Educational Occupancies

The issue of adding fire sprinkler protection historically is treated significantly different for new verses existing educational facilities.  In both cases the common argument is that the money spent on fire sprinkler protection takes money away from the classroom.  Thus the main focus when traveling the path of making schools fire safe must be economic. 

The code allowed advantages, tradeups as they are known, make including fire sprinklers in new construction not only affordable, but a significant cost savings.  Building code allowances are far reaching when applied and the paper Controlling the Construction Costs of Educational Facilities explains in detail the fire sprinkler advantage.  While building codes allow for a reduced fire resistant rating in rooms and corridors when fire sprinklers are present, there have been issues of reducing “people resistance” when applying these code allowed tradeups.  For the want of stronger walls to minimize the cost of repairs of vandalism, many school districts will forego some of the fire resistant tradeups in corridors and in particular, gym lockers and restrooms.  However, when one reviews the attached report and its cost saving details, it is easily understood that fire resistant walls are just one of many cost savings that should be applied in new school construction.  Other problems that one may encounter is that the architectural contract may be let without sprinkler consideration and many school districts reuse plan sets for many years, plans that may not have considered the fire sprinkler advantage. 

Existing schools are more challenging.  The economic issue with existing schools is that of comparing the cost of bringing the school in compliance with today’s codes, corridor distance and width, fire resistant ratings, type of construction, door ratings, etc.  Many school districts have spent mega dollars bringing a school up to today’s code when construction allowances or tradeups would be afforded if fire sprinklers were added.  But how can we validate tradeups to ensure that a specific level of fire safety exists?  Florida developed a Fire Safety Evaluation System for Educational Facilities (FSES) that will help the code enforcement entity determine the appropriateness of travel distance to exit being 5 feet longer than code for example.   This FSES is used the same as those found in NFPA 101A.  Using this FSES, one school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, saved over $1 million and the high school is now protected throughout with automatic fire sprinklers.  And for those naysayers who may question the FSES, the very detailed Justifying the Development of a Fire Safety Evaluation System for Educational Occupancies is also provided. 

Most importantly are NFPA statistics, which show a remarkably lower cost to repair damage from fire in sprinkler protected schools over the non-sprinklered schools.