no access to municipal water supplies. It argues that buildings can be made fire-safe by including plenty of doors, adequate lighting and other features.
Proponents of the lower threshold say it will save lives among those who use the buildings, as well as among firefighters who respond when the structures catch fire.
“The Station had enough exits, the exits were all well-lighted, and it was a mom-and-pop,” said Jonathan Leonard, deputy fire marshal for Charlotte. What the crowded club didn’t have, Leonard said, was a sprinkler system.
Under the regulation, new restaurants, cafeterias, taverns, dance clubs and other places where at least 100 people can gather to eat or drink must have sprinklers to suppress fire and allow occupants to escape.
A large McDonald’s might have a capacity of 100 people; a Golden Corral, 300.
John L. Hitch, a Raleigh architect and member of the N.C. Building Code Council, proposed canceling the new rule at the council’s December meeting, before it took effect. He says it’s important to note factors blamed for the conflagration at The Station besides a lack of sprinklers: illegal pyrotechnics, which started the fire during a concert, and polyurethane foam attached to the walls as a sound buffer, which fed it.
“By the way, I’m all for sprinklers, don’t get me wrong,” Hitch said. “I just think the threshold is set too low. One hundred people is a very small number of people.”
Paul H. Kapp, a Chapel Hill architect who studies building codes for the architects’ group, says sprinklers can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to a building’s cost. And there is a tradeoff, he and others say. When sprinklers are installed, a building’s owner can reduce other fire-safety measures such as doors, windows, hallway design and fire-resistant materials.
“Before we do something to mandate a code requirement, we should be doubly sure that the owners in those counties can actually accommodate it,” Kapp said.
The architects say the code could hobble the rural school whose cafeteria would have to have sprinklers. Without access to a municipal water system, those schools would have to build tanks and install pumps to feed water to the sprinklers.
Elmer Kearney, who does cost estimates for Associated Sprinkler Company of Greensboro, said such a setup might cost $200,000.
“But ask Guilford County if they’d have rather had a tank and a pump at Eastern Guilford High School,” Kearney said, referring to a fire that destroyed the 32-year-old school in November. Its replacement is expected to cost at least $40 million.
“That’s a sore point with me personally,” Kearney said. “We build a prison, we put sprinklers in it. Yet our children are attending schools that have no sprinklers, no nothing. Eventually it’s going to catch up with the state.”
About half the insurance companies in the state either give credits for sprinklers or add a surcharge for their absence in commercial buildings, according to Kristin Milam, spokeswoman for the Department of Insurance.
Leonard, the Charlotte deputy fire marshal, said he has debated the sprinkler issue with architects many times. “And I always ask them to tell me the value of one life,” he said. “Is it a formula per sprinkler head?”