A Vote for Residential Fire Sprinklers

For years, Canadian homebuilder Murray Pound rejected home fire sprinklers based on notions of exorbitant cost and installation hassles. Now he’s an outspoken sprinkler advocate on a mission to dispel the myths. What changed?

Gold Seal Homes, founded in 1989, has built the majority of the residences in the Canadian town of Carstairs, Alberta (population 3,500), and recently celebrated the construction of its 300th home. Murray Pound, Gold Seal’s vice-president of operations, relishes the accomplishment, but he’s more pleased that every home built since the summer of 2008 is safeguarded by residential fire sprinklers.   

His company’s decision to install sprinklers didn’t happen overnight, however. Pound, like most of his peers, had bought into the homebuilding industry’s barrage of reasons why sprinklers were bad for business. Only after some investigating and implementation — and a eureka moment — did Pound realize these reasons are unfounded.

Pound is one of the latest additions to NFPA’s Faces of Fire, a companion campaign to NFPA’s Fire Sprinkler Initiative. NFPA Journal recently talked with Pound about his advocacy efforts, the Canadian viewpoint on sprinklers, and the misconceptions about home fire sprinklers affecting his peers across the globe.

Click here to read the full article on NFPA.org
Video and photo are courtesy of NFPA.org.

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