Nine months after a blaze destroyed the upper two levels of retired fire Capt. Richard Soo’s home near Punchbowl, the one-time public information officer and face of the Honolulu Fire Department showed off his new sprinkler system and urged others to install one.
Soo says damage to his home would have been severely curtailed had developers of the Kalawahine Streamside Homestead installed sprinklers when the homes were built about a decade ago. The second and third stories of the three-story duplex were destroyed, and the first floor sustained water damage, for a loss of nearly $300,000 to the structure and its contents.
"It would’ve minimized the entire property damage," Soo said. "I lost my entire house. If this were to happen again … I could probably still be living in the house."
The fire originated with unattended cooking in the second-floor kitchen of the house. It spread quickly when flames reached cooking oil left in a pan on the stove. Soo was away from the house, and his two sons were in their downstairs bedrooms.
Mementos including Soo’s HFD helmet and badge, as well as wedding and graduation photos, were destroyed in the living room adjoining the kitchen.
A sprinkler overhead would have activated and likely would have put out the fire, isolating the flames and sparing the rest of the house, Soo said.
Battalion Chief Socrates Bratakos, head of HFD’s Fire Prevention Bureau, said the amount of water damage caused by fire hoses would also be minimized, noting that sprinkler heads are activated only when needed. "We’re talking about a few hundred gallons versus, if the Fire Department comes, several thousand."
Installing a sprinkler system typically costs $6,000 to $10,000, depending on the house and materials.
Soo said State Farm Insurance, his homeowner’s insurance company, said his premiums should drop 5 percent to 10 percent as a result of the installation.
Phil Hollstein of Action Fire Sprinkler, which is installing the system, said, "It’s the one thing you can put in your house that’s actually going to make you money in the long run."
Soo’s project comes on the heels of the state Legislature’s decision to pass a bill that bars the four counties from requiring sprinkler systems in any residential properties for the next five years unless there are extreme circumstances.
The bill was opposed by the fire departments and the state Fire Council. The 2009 editions of the International Building and Residential Codes require fire sprinklers in new single- and two-family dwellings.
Building industry officials supported the bill, arguing that sprinklers are a substantial and unnecessary expense given today’s new construction standards.
