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The short explanation of this alert was:

Here is what has happened thus far.

Last year in a meeting of the International Codes Council, new building codes for residential construction were adopted.

Contained within was a requirement for installation of fire sprinkler systems for residences. The adoption of this segment of the code has raised all sorts of questions about the validity of the vote and other issues—those are not important at this time and we will assume for the sake of argument that everything was proper.

The point is that unless something is done, and done soon, when a political subdivision adopts the 2009 codes all new residential construction in that subdivision will be required to have a fire sprinkler system. I have been told that the cost to install a system in a 1,800 square foot home are estimated to be from $16,000 to $23,000, assuming that sufficient water is available and water pressure is sufficient.

This is not a good time to have a significant price increase in the cost of new construction.

You have an opportunity to make your voice heard on this issue, there is a short e-mail that you can send to your Representative and urge them to support legislation to require a mandated offering of sprinkler systems. This would require that the homebuilder offer sprinkler systems and allow the buyer to refuse the system, this is supported by the St. Louis Homebuilders Association and, I believe the Missouri Homebuilders Association. It is a reasonable approach to give the industry some relief until the issue can be revisited with the ICC.

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