After the flooding of Hurricane Sandy and the fear of insurance rates to come, many people are raising their homes. This has developed into a whole new engineering for elevation and flood water relief and sanitary conditions in reference to building.
Many different styles of foundations, grade beams, flood vents, pilings, concrete piers, etc., have taken shape. The fact of the matter is elevating makes sense.
Along with elevation comes an issue with the national code about residential fire sprinklers. Under the national and state building codes, any residence with 3 story’s or more is required to have a fire sprinkler system on all levels of the home. This has been the code for quite some time. The issue becomes, what do you call a story?
There have been varying interpretations back and forth on both sides of the issue. Some building departments required sprinklers on a raised home, some didn’t. Until now. The state has just come down with a ruling that a raised home is three stories and will require fire sprinklers.
We have 2 opinions on this matter. First, I would like to say that anything that saves lives is an improvement well worth it. Keep in mind, it is not just the lives of the residents, but the lives of the firefighters whom, in my area, are volunteers putting their lives at risk to save us and our homes. For this, Bens General Contracting Corp. supports Residential fire sprinklers.
The issue at hand which I am curious to see play out is whether or not the insurance companies and NY rising are going to include this in their assessments. As of now, this seems to be lost in the woodwork. The issue comes across because people are trying to do the right thing, rebuild and get back home. The insurance companies and the banks are squeezing everyone to a point that many people can’t afford to rebuild.
I am not sure if NY Rising has taken a stance on this yet, but my guess is it will be excluded. So although fire sprinklers are a great idea and now a necessity, this will be another burden on the backs of homeless American citizens trying to get back home. I hope this changes and everybody gets their home raised and fire sprinklers funded by NY Rising. Staying safe from floods and fires both affect insurance rates.
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