Rural house so fire risk - do we have to put in an expensive sprinkler system?

[betterwhenthesunshines]

Our house is in a fairly remote rural area (Dartmoor). We are having some building works done and the Building Control Officer has concerns that due to the location he would recommend sprinkler system in the downstairs area (there will be a woodburner) so facilitate escape, and also avoid the whole building down in the event ofa fire. Although it will cost about £3k on top of an already escalated build cost. It seems to be a highly recommended rather than insistance.

Is this really worth it?

We'd only have a fire on when we are there. All bedroom windows are escapable (and overlook grass). If we're not in the only fire risk would be from the gas boiler, and how much of a risk is that really?

Views please....

Only you can assess the level of risk to you. Personally I would. I'm fortunate to have never had a fire, but I know someone who lost two children in a fire.

There are fire risks from electricals to remember too. With being so remote I imagine the increased risk is that it would take a while to get a fire engine to you.

The wood burner probaly won't overly increase the risk if only used under supervision, but if you are on doing major work I would put a system in while the oppourtunity is there.

Presumably it would be a selling point when it came to sell too.

I've yet to meet anyone (including those in remote areas) who have a domestic sprinkler system.

Why is it more of a risk in a rural area? From what I gather you have a gas boiler and a wood burner. Plenty of houses have them and I've never met anyone with a sprinkler system! FWIW my house has solid fuel heating and hot water so my multifuel stove is on for 24 hours a day in winter months. It is on at night. It is on when we are out. Nobody has ever told me I need a sprinkler .

Every single house I have ever lived in has been remote and rural and with log burners/open fires, one of my houses was thatched.

I have never heard of a domestic sprinkler system before. There's looking after your family and being vigilant and careful (smoke alarm, carbon monoxide alarm, never leaving open fires unattended) and then there's spending £3000, which is a lot of money, on something that in all likelihood would not be worth spending your money.

I know that Health and Safety and Building Control etc are there for a reason and to protect people, but then there's common sense and deciding what is the wisest thing to do that suits you and your situation best.

I wouldn't spend £3000 on having a sprinkler system. I would make sure I had a bloody good smoke alarm(s) and perhaps look into a smoke alarm with a heat detector , perhaps something like this

Will you be installing a burglar alarm? If you are and you're in a remote spot it would be worth having one which alerts an operator if it goes off, and some of those can incorporate fire/smoke alarms which do the same thing. It will still take a while for the fire engine to get there but at least they'll be alerted if you're out.

More risk is presumably because the fire engine would take longer to get there / fire wouldn't be noticed by anyone else if we were out. The electrical fault argument doesn't really hold either as there's just as much risk of electrical failure on the first floor and he's only recommended this sprnkler thing on certain ground floor rooms. There will be heat and carbon monoxide sensors which are mandatory and maybe these could be linked to the firestation. But my feeling is that the sprnkler thing is way over the top for something that is, in reality, never going to be needed but is presumably going to cost in maintenance checks, look like ugly blobs all over the ceiling and out of place in an old house and if it goes wrong could drench everything in water if I burn the toast!!

TBH if the house burnt down via an electrical fault after we'd just installed brand new electrics throughout I'd be a bit

Way more chance of the sprinklers going off by accident and causing £1000 of damage than there being a real fire.

I doubt the fire brigade would have got to my city flat before I fried at rush hour.

We don't and we live in a log home that's woodstove heated and we are outside of any fire department's coverage in an area that's primarily pine forest, so prone to forest fires... I don't know anyone with sprinkler systems, but what we do have in our place is smoke detectors everywhere - more than the number of rooms in the house - and hope that's enough to alert us if we're in when a fire breaks out. If we're not home, it's pretty much guaranteed that the place is history :(

Is it a timber framed/thatched house?

I probably would, if so. Just because I have seen how incredibly fast those houses go up, and you need time to escape from upstairs.

No - it's granite!! Well, the original part is, with standard construction extensions to that. Slate roof.

I would think you could take a hazard and risk assessment approach to demonstrating why you don't need them.

Identify your fire hazards - cooking, electrical fault, woodburner, central heating boiler etc and the chance and consequence of them (the risk). Then show what you have done to mitigate these risks i.e. mains wired heat/smoke detection, new electrics, fire resistant plasterboard on stair and escape route walls, paint rather than wallpaper.

I think the BCO could only demand sprinklers if they thought there was a likelihood that your escape route would be compromised, or if there was a likelihood of a fire spreading to neighbouring buildings if unextinguished. My opinion would be that the building burning down due to its rural location is between you and your insurer. However, I'm in Scotland and our Building Standards are different.

PS Sprinklers do not often go off by accident. This is a Hollywood myth. Each sprinkler head has to be heat activated individually for it to release water. They can be smashed, but modern systems usually have recessed heads to avoid this (and to be less visually obtrusive).