How Home Fire Sprinklers Can Reduce Construction Costs

00:00:01:20 - 00:00:26:23
Mike Collignon: A special Green Builder media webinar. There is no witty or clever observation today. It's the University of September 11th. It's a somber commemoration for all who remember that tragic day. And another variation from the usual open is that we'd like you to answer two poll questions. One that we had right there at the beginning. And one, this is going to come up prior to our Q&A session, so stay tuned for that.

00:00:26:24 - 00:00:59:09
Mike Collignon: Now while you ponder your poll question and your feedback, and also the one that's coming up, there's our first one there. I'm going to go ahead and introduce our guests that are here to tell us about the new upsides and perks that come with sprinkler installs. Now our first panelist is Lorraine Carley. She is the president of the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition and vice president of outreach and advocacy for the National Fire Protection Association, where she oversees media, public affairs, and advocacy activities.

00:00:59:10 - 00:01:35:03
Mike Collignon: The organization's magazine, which is called NFPA Journal and the Wildfire Public Education and US Canada Regional Operations Divisions. She is joined today by Gary Keith, the HIF past president. Gary served as Vice President of Field Operations for NFPA, overseeing six divisions responsible for the outreach of Fire Safety Mission. He also served as hometown community or his hometown community for 20 years as a call firefighter and fire protection engineer with the West Bridgewater, Massachusetts Fire Department.

00:01:35:05 - 00:02:09:24
Mike Collignon: And rounding out our panel is Bob Sullivan, NFPA, Southwest Regional Director. He assists with code adoptions, legislative advocacy, training, public education, and stakeholder engagement in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Now, Bob has over 31 years of experience serving on fire departments in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Colorado. And prior to working at NFPA, he served on the Thornton Fire Department in Colorado, where he focused on new development, construction, and fire code enforcement.

00:02:09:28 - 00:02:42:28
Mike Collignon: Now, this webinar, as you might suspect, is being brought to you by the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, which is a nonprofit educational organization and the leading resource for independent, noncommercial information about home fire sprinklers. HFC offers free educational resources about installed home fire sprinklers to consumers, members of the fire service, the home building industry, water purveyors, and other stakeholders, many of whom educational programs have been funded through FEMA fire prevention and Safety grants.

00:02:43:01 - 00:03:07:07
Mike Collignon: Now, you can always submit questions for our guests on these webinars. You know that simply use the questions box in the go to Webinar Control panel. I'll review those questions and pose those to our panelists during the Q&A time. Set aside after the discussion. And like I said after that second poll, now facilitating the discussion today is co-founder of Green Builder Media and the green builder himself, Ron Jones.

00:03:07:07 - 00:03:10:03
Mike Collignon: Ron. Good to see you again, my friend.

00:03:10:06 - 00:03:39:07
Ron Jones: Good to see you. Mike, thank you so much for the warm introduction. It's a pleasure to be here on this. As you related a somber but important day in American history, and I think it's appropriate to be talking about the topic today with people who know more about it than just about anyone. So I look forward to the information that we wanted to share, and we'll just step right in there and welcome Lorraine Cali the rain.

00:03:39:07 - 00:03:41:07
Ron Jones: It's all yours.

00:03:41:10 - 00:04:00:29
Lorraine Carli: Thanks, Ron. Nice to be here with you and with the rest of the panel. What I thought I would do is just open up our webinar this afternoon by providing some little context on today's fire problem. Today's fires in one and two family homes are more dangerous to residents and firefighters, and I'm not sure that that fact is that well known.

00:04:00:29 - 00:04:31:02
Lorraine Carli: So I wanted to share some information from NFPA research. Six people die in a home fire every day. 53% of firefighter injuries are from fighting house fires in firefighters. They have a 14% increase in cancer related deaths compared to the general population in the US. Now, if we think about today, unfortunately being the anniversary of nine over 11, we are seeing so many of those post nine over 11 cancer deaths.

00:04:31:03 - 00:04:44:02
Lorraine Carli: Same for any large exposure to fire and home fires in one and two families. Cause 8.6 billion direct property damage.

00:04:44:04 - 00:05:13:10
Lorraine Carli: Now home fire death rates have actually increased over the years. We've seen some of the different types of buildings where those numbers have gone down. But what we see on the home fire front is that they have actually gone up since the 1980s. One of the scariest facts that I often talk about is that if you have a reported home fire today, you're more likely to die than you were 40 years ago.

00:05:13:13 - 00:05:37:11
Lorraine Carli: Now that's you know, today we say that you can fires can become deadly in less than two minutes. We used to say that you'd have about seven, eight or even ten minutes to escape a home fire. That's very different today because of the way we build homes and the things that are in them. Common synthetic furnishings burn hotter and faster than natural materials of is ago.

00:05:37:11 - 00:06:11:22
Lorraine Carli: And they produced this toxic, deadly smoke. We're also seeing the impact of emerging technologies, such as lithium ion batteries, that are powering so much of everything in our lives. Lightweight construction material is very good in the building industry, but we do know that it burns faster and fails quicker, often collapsing in a fire. And also those large, more open designs enable for quicker flashover because of the airflow that's in those types of homes.

00:06:11:24 - 00:06:33:16
Lorraine Carli: Now, two minutes is not a lot of time to escape a fire. You may think that, you know, I go out of my house every single day. I know how to get out quickly. But when we think about that toxic smoke, also people that might be at a higher risk small children, older adults, people with disabilities having needing more time to escape.

00:06:33:18 - 00:07:05:22
Lorraine Carli: Now, smoke alarms are great and they're essential in all homes. They warn you that there's smoke, but the heat from fire actually activates the sprinkler closest to the fire. You see that that diagram there that shows how a sprinkler works. The concealed fire sprinkler. The plate falls off at about 130°F. That bulb in the middle, at about 135 to 165, the bulb burst and starts to release the water.

00:07:05:24 - 00:07:26:26
Lorraine Carli: The fire sprinkler stops a fire from becoming deadly, giving people that extra time to escape. And often we see in the movies that all the sprinklers going off at once. The reality is typically only one sprinkler activates and controls or keeps that fire small in a home fire.

00:07:26:28 - 00:08:02:27
Lorraine Carli: Now, home fire sprinkler is are very important because they stop a fire from becoming deadly. They control a fire automatically, often extinguishing it before the fire department arrives. And it also is a very important that it protects firefighters from that exposure of the fire. Toxic gases. You can see this side by side comparison in these pictures with the living room that is fire protected, with home fire sprinklers on the left and one without vast difference in the scenario.

00:08:02:29 - 00:08:36:26
Lorraine Carli: Now we also have some new research that we got from ULS Fire Safety Research Institute that was looking at the impact of residential fire sprinklers during e-mobility device requirements and fires. You know, we see these with e-bikes and e-scooters and all of these types of devices. They have consistently observed that while the room where the fire was originally was damaged, the sprinklers did not allow the flame spread to secondary items and ultimately prevented flashover.

00:08:36:27 - 00:09:06:24
Lorraine Carli: That's the point in which a room, everything in the room, gets so hot that it ignites. So we're very excited about the fact that we now have information saying that fire sprinklers will be beneficial as we see more and more of these immobility devices. In fact, a couple of news stories recently, one in Maryland, one in Arizona with a lithium ion battery fire was actually extinguished by the sprinklers.

00:09:06:26 - 00:09:44:10
Lorraine Carli: We also know that home fire sprinklers protect the environment, and that's important to a lot of people. The green movement is certainly very strong and people are paying a lot of intention to the environment. We did research a couple of years ago back in 2010, but we had it reaffirmed just a couple of years ago on the environmental impact of fires and find that sprinklers can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 98%, fire damage by up to 97%, water usage to fight a fire by as much as 91%, and water pollution.

00:09:44:10 - 00:10:24:14
Lorraine Carli: So some really strong statistics in support of the environmental benefits of sprinklers. And lastly, we know that home buyers want to live in fire safe homes. We did some research with the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition that found that 86% of current homeowners say fire safety is important as they look to buy a new home. 72% of those surveyed believe sprinklers add value to a home, and 80% of millennials would prefer to buy a home with fire sprinklers after learning how they worked.

00:10:24:17 - 00:10:43:21
Ron Jones: Thank you so much. It's amazing how much compelling information you have around the importance of this issue, and to take us into the world of the developer and show us how it can be beneficial from the other side of the table. Welcome to Gary Keith.

00:10:43:23 - 00:11:04:17
Gary Keith: Thank you. Ron, it's great to be here with everybody today. I'm going to focus on the actual developer incentives that we've utilized across the country. I'm going to talk about a couple of case studies here in Massachusetts where I'm based. But before I do that, I just want to spend a couple of minutes on talking about the installation standard, which is called NFPA 13 D.

00:11:04:19 - 00:11:32:08
Gary Keith: The D actually stands for domestic. When the standard was originally created in the in the 70s. And it's really focused on preventing injury and life loss. There really isn't a property protection requirement or threshold within the standard. But we know through experience in this document now being around for almost 50 years, that we're seeing an inherent benefit to property loss through the installation of sprinklers.

00:11:32:10 - 00:12:17:11
Gary Keith: There's a ten minute water supply requirement, as Lorraine talked about, with the sprinklers not all activating, we only require sprinklers to be installed in the living areas, does not require sprinklers in garages or attic spaces. Small rooms less than 55ft², such as bathrooms and closets and pantries. I will admit to you, on garages, there are a number of jurisdictions around the country that have made local amendments requiring garages to be sprinkled, and we actually may see the standard look at this issue a little bit in more detail, particularly because of the use of energy storage systems and electric vehicle charging, which those two things often take place within the garage.

00:12:17:11 - 00:12:40:26
Gary Keith: So you may see sprinklers included in the standard, but as of today it is not required. There are two types of sprinkler layouts. CPC is a is usually used for standalone plumbing systems. I retrofitted my house over 20 years ago, and I have a standalone CPV system for that, and that predominantly is what we see or have seen since the standard was created, I would say.

00:12:40:27 - 00:13:03:05
Gary Keith: Now, though, we do see an increase in multi-purpose or PEX systems, and those are combined with the cold water plumbing. So you take the sprinkler head itself and you'll have multiple ports with 4 or 5 PEX, two pieces of tubing going into that sprinkler. And the thing is under constant flow and there's no issues with standing water or anything like that.

00:13:03:08 - 00:13:32:11
Gary Keith: We're connected to the domestic water supply. We do not need separate water mains. We do have issues in some areas of the country with water authorities, who are used to the concept of a commercial sprinkler system where that has an independent, separate main coming in from the street. That's not a requirement within FDA. 13 D again, I was able to utilize my existing lead in and just did a break off off the domestic piping on the lead in and connected my residential sprinkler system to that.

00:13:32:11 - 00:13:57:03
Gary Keith: If there is no public water supply available, then a tank and pup can be utilized. Again, you only need about 200 gallons. We're talking about a design of about of two sprinklers flowing about ten gallons a minute. And in a short period of time, ten minutes, you're going to use about 200 gallons of water about the size of an oil storage tank.

00:13:57:06 - 00:14:18:17
Gary Keith: We get issues and concerns about maintenance. And again, my system has been in place for more than 20 years. I've done more maintenance and replacement of components on my smoke alarm system that I've done with anything with with the sprinkler system. The simple flow test is recommended a couple of times a year. The consumer can do that. It's not hard.

00:14:18:18 - 00:14:37:24
Gary Keith: There's a there's a drain valve at the end of the system and that can be opened up. May have to have a hose connected to it if it doesn't have a direct connection to the outside, but it's not a lot of heavy lifting. And then just visual inspection, as you would with any system or component in your home.

00:14:37:26 - 00:14:57:19
Gary Keith: So we're not going to spend a lot of time with codes. But I just want to again affirm the fact that home fire sprinklers have been in the codes, both the national codes, both the NFPA and the ICC building and fire codes for more than 15 years now. And and we have two states that have introduced mandates. They've had them now for about ten years.

00:14:57:19 - 00:15:27:10
Gary Keith: That's California and Maryland. And unfortunately, many states and local jurisdictions have made amendments to remove those from those baseline codes, if you will. And so when the code promulgation process occurs, unfortunately, the code bodies have removed this provision. And it's been unfortunate. And that's really a part of this. Why we're doing this webinar today is because in lieu of that situation, we're looking for opportunities to increase usage outside of the codes.

00:15:27:10 - 00:15:51:01
Gary Keith: And that's why we want to talk about incentives. So the key point with incentives is to really to reduce the construction costs and increase builder and develop a profits whenever we can. And these are locally negotiated trade ups. The ones I'm going to talk about don't have to be applied every single time and can't be applied really on every single project, but at least they can be talked about.

00:15:51:05 - 00:16:09:29
Gary Keith: We do have communities that actually will make some of these incentives part of their zoning regulations, if you will, locally, you know, outside of the building code, but they'll do it as part of a zoning bylaw or something like that. And but authorities having jurisdiction can offer sprinklers when they're not in the codes. And that's what we're trying to do.

00:16:09:29 - 00:16:33:02
Gary Keith: And admittedly, outside of California and Maryland, we probably see more installations now done through this and developer incentive process around the country than we do see through the code process. Each community is different, and when you don't have a code in place that says thou shalt sprinkler every new home, then the downside is you have to have the discussion with every development as it moves forward.

00:16:33:02 - 00:17:00:29
Gary Keith: But that's okay because because of the different, we can apply these incentives in a different way with each project. And the key point is we're protecting the occupants and the firefighters. Go back to those statistics that Lorraine talked about and the fact that we're trying to protect the occupants and the and the firefighters responding to those incidents. So we have nine developer incentives that we have seen most use in different parts of the country.

00:17:01:00 - 00:17:25:28
Gary Keith: I'm going to run through these very quickly. I think they're pretty self-explanatory. And I'll just try to reflect on what's the thought process and how it relates to fire department response. Obviously with Street with reduction in developments, we can see narrow streets. And the key point here is we're talking about the fire department response. We expect in a sprinkler property, that the fire department response will be much less than necessary.

00:17:25:28 - 00:17:58:12
Gary Keith: Response will be much less than if that sprinkler if that property was not sprinkled. So in a typical residential fire that we expect a room to go to flashover and extend perhaps beyond that original room of origin to other portions of the home, the typical fire department response is probably going to be 6 to 7 pieces of heavy apparatus, and with sprinklers, we can expect a much lower response necessary in terms of the amount of equipment that's needed to respond to that incident.

00:17:58:12 - 00:18:24:11
Gary Keith: So therefore, we don't need to have the street with requirements to take care of all that apparatus that might be necessary in the property logic, dead end streets. Again, we can allow longer dead end streets because of the fact that we can minimize the fact that we're going to have the amount of congestion, again, with the fire department response.

00:18:24:11 - 00:18:39:04
Gary Keith: So we can allow for the fact that that sprinkler property, we can have a longer access for fire departments to be able to take care of that incidence. And along a dead end street is a common approach to these type of developments.

00:18:39:06 - 00:19:03:19
Gary Keith: Te turn around some areas of the country, we'll call them hammerhead turnarounds instead of a large cul de sac or a large circular drive that might be necessary to to turn around fire apparatus. We can utilize T turnarounds again, because again, we only expect a much smaller fire department response, fewer pieces of equipment in that development when a fire occurs.

00:19:03:22 - 00:19:43:22
Gary Keith: Increased street grades and setbacks. This is a very common one. If you have a steep grade into development or to a number of homes within that development, or you have the large, long setbacks, long driveways sprinklers are a common incentive to be used to be able to offset that situation and to assist the fire department and be able to control that fire without them having to lay long lines of hose to get into that setback setback, or to minimize the effect of a large grade, and the negative effect that would have on a large fire department response with their apparatus.

00:19:43:24 - 00:20:15:23
Gary Keith: Single A-6 points. Now, this is one we've used in my area of the country here in Massachusetts several times, and admittedly in an area where it's prone to wildfires, this is probably one that wouldn't be attractive in many cases because of the conditions with evacuation and wildfires. But in areas where wildfires are not a concern, eliminating a secondary access for emergency response is a popular incentive that we've seen used very frequently.

00:20:15:25 - 00:20:39:21
Gary Keith: Additional units permitted and higher density. And again, another very popular one. This is one that really set the groundwork for the adoption in California. California, on a statewide basis, looked at increasing the density, allowable density for residential developments as a requirement, as a part of the requirement for a statewide sprinklers in new homes. And we see this in a lot of other developments as well.

00:20:39:22 - 00:20:54:10
Gary Keith: I'll talk about it in one of the case studies that I have. And again, the idea being that you're going to control that fire in that single unit. And so therefore the density can be increased as a result of that.

00:20:54:12 - 00:21:28:23
Gary Keith: This is another big one. The expansion of the existing water supply may not be needed. So in a sprinkler development the water flow can be calculated. The necessary water flow can be calculated just on the domestic demand alone alone. So if you if you have a new development and the public water supply has to be extended in the net development beyond where it currently is, if that sprinkler system is not installed in these new homes, and then a fire flow calculation has to be done for what the fire department would need to control a fire in that dwelling.

00:21:28:23 - 00:21:49:17
Gary Keith: And the fire flow requirement is going to be much larger in an home than a sprinkler home. So therefore, the flow requirement when you extend that water supply is going to be much higher than what would be required if that development was sprinkled. And so the the demand for the expansion of that water supply can strictly be calculated on the domestic flow.

00:21:49:19 - 00:22:17:16
Gary Keith: And that domestic flow will take care of the sprinkler demand for the sprinkler system. So one of the fallacies we hear about is, well, wait a minute, we don't have the water supply to be able to provide sprinklers. We have a very limited water supply in the area. Well, that's an incentive then to be using the sprinklers to take advantage of that, because you only need a limited water supply to be able to meet the demand of the sprinklers.

00:22:17:18 - 00:23:02:08
Gary Keith: Increased hydrant spacing. Again, this is another one. And the theory behind this one is simply you don't need all that infrastructure because the fire department isn't going to make use of it. So we can increase the spacing between hydrants. And most developments. We see a spacing requirement of anywhere from 250 to 500ft. And that can be increased. I've seen increases up to 1000ft 1200ft, basically based on the whatever the hose bed and the truck will, will, will store for hose, that becomes then the requirement in a sprinkler development, so much less infrastructure in terms of when the system gets installed, the public water supply, much fewer hydrants, fewer hydrants have to be maintained in that

00:23:02:08 - 00:23:05:12
Gary Keith: system.

00:23:05:14 - 00:23:35:27
Gary Keith: Gated communities. Again, you know, this is another incentive and it means not sound like much. Obviously the fire department is going to have some sort of access code or swipe key or something like that. But in terms of the fact that a fire increases exponentially as it grows, then any slowdown. So, you know, having to slow down, to slow down that piece of fire apparatus, to enter an access code or swipe a card or whatever it might be for that gate to move aside so the fire department can enter.

00:23:35:29 - 00:23:52:26
Gary Keith: That's going to take it's going to slow up their response. So the sprinklers can help mitigate that by they're already activating when the fire department is responding and controlling that fire. So we don't have to worry about access as much in a gated community.

00:23:52:29 - 00:24:22:29
Gary Keith: So I'm going to talk about a couple of case studies. And Massachusetts is one of several states around the country where we are a mini max state, meaning that the state code is both the minimum and the maximum within the state. So no local jurisdictions can deviate from that code. They cannot make local options to amend the code, either take provisions out or in the case of sprinklers, amend those provisions in.

00:24:23:01 - 00:24:51:20
Gary Keith: And so you say, well, how can we possibly get sprinklers installed anywhere here in Massachusetts? And we've been doing this through the planning process. So again, we cannot pass a local regulation anywhere in Massachusetts that says all new homes will be sprinkled, unlike California and Maryland that I talked about earlier that have the statewide provision. They got to that point after many, many years of local adoptions and the the local communities were very successful with this across those two states and at the state level.

00:24:51:20 - 00:25:20:00
Gary Keith: People said, well, wait a minute, this has been so successful for so many years locally. Let's just do it statewide. And that's what they've been doing for over ten years now. But the minimax states like Massachusetts, we can't do that. So we have to go through the planning process. And that's what we're doing now, is trying to work with planning boards and zoning boards and look at on a case by case on the development of by development basis, to look at how can we use these incentives to get sprinklers installed.

00:25:20:02 - 00:25:50:20
Gary Keith: So we're a very small town here, but nonetheless we've had two developments, one called the farm and one called Pearl road, with about 50 little over 50 houses. And we used single access. We eliminated that need for the second access road. We extended the dead end road requirements and we increased the hydrant spacing. The original incentive for installing both these properties was the fact that they were the furthest response area for the fire department.

00:25:50:20 - 00:26:29:07
Gary Keith: It was about a 7 or 8 minute response time to get to this area of the town. That was the initial motivation and talking with the developer. And the developer fought the planning board initially on the first project because it was something new to the developer, and they had never done this before, but nonetheless they agreed because of the incentives that were put on the table that overall allowed ended up with a couple extra home lots as well as the infrastructure savings with the eliminating the second access road and the eliminating the additional hydrants.

00:26:29:09 - 00:26:54:13
Gary Keith: It was the same developer for the second project, and by the time we got to that, the developer came to the public hearing and he was quoted as saying to the fire chief after the first development, this was great. We used the fact that the property was sprinkled in our in our marketing material, and that was very successful, and they were very happy with the way it went and didn't even come to the public hearing for the second project.

00:26:54:16 - 00:27:23:15
Gary Keith: The Hopton experience is a very interesting one and a much more recent one. And, you know, Hopkinton is a town in Metro West section of Massachusetts, west of Boston. And they added over a thousand units in a very short period of time. And these two within these two developments, legacy farms and the in the trails, I mean, that's a big chunk of development for a town like Hopkinton.

00:27:23:17 - 00:27:42:23
Gary Keith: And they're not required to be sprinkled as part of the building code. State building code, again, minimax code here in Massachusetts. But through this community risk program, they looked at how they could provide sprinklers as part of this incentive. The old approach would have been probably in this area of Hopkinton, would have been to add another fire station.

00:27:42:23 - 00:27:54:01
Gary Keith: And at the end of the day, you know, that does not get you the same level of risk reduction that having these sprinklers does.

00:27:54:03 - 00:28:15:21
Gary Keith: So how was this done? It was done with the community agreement with the two developments involved in these two projects. And interestingly enough, in the last couple of years, there have been three fires since these homes were first put in. So already we've had success stories. Every one of those three fires, they were contained in the area of origin by one sprinkler.

00:28:15:23 - 00:28:38:06
Gary Keith: All fires were found to be extinguished prior to the fire department arriving. And I will admit to you that the design philosophy of NFP 13 with the residential sprinklers is not necessarily extinguishment, it's control, is it? Keep that fire small, maintain the egress path, the integrity of the egress pass for the occupants to escape. Keep the fire small until the fire department gets there.

00:28:38:06 - 00:29:05:24
Gary Keith: But in these fires and is in many fires, we see that the system actually extinguishes the fire. No injuries or death, which again is the is the benchmark for how we're trying to get sprinklers installed. So really a community risk success. And I'm going to look now at a couple of these one of these fires of the three in comparison to one that was not sprinkled within Hopkinton.

00:29:05:26 - 00:29:29:21
Gary Keith: So both homes were under construction at the time with a with a move in date within within that same weekend. And the second one was not far behind. Both of them were improper disposal of oil rags. They were doing some finishing wood, finishing the sprinkler home. We had again one sprinkler activated and controlled the fire in the UN sprinkled home.

00:29:29:21 - 00:29:50:26
Gary Keith: It was a total loss that to this day is still vacant. While the developer and the insurance company and the potential homeowner wait for final outcome and resolution about all the issues that that go along with having a total loss fire. So the first one in the in the new construction was on the 13th of April, a couple of years ago.

00:29:50:29 - 00:30:11:28
Gary Keith: This was a duplex, new construction. Again, the oil rags was still on occupied, so there was no one there to extinguish the fire. But the sprinkler system was in service. We had that sprinkler activated. This an actual photo from the area where the fire occurred. And then compare that to one that happened just a couple of days later.

00:30:12:00 - 00:30:44:23
Gary Keith: Three days later, new two and a half story home under construction. Same thing. Oily rags, total loss still on occupied today. And the quote from the fire chief, this one, this particular fire did not have sprinklers. We highly encouraged residential sprinklers because they can make a big difference. I don't have a slide for it, but I do want to mention, because we're so proud of it here in Massachusetts, those of us involved in sprinkler advocacy really the poster child for success here in Massachusetts as the town of North Andover, which is just north of Boston.

00:30:44:25 - 00:31:06:23
Gary Keith: They've been at this through developer incentives since, since the 90s, and they now have over 3000 homes sprinkled here in a mini state in Massachusetts. And they also have had a number of success stories. You don't hear about the success stories. That's the unfortunate part. But they're out there every day. So thank you for your time. I appreciate it, Gary.

00:31:06:24 - 00:31:33:24
Ron Jones: Very well done. Thank you. You know, it's remarkable how many options are available to the development community. And I hope that through this education, more of them will take a hard look at some of those options. The results are undeniable, and I think that we're going to see evidence of that in the next. Presenter. Welcome to Bob Sullivan, who's going to take us to Nevada.

00:31:33:26 - 00:32:00:25
Bob Sullivan: Hey, thanks, Ron, everybody, thanks for joining us on our webinar today. So we are going to talk about Nevada as the regional director for the Southwest Division. And one of my states that I cover is Nevada, and I work closely with the Las Vegas Fire and Rescue Department. And a couple of years ago, Las Vegas Fire and Rescue was very successful in seeing through the adoption of residential sprinklers in the city.

00:32:00:25 - 00:32:28:05
Bob Sullivan: And it was a very interesting story. So that's what we're going to kind of work through today, talking about that whole experience. The thing that really brought us to the attention of the fire department initially was in 2018, Realtor.com identified Las Vegas as the number one hottest housing market in the United States, with up to 1700 homes per year projected to be built for the foreseeable future, 1700 homes per year for at least the next 5 to 10 years.

00:32:28:06 - 00:32:57:27
Bob Sullivan: At the time that that study was done. So that really grabbed a lot of attention in terms of just how quickly Las Vegas is growing. So realizing that they had previously amended residential sprinklers out of the codes, as you heard, Lorraine and Gary both mentioned talking about the history of the codes and the requirement for residential sprinklers have actually been in the codes for a while, but they had amended them out for houses less than 5000ft².

00:32:57:29 - 00:33:26:29
Bob Sullivan: And so coming into 2018, when they saw the results of this study, that really grabbed the attention of Fire Chief McDonald, who was previously the fire chief in the city of Scottsdale, Arizona, which had previously adopted residential sprinklers back in the 1980s. And he was working with Fire Marshal Robert Nolan with Las Vegas Fire and Rescue. And looking at that study, looking at the growth of the city, they both determined, okay, what do we got to do to get residential sprinklers back into the code?

00:33:26:29 - 00:33:46:19
Bob Sullivan: And how do we move forward to make sure all these new homes are going to be built with sprinkler protection? So they looked at developing a collaborative approach with the people who actually build the building because they're homebuilders. We want to have sprinklers to be part of a larger strategic vision of overall community risk reduction in the city of Las Vegas.

00:33:46:21 - 00:34:07:27
Bob Sullivan: And we realized that we need to engage and develop good working relationships with the homebuilders associations in Nevada, in Las Vegas. And that's going to involve going and meeting with them and sitting down and discussing all of this and listen to their concerns. So they also looked at, okay, well, how do we establish those relationships in the first place?

00:34:07:28 - 00:34:32:29
Bob Sullivan: Let's take a look at working with the homebuilders on projects that maybe don't involve sprinklers. That's a chance for us to all work together, start getting to know each other, work through plan, review issues, inspection issues, things like that. And then let's bring the conversation around two residential sprinklers. And one of the things that the HFPA pointed out was, well, we keep talking about new single family homes for residential sprinklers.

00:34:33:01 - 00:35:02:08
Bob Sullivan: Are you taking a look at all your existing apartment buildings, for example, in the city that maybe were built, you know, prior to to code requirements requiring sprinklers in new apartment buildings, a lot of unscripted apartment buildings in the city, there are fires occurring in those buildings. There are injuries and fatalities that are happening there. Are you looking at them also not necessarily to put sprinklers in, but as part of that community risk reduction overall, look at the city of what can we do to reduce this problem.

00:35:02:08 - 00:35:24:26
Bob Sullivan: And the fire department started focusing on that as well. One of the get sprinklers into the new homes being built, and also took a look at all the existing buildings and how can we do better there. So all this led to this new collaborative approach for working much more closely with the HBA to establish these good working relationships and discuss all these concerns with residential sprinklers.

00:35:24:26 - 00:35:47:27
Bob Sullivan: And early on, both the fire chief and the fire marshal took on the opinion of, you know, the fire service and the fire department certainly has concerns about why we want sprinklers in these new homes. Well, the HBA has valid concerns also. After all, they're the ones building the homes, and they're the ones who have to make this all happen when the when the homes are being put together.

00:35:48:00 - 00:36:14:21
Bob Sullivan: So how do we work through their concerns? Obviously cost has always been brought up, but there are other concerns also. And then again, the concerns that the brought forward about, well need to address fire problems and existing on sprinkler buildings also. And so the fire department put new programs in place for, for those buildings as well, to work much more closely with the building owners on smoke alarm programs, training for the residents and things like that.

00:36:14:23 - 00:36:38:02
Bob Sullivan: So moving into the meetings directly with the HFPA, while it was understood the cost was certainly an issue that always comes into the discussions about residential sprinklers, they were able to sit down and find out, well, there's quite a bit more to it than just the cost aspect. There are other things that go into getting residential sprinklers actually built in the homes.

00:36:38:04 - 00:37:12:29
Bob Sullivan: And so among other things, it's a case of, well, it's adding another system to the home. And so now that requires another plan submittal and another review, which is often also going to come with additional requirements for additional permits and field inspections. And then there was a whole conversation around water tap and supply line sizing issues and what size tap we need for what size home and where in the city, depending on where the development is going in and who can install all these different components, the sprinklers themselves, the water meters when they're involved.

00:37:13:03 - 00:37:44:12
Bob Sullivan: Can sprinkler contractors put those in? Can plumbers put those in? What kind of training and certification requirements are required then, for each of those different entities, depending on who's actually doing the work? And so from all of this, collectively, they were able to the homebuilders were able to express adding another system in the in the homes. Residential sprinklers can really slow down the construction of all of the construction progress and therefore development of the of the entire housing division itself.

00:37:44:14 - 00:38:01:22
Bob Sullivan: And then of course, cost it every step of the way. So all of these things were on the table for discussion of, okay, here are the issues we need to address. And then we're able to sit down and work through each of these items one by one. And one of the concerns that the HFPA brought up was, you know, 13 D has its requirements.

00:38:01:25 - 00:38:23:18
Bob Sullivan: We don't want to have additional requirements outside of what the code requires. And so things like talking about sprinklers and garages, sprinklers and attics, sprinklers and small closets, sprinklers aren't required in any of those areas right now in NFPA 13 D. And they were there were concerns that, you know, we don't want additional requirements added on to what's in the code.

00:38:23:20 - 00:38:59:05
Bob Sullivan: Just ask us to comply with what's in the code and leave it at that. Not any additions. Now, keep in mind you heard both Lorraine and Gary talk about the obvious growing problem of lithium ion batteries today, and keep in mind that all these discussions were going on back in 2017 and 2018, when the lithium ion battery issue was still fairly new, very new, and we didn't know much about it and no discussion, said, yeah, got to the point of talking about maybe possibilities for requirements for sprinklers and garages, for example.

00:38:59:07 - 00:39:16:06
Bob Sullivan: It's that requirement is still not in the code, but it is being discussed now that the lithium ion battery issue is growing. You may see that in the future. As Gary mentioned, it's not in there right now. And the point was, you know, please don't ask us to do something that's not required in the code because that's what adds time and cost and etc..

00:39:16:13 - 00:39:45:23
Bob Sullivan: And then along with that, the water supply as you so especially if a, if a subdivision is being built over an area where elevation changes, for example, then the water tap size may need to be increased in different areas to account for the additional friction loss of additional elevation. So let's figure out where is the the highest friction loss issue in the whole subdivision size.

00:39:45:23 - 00:40:09:04
Bob Sullivan: The water main tap off of that, and then that way the whole rest of the subdivision should be okay. So in other words, we're going to have one water tap size across the whole subdivision as opposed to one tap size over in this area and another tap size over in that area, which can lend itself to cost issues, you know, possibilities for incorrect installation of the wrong size meter and the wrong place, things like that.

00:40:09:04 - 00:40:33:08
Bob Sullivan: Let's just make it consistent. Get the cost consistent. Require one one tap size for the entire subdivision. And then they started looking at other things. Also. Again, don't don't have add ons to NFPA 13. NFPA 13 main priority is to hold the fire at bay long enough to let the people get out of the house. In most cases it will also suppress the fire.

00:40:33:10 - 00:40:59:25
Bob Sullivan: But the biggest issue is to make sure there's time for the people to get out. So let's not have any requirements for fire department connections like you would on a commercial building, for example. Not needed on a smaller single family home. No requirements for any kind of fire alarm system on the home that's connected to the sprinkler system, so that in case the sprinkler system activates, you know, it would send an alarm signal to the fire department, for example.

00:40:59:28 - 00:41:17:22
Bob Sullivan: That particular issue is especially contentious in some areas. You know, you might be talking about homes where people are only there for a few months out of the year. What if the what if something happens where water is flowing and there's no indication and nobody knows? But again, the focus at this particular time was it's not required in the code.

00:41:17:22 - 00:41:45:16
Bob Sullivan: So we're asking not to have that added on to help control costs and things like that. And then also, you know, if if the courts work properly and save lives, all these, all these additional things are going to eliminate the need for those other items anyway. And then other discussions and trade ups that were looked at, some of these were completed in Las Vegas, some were recommended.

00:41:45:16 - 00:42:10:00
Bob Sullivan: As for future developments, consider allowing sprinklers to act as the equivalent to a certain level of reconstruction and reduce the cost of rated separation. So within a home, you might have different code requirements for different rated walls, for example between different areas such as the garage and the rest of the home. If we put sprinklers in the home, can we look at reducing some of those requirements, say a two hour wall down or a one hour wall or something like that?

00:42:10:00 - 00:42:47:06
Bob Sullivan: So those were all looked at reduce separation between homes when all the homes are sprinklers. Now, this might be a concern in wildfire prone areas where we don't necessarily want to reduce space between the homes, when wildfire can act against that. So that all needs to be taken into account also. But in an area where wildfire is not a major concern, can we look at if all the homes in a new subdivision are sprinkler, can we reduce the distance between the homes a little bit, which will ultimately allow us to fit more homes throughout the subdivision, and then also consider reductions in water supply requirements?

00:42:47:11 - 00:43:18:21
Bob Sullivan: If all the homes are sprinklers, and maybe we don't need as high of a fire flow requirement, for example, maybe we can reduce the fire flow requirement down to the point. And in Las Vegas case, they did reduce the fire flow down significantly to the point where maybe now we can allow for smaller water mains in the streets, for example, in a in a new subdivision which, you know, anything you can reduce the size of or reduce helps to further control costs and offset any costs associated with the sprinklers.

00:43:18:24 - 00:43:22:20
Bob Sullivan: Look at slightly narrower streets.

00:43:22:22 - 00:43:46:07
Bob Sullivan: So Vegas ultimately did not go with the hydrant reduction. But as Gary mentioned, there are many times when the hydrant reduction can be looked at as a consideration. And so Vegas is left open. You know, we will look at that in the future for certain areas of the city, as well as radius reductions in cul de sacs and hammerheads, longer dead ends in certain areas with fewer requirements for two points of access.

00:43:46:12 - 00:44:19:09
Bob Sullivan: Again, that's another one where you would have to look at the whole subdivision. Is is it an area where it's prone to wildfires at all? And do we have to put that second point of access back in? But if wildfire is not concerned, maybe we can allow longer dead ends when all the new homes are sprinklers. They did allow sidewalks being eliminated on one side of the streets and new subdivisions, as well as eliminating street lighting in the newer subdivisions, with the lumens requirements being taken up by brighter lights on the homes.

00:44:19:11 - 00:44:48:26
Bob Sullivan: Both of those items required also the involvement of the city's planning and city development divisions. And so again, with this overall collaborative approach, how do we bring others into the equation that have, you know, stakeholders, as we're always talking about a stake in the final decisions being made and work together to to meet everybody's needs as the homes are being built and then final steps, there were other process issues that need to be addressed.

00:44:48:26 - 00:45:19:11
Bob Sullivan: Things like how can we speed up the process? Again, the concern was by adding another system the sprinklers in a home. It's Lowe's down overall construction. So how do we compensate for that? And so Vegas Fire was able to come around with quicker planning, review process permitting and inspection processes to help speed up all those things in exchange, all these additional steps and trade offs, schemes, the HBA support, once the HBA was on board and said, yes, we support all this, it was helping to control costs.

00:45:19:12 - 00:45:48:13
Bob Sullivan: It was helping the process, it was helping the timing issues and all the other things that we talked about. At that point, they let the city council in Las Vegas know we support adoption of the residential sprinklers with all these various agreements in place, which was all written up, and that's what they ended up with. And as a result, this ordinance was written back into the code in 2019 as part of the overall city's adoption of the 2018 international codes at the time.

00:45:48:13 - 00:46:11:29
Bob Sullivan: And so since then, we're looking at about five years or so since then. Now, over 11,000 new homes have been built in Las Vegas with residential sprinklers. Again, the city is continuing its fast growth, and the other cities around Las Vegas are now working on similar agreements, because everybody all around the table is able to see the benefits of the of the entire agreement.

00:46:12:02 - 00:46:20:08
Bob Sullivan: And with that, I believe we're going to open it up to questions and answers from the audience.

00:46:20:11 - 00:46:45:13
Mike Collignon: That is correct. However, we want to start off with a question to our audience, and that is wood home fire sprinkler incentives appeal to you or to other stakeholders in your community when updating codes or building in areas where sprinklers are not required. So those of you who are attending this could just log in your feedback to us.

00:46:45:14 - 00:46:50:28
Mike Collignon: We really do appreciate that.

00:46:51:00 - 00:47:15:22
Mike Collignon: And while those responses roll in, I want to go ahead and take some of the questions that we've received so far. And for those of you who maybe are thinking of a question, go ahead and type that in into the control Panel questions box and you can get questions in like Sybil did. And so I'm going to start here asking some nuanced questions and some larger questions.

00:47:15:25 - 00:47:27:23
Mike Collignon: First of all, when you have post and beam construction, how does the depth of the beam affect the design?

00:47:27:26 - 00:47:53:06
Gary Keith: I'll take that. So again that's part of the standard. There are installation requirements. And based on exactly that, the the depth of the beam and the placement between that the beam and the deflector of the sprinkler. So obviously beam construction is what, what we see a lot in new construction and very easily to take care of that. It's just it's part of the design.

00:47:53:13 - 00:48:23:13
Gary Keith: Again, remember in most in most single family dwellings, you're talking about, you know, one maybe two sprinklers per room. Again, it's not like your typical office building or manufacturing a warehouse where you see rows and rows of sprinkler on the residential side. It's expected that that only 1 or 2 sprinklers will be necessary in in any one of a typical, typical room.

00:48:23:16 - 00:48:42:11
Mike Collignon: Okay, I wanted to stick with you for a second, Gary, because there was a question that came up while you were talking. Meaning while you were presenting is the design of the fire sprinkler system in a home? Is it along the egress route? Is it only along the egress route? Can you talk to us a little bit about that?

00:48:42:13 - 00:49:08:19
Gary Keith: Yeah. It's in every occupied space. So it's protecting the egress route. But it's not necessarily following an egress route. It's basically again you know, think of one, maybe two sprinklers, you know, a very large living room, a family room, a very large kitchen dining area may require a couple of sprinklers. I have a in my kitchen. I have, you know, it's connected with a large eating area.

00:49:08:19 - 00:49:26:04
Gary Keith: I've got two sprinklers in sort of in the dining area, one sprinkler in the actual kitchen area. So in that total space I only have sprinklers, but so the layout is following the room design. But you're protecting the integrity of the exit roof.

00:49:26:07 - 00:49:29:06
Mike Collignon: Very good.

00:49:29:09 - 00:49:36:07
Mike Collignon: Another one from civil. She was seeking clarification on something that was mentioned early on.

00:49:36:10 - 00:49:45:22
Mike Collignon: The impression was that there's only two sprinklers for a 200 gallon tank. And were you referring to two sprinklers per room? Can you talk a little bit about that and just.

00:49:45:23 - 00:50:14:13
Gary Keith: Give us the clarity? Yeah, sure. The two sprinklers are the design. So again we see most fires controlled by one sprinkler. But so basically the two sprinkler head design is sort of a safety factor if you will. So if you're flowing about ten gallons of per minute out of that, out of those two sprinklers from a design standpoint and the flow requirement is ten minutes, you need a couple hundred gallons.

00:50:14:16 - 00:50:32:09
Mike Collignon: Okay. Very good. You mentioned increased hydrant spacing as as one of the benefits. Is that also germane in California as well? Do they do they recognize the increased hydrant spacing?

00:50:32:12 - 00:50:39:04
Gary Keith: I don't know the specific answer about what California is doing, but I don't know if Bob does.

00:50:39:07 - 00:50:48:14
Bob Sullivan: I don't I, I don't know if California allowed reduced tighter speed or, sorry, increased hydrant spacing or not.

00:50:48:16 - 00:50:49:17
Bob Sullivan: Okay.

00:50:49:20 - 00:51:15:21
Gary Keith: I suspect that that did not get captured in the statewide code requirement. But my guess is, again, they had so many years of local adoptions that perhaps it was something that was discussed locally in a number of communities and still may be discussed locally as part of the Developer and center program, even though it's in the state code.

00:51:15:24 - 00:51:38:28
Mike Collignon: Question came in from Dan and Lorraine. I know you have a hand in some educational elements of what your organization does. So Dan asks, is there any free training that plumbers can take to be able to install these systems? He says he actually ran an SC event and he didn't have the answer for this question, but there was a builder who was interested.

00:51:39:00 - 00:51:47:24
Lorraine Carli: There is some training, Gary, you may actually know. I don't know if it's free training, but there is definitely some training for plumbers to be able to install sprinklers.

00:51:47:26 - 00:52:14:27
Gary Keith: Yeah, the National Fire Sprinkler System, which is one of two, nationally based organizations that support the sprinkler industry across all different types of occupancies. As a National Fire sprinkler association in the American Medical Association, both of them, I do believe, have have programs for for plumbers. But the one I'm most familiar about is the one from NFS.

00:52:14:29 - 00:52:45:07
Gary Keith: And again, they will provide some financial incentive toward that training if it's being done in conjunction with, perhaps an improvement in the licensing requirements within the state that will allow plumbers to do residential sprinkler work. I'll give you an example. They did it at least three sessions that I'm aware of. They did in Connecticut, in Connecticut, as part of the licensing, was setting up what's called a limited sprinkle license to allow plumbers to do sprinklers in one and two family dwellings.

00:52:45:07 - 00:53:16:26
Gary Keith: The idea being that, you know, that's a trade that's already in the single family dwelling anyway. Why not let them have the ability to do sprinklers? If the plumber gets that training, then wants to go three families or more or get into commercial, then they've got to get the standard sprinkler license. But I know NFA worked very closely with the State Plumbing Board in Connecticut to provide those training sessions aimed at plumbers, and it was very well attended.

00:53:16:28 - 00:53:36:17
Mike Collignon: So here's an interesting question from Damien. If a person uses their home for some sort of small business, how does that affect either the design of the system or what does 13 D have to say about that?

00:53:36:19 - 00:54:06:04
Gary Keith: You know, I can't think of any business that would be right out of a single family that would that would require I, I mean, they're not going to set up a machine shop or something that would have a fire loading beyond what would be in a single family dwelling. I mean, if they're, you know, if they're, you know, have a law practice or, you know, something in marketing or, or, you know, graphic design or something like that.

00:54:06:05 - 00:54:26:06
Gary Keith: I mean, you know, the types of things that I'm picturing that you could do, you know, out of a single family home, you know, the sprinkler system on a 13 D standpoint should be able to, to handle that. I think the only issue is going to be in terms of licensing and, and perhaps some sort of insurance requirements, but from a fire protection standpoint.

00:54:26:07 - 00:54:29:14
Gary Keith: And let's, let's Bob thinks otherwise.

00:54:29:17 - 00:54:51:23
Bob Sullivan: No, I think you're right there, Gary. It's basically a case of the home is classified as a single family. Home codes always go by occupancy type. And so a home is a home. Basically it's a case of if you were doing something in the home that doesn't meet local regulations, somehow say something with flammable liquids, for example, or something like that.

00:54:51:29 - 00:55:09:20
Bob Sullivan: Now, you're not necessarily falling in the realm of a of a single family home anymore. If it's some kind of operating business that requires a license and things like that. Now, maybe the fire department's going to want to come in and do an inspection and say, okay, well, you're not really falling within the scope of a single family home anymore.

00:55:09:26 - 00:55:27:24
Bob Sullivan: Maybe now we need to look at, you know, is the home sprinkler to begin with. Do we need to require sprinklers? And then if we do require sprinklers, based on what you're doing here is a is a 13 D system going to be adequate or do we need to bump it up to a higher rated system of some of some of some sort?

00:55:27:27 - 00:55:53:08
Mike Collignon: Okay. Going back to the training question, Mark chimed in that typically the installers have to be certified or trained by the manufacturer in order to in order for them to purchase and install the system. He's citing as an example of a manufacturer that provides training. Are you able to either confirm or refute that.

00:55:53:10 - 00:56:25:26
Gary Keith: I know or does provide training on their on their PEX based multi-purpose systems and the training, the training that I know the that NFS offers through that, through the plumbing boards that I was talking about earlier, they were based on standalone systems. The, the the residential sprinkler manufacturer, the themselves, the manufacturers of the actual sprinklers work through the sprinkler associations on any outreach, you know, relative to their specific products.

00:56:26:04 - 00:56:32:02
Gary Keith: So that would be offered again through either NFC or AFC.

00:56:32:05 - 00:56:32:23
Mike Collignon: Okay.

00:56:32:25 - 00:56:53:10
Bob Sullivan: Yeah. And I would I would just add and recommend to anybody looking at training requirements to be able to install these systems. Definitely check with your state, your local fire department where the home is actually being built as well as. Yeah. Any manufacturer requirements for training. Because really all three of those things are going to come into play.

00:56:53:12 - 00:57:09:12
Bob Sullivan: I wouldn't want to leave it at for example. Hey, as long as you completed the manufacturer's training, you're good to go. There might be additional requirements through the fire department, the building department and or the state, depending on where the home is being built.

00:57:09:14 - 00:57:12:00
Mike Collignon: Okay.

00:57:12:02 - 00:57:32:23
Mike Collignon: You know, I'm going to take the opportunity to ask a question. And this is of Bob. You mentioned towards your end of your last slide there that you have other communities around a near Las Vegas that are looking to enact similar ordinances. Are you able to share what who where some of those communities are the names of those communities?

00:57:32:26 - 00:57:53:10
Bob Sullivan: I know for sure. City of Henderson and City of North Las Vegas are both looking at similar requirements. Basically it was a case of once the new requirements and the new agreement basically was put in place in Las Vegas, everybody was able to see the benefit of it. The homebuilders liked it, the fire department liked it. The new the new homeowners liked it.

00:57:53:10 - 00:58:24:26
Bob Sullivan: And so it was one of these kind of win win for everybody situations where now the homebuilders, the same homebuilders, were going to a neighboring city and did not necessarily have the same agreement in place yet. And so then that started spreading the word of, okay, can we talk to this city, then a neighboring city, about having the same similar requirements so that the the requirements through all the cities around Las Vegas are consistent and everybody's having a similar arrangement and everybody seeing the same cost benefits and things like that.

00:58:24:26 - 00:58:36:25
Bob Sullivan: So I don't know for sure. I know the only part I know for sure is that they're still working on it. I don't know for sure if they're actually complete yet. I would have to do some checking on that.

00:58:36:27 - 00:58:55:12
Mike Collignon: And I guess I'll wrap up with this question. And that is, do you do you find in your advocacy work and I'm asking all of you that that facet of consistency tends to resonate more with builders and developers?

00:58:55:15 - 00:59:14:20
Lorraine Carli: I would jump in first and say, I believe. So. I think, you know, for a builder that's working in multiple jurisdictions, it's a lot easier to to do it the same way in every place. So putting sprinklers in in one and having the ability to do the do it the same way and other places makes a lot of sense.

00:59:14:22 - 00:59:41:08
Gary Keith: Yeah, I would agree with that. And I think our discussion, I'm glad the question about plumbers came up, because I think that's a major solution to the issue of getting gaining greater acceptance and residential spring, because, again, because that's the contractor that's already in there. You're not adding another contractor. I think I think most in the within the sprinkler industry will admit that, that the sprinkler history is so focused.

00:59:41:10 - 01:00:14:11
Gary Keith: They've got so much work on, on occupancies other than single family dwellings that to have the plumber step in and, and have the state's licensing treat them as residential sprinkler contract as if you would that limited sprinkle license just for 1 or 2 family dwellings. I think we'd see a a higher rate of success from, from the, the the builders, the developers, the the local jurisdictions and ultimately the consumers.

01:00:14:13 - 01:00:35:26
Bob Sullivan: And I would add, you know, if you think about the name code and standard, that that's kind of the whole point in the first place is that there is a standard for everybody to meet. And of course, you know, local requirements, local considerations always come into play. So absolutely, it would be beneficial for everybody to have that standard across the board.

01:00:35:29 - 01:00:52:10
Bob Sullivan: And that's why we're always interested in hosting webinars like this. Because it gives an opportunity to talk about, okay, how do we get to that level of standard across an area so that everybody's doing the same thing and looking at the same requirements and things like that?

01:00:52:12 - 01:01:11:24
Mike Collignon: All right. Well, I don't see any other questions. So I want to thank Lorraine, Gary and Bob for their insights today. Really do appreciate it. Thank you also to our audience for attending and asking those wonderful questions. And thank you once again to the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition for their generous sponsorship of this webinar. We've got another webinar coming at you in two weeks.

01:01:11:25 - 01:01:40:13
Mike Collignon: That's on Wednesday, September 25th. We will be welcoming back Shauna masinga. She will be providing an overview of the 2021 IYC for residential buildings and address where industry professionals and homeowners should focus for maximum energy cost savings. That seminar or webinar is going to start at 2 p.m. Eastern time, our usual start time. So until next time, keep New Orleans and your thoughts please and please stay safe, stay healthy and take care everyone so long.