RESIDENTIAL SPRINKLERS

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Fires kill more people in the United States every year than all natural disasters combined.
80% of all fire deaths occur in the home. One of the most effective ways to prevent fire-related deaths is the installation of residential sprinklers. Sprinklers will extinguish a typical residential fire in less than one minute to dramatically improve survival rates. Combined with smoke alarms, they cut the risk of dying in a home fire by 82% compared to having neither.

Why are sprinklers important for life safety?
Sprinklers do not rely upon human factors such as familiarity with escape routes or emergency assistance. They go to work immediately to reduce the danger. Sprinklers prevent the fast developing fires of intense heat (flashover) which are capable of trapping and killing the occupants of a home. Sprinklers allow you to escape from the fire.

FIRE SPRINKLER FACTS (Return to Top)

Only the sprinkler closet to the fire will activate, spraying water directly on the fire.
Each sprinkler is individually activated by heat. Despite what is seen on some TV shows, smoke does not trigger sprinkler operation. The rest of the sprinklers in a house will not activate unless there is also a fire in that location. 90% of all home fires are contained with a single sprinkler.

Fire hoses, on an average, use more than 15 times the water that sprinklers do to contain a fire.
Sprinklers use only a fraction of water that fire department hoses do. During a fire only the sprinklers closest to the fire are activated which limits the total amount of water needed to suppress a fire.

Won't sprinklers look strange in my house?
No. Due to advances in sprinkler technology, sprinklers look better than ever, if you can see them at all. Sprinklers can be concealed behind ceiling plates out of sight until needed to extinguish a fire. They are available in a wide range of sizes and colors to blend into the background of almost any room.

The odds of accidental activation are 1 in 16 million.
Sprinkler mishaps are generally less likely and less severe than accidents involving home plumbing systems.

DID YOU KNOW? (Return to Top)

• Sprinklers rarely leak. They are tested at 175 pounds per square inch for 24 hours. Standard plumbing is only tested at 60 pounds per square inch.
• Only the sprinkler head that is affected by the fire will activate.
• Sprinkler heads are activated by heat only. Smoke without heat will not cause a sprinkler to activate.
• Sprinklers cause less damage than the fire itself. A sprinkler will control a fire in its' early stages and will use considerably less water than the fire department.
• Sprinklers are designed to activate at temperatures between 135 - 175 degrees F.
• Provides early fire warning (augments, but does not replace smoke alarms).
• One average size room only needs one sprinkler.
• A residential fire sprinkler sprays about only 10 to 18 gallons of water a minute. A hose used by firefighters flows 10 times that amount, 175-200 gallons a minute.

FOR MORE INFORMATION (Return to Top)

For more information, contact the Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Board at 866-264-3722, e-mail: sprinktoml@aol.com, www.firesprinklerassoc.org.

The safety information enclosed was compiled from the best sources available to us. The Illinois Fire Safety Alliance and authors cannot assume any liability for its effectiveness in every emergency situation.