Re: Automatic fire sprinklers

[Shaun Eli <missingchild@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The town where a friend of mine built a house 15+ years ago required
sprinklers. The pipes ran through an unheated basement. I asked about
freezing and he said that because the pipes ran through the basement
it wasn't just water in the pipes, it's water plus antifreeze.
Obviously if there's a fire and the antifreeze all gets sprayed they'd
have to refresh the system with new antifreeze.

It's a pretty small cost to add sprinklers to new construction. Fires
are rare but they're expensive as hell. And you can rebuild a house;
you can't rebuild a burned-to-death person.

I've lived through one fire, in an apartment building. Two blocks from
the firehouse and we got everyone out okay (my neighbor and I ran
around banging on doors until it got too scary to stay). I'd have
loved to have sprinklers (the building was from 1921 and didn't even
have closed-off staircases).


I asked an office building fire safety director once what maintenance
was required for the paraffin sprinkler heads and he said he couldn't
recall a case of a malfunction. It's a pretty simple device and there
are millions upon millions of them installed. I've never gotten wet
working inside an office or walking into a store.


As far as the Constitution, it does state that anything not
specifically addressed in it is relegated to the states, so there's
nothing unconstitutional about Pennsylvania passing such a law, unless
of course the state Constitution prohibits it. Rather doubtful.

Copyright 2011 by Shaun Eli. All rights reserved.
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