After 2013, homebuilders will be required to install residential fire sprinklers if a bill passed Tuesday in the S.C. Senate gets final approval.
In February, the state building council adopted the international code requiring all new construction to have sprinklers. The new code will go into effect in 2011 if no legislation is passed to prevent it, but the bill that passed the senate Tuesday would delay the code until Jan. 1, 2014.
The code and pending legislation has led to a lot of debate between fire safety officials, who say that sprinklers save lives, and homebuilders, who say it should be a personal choice and that requiring sprinklers would reduce the number of people who could afford to buy property.
Sen. Ray Cleary, R-Murrells Inlet, said that there was a lot of misinformation and confusion about the costs.
"I think the Senate did the right thing by putting the code off so people can get educated," he said.
Estimates for how much sprinklers will cost have varied, with homebuilders citingestimates of between $4 and $6 a square foot and sprinkler installers estimating less than $2 a square foot.
The delay will provide time for plumbers, homebuilders and residents to get educated about sprinklers and come to understand, as he has, that having them makes sense, Cleary said.
Fred Coyne, the president of the Horry-Georgetown Home Builders Association, said that while he would prefer not to see sprinklers required, the legislation does provide needed time to consider the regulation and allows for more innovation.
"I think all in all I guess everybody having more time to prepare and think through the process is a positive," he said.
During the next few years, the state may learn useful lessons from others who have implemented the international code, Coyne said. Gary Mocarski, the president of the S.C. Fire Marshals Association and a fire inspector for Murrells Inlet-Garden City Beach fire, said that he is willing to live with the compromise bill, but would like to see sprinklers required before 2014.
"As with any compromise, folks walk away with some anxiety over what the compromise was," he said.
"What this is, the life safety aspect of it, has been proven in hundreds of communities throughout the U.S.," he said.
With the bill that was passed, sprinklers will eventually be required, Mocarski said, but added that he is worried the legislature will try to find a way to remove the regulation in the next few years.
The bill now goes back to the House of Representatives, which will either vote for the revised bill or vote against it, sending it to a joint committee of the House and Senate to work out the differences.
"I don't think we have as a right in government to be a nanny state, to mandate sprinklers in new homes," said Rep. Thad Viers, R-Myrtle Beach. "I think that should be an absolute choice for consumers."
"In the worst case scenario ... it will give us time to get rid of the regulation later on," Viers said.
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