WECT TV6 - WECT.com - Wilmington, NC news and weather - Residential Fire Sprinklers May Be Required
Member Center:
Looking for the 2009 WECT Collector' Calendar? Click here for a list of distributors.
Click here to read all the recent local news that matters most.
The latest news and sports from around North Carolina.
Up-to-the-minute news and sports from the southern half of the Carolinas.
Click here for today's continuously updated top national news stories.
RALEIGH -- The NC Fire Marshal's Association, along with other affiliated organizations will be proposing a residential code change at the NC Building Code Council meeting on December 11.
The code change would require residential fire sprinklers in new one and two family homes and townhouses that are three stories high or 3,600 feet.
This code change is, in part, a response to the recent fire in Ocean Isle Beach that took the lives of seven college-age students.
But safety has a price. To put a sprinkler system in a large house would cost about $30,000, and fire officials worry with a price tag like that they're bound to hear opposition from developers.
From next week's meeting, the idea will have to go to a public hearing and then to the state legislature. If the proposal does get passed, you won't see sprinklers in new homes until 2009.
Since 2004 in North Carolina 112 people have lost their life in residential fires. In this same time 19,655 residential structures have been damaged or destroyed causing an estimated 210 million dollars in damages.
