Compliance with fire code revisions to cost U. $5 million

A bill passed by Philadelphia City Council last month amending fire laws will cost the University approximately five million dollars. Bill number 1466 approved by Mayor Wilson Goode on December 18 requires that all non-residential buildings 75 feet or taller have sprinkler systems throughout, and all residential buildings have smoke detectors in individual rooms. Five residential and five non-residential high-rise buildings do not meet one of the two requirement, University officials said yesterday. Installing sprinkler systems in the non-residential buildings, including the Franklin Building, the Richards Building, the Levy Dental Building and Blockley Hall, will cost three million dollars, Director of Fire and Occupational Safety James Miller said yesterday. Another requirement -- that water supplies must be connected to all floors of the buildings by next year -- will cost the University one million dollars, Miller said. All buildings must have complete sprinkler systems by 1998, which will cost an additional two million dollars, Miller said. In residential high-rises, including Graduate Towers A and B and the three High Rises, smoke detectors must be placed in each unit and hooked up to the buildings' electrical system. According to Deputy Vice Provost George Koval, the smoke detectors will cost between one-and-one-half and two million dollars to buy and install. The University had anticipated spending a total of $10 million when the bill was first proposed. The original bill specified that all high-rises, residential and non-residential, would have to have sprinkler systems. This would have forced the University to install sprinkler systems throughout the Grad Towers and the High Rises. According to Miller, the original bill was changed because a special interest lobbying group proved to the city council that no one has died in a fire while living in a high-rise for about 30 years. Because the smoke detectors which are required are connected to the electrical system and not battery-operated, each alarm costs more than the average smoke detector, Koval said. If activated, the smoke detectors will not cause alarms to ring throughout the building, but only in the individual unit, because of the numerous false alarms anticipated from activities like cooking, Miller said. The old high-rise fire code required smoke detectors in common areas of high rises and all vital areas. Areas which would jeopardize the rest of a building, including basements and storage areas, also must have sprinkler systems. Miller, a former fire marshal, said he is not surprised by the new bill, whose proposal was prompted by the Meridian Bank fire last year. "The best defense against a fire is sprinklers," Miller said. "But sprinklers are really a property-saving device while smoke detectors are a life-saving device." Because sprinklers need a higher level of heat to set them off, they are often too late to save lives, but can confine the fires to single compartments. But smoke detectors are early detection devices to the fire, Miller said. Miller also said that currently the High Rises are extremely safe to live in because they were constructed to be fire-resistant. "A student is actually safer living in a High Rise than in their own home," Miller said. "The safety I can attest for because I fought fires all my life." Miller said his own daughter lived in the High Rises above the 15th floor, and he said he felt extremely safe with her living there.

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