Not according to the article in the Ames case.

"Petersen said he is proposing that Greek houses install sprinklers, rather than landlords for student apartments, in part because fire calls have historically gone to Greek houses after parties.

"We've seen a correlation between the use of alcohol — the misuse of alcohol — and fires in Greek houses," Petersen said."

Petersen is the Ames Fire Chief.

I suspect most "college towns" are in the same situation in terms of a large percentage of houses being rental student housing. It certainly was and is true in Athens where I went to school.

In addition to the posts above, though, I remember the fire just off the Ohio State campus in private housing where three Alpha Gams from my alma mater, Ohio University, were killed. It's a tough situation, but paraphrasing the article again, there's a reason private homes don't have sprinklers -- and that's cost.

But how do you put a cost on a human life?

Question: How many of you all have been in a building that was on fire? Because if you have, you know that you simply cannot put a price tag on a life.

I can't imagine that most NIC & NPC's national organizations don't have a sinking fund for exactly this purpose.

We had this same situation at Berkeley before I started advising (some time in the late 1990's, I believe). Since I wasn't there I am not sure if the requirement extended beyond Greek houses.

It was expensive since most Greek houses there are very old, by California standards anyway (the DG house was built in 1913).

We did use a loan from Delta Gamma to help pay for the cost of the sprinklers.

The article above estimates that it would take between $70,000 and $180,000 per house to install sprinkler systems.

Rounding that off on the very low side -- let's say $100,000 -- and assuming that 100 out of 120 or so Delta Tau Delta chapters have houses, that would be a $10 Million pricetag to be raised by chapters and nationals.

I'm certainly not arguing that the houses shouldn't have sprinkler systems -- they all should -- but that's a pretty hefty amount of money. Can your organization afford that? Some chapters fail because they can't afford their mortgage or rent.

I think this is going to take some very creative thinking and financing.

While LXA has a low loan program for sprinkler systems it is still extemely costly and a true hard ships on any Chapter.

It seems in this point and many that there is a differentiation of who and what.:(

While it may sound easy of running pipes with sprinkler heads, wow, costly. So Chapters go out of business.

Yes, I have been in a burning House and the Fire is not what kills the majority of people, it is the smoke, smoke inhalation. I know, I have been there and it is a Bitch.

Fireman always thought COPs were crazy, Hell, We carried guns, they went into to houses with hoses!:eek:

As I mentioned, because of cost, Our New House has as many safety features that can be installed with out sprinklers.

Traditionally more firefighters have been killed per year in the U.S. than cops.

The smoke thing is important to realize, too. There have been a couple of threads in Risk Management where smoke detectors have been disabled because heavy smoking at parties have set them off. I don't remember if there were any fatalities in those.

Dumb and dumber.

Kappas at Iowa State (my undergrad chapter) saved up and had a sprinkler system installed 3-4 years ago. I think the cost at that time was about $80K.

The chapter I advise now is also looking to do the same thing because we think the city will eventually require it anyway. I believe that our Headquarters does offer some sort of loan to assist with installing sprinklers, but I'd have to check to say for sure.

If the city is going to require it, they should also provide low-interest loans and partially fund the projects. How much would sprinklers affect insurance costs?

You make a good point. I'm assuming that many houses are already equipped, or are new enough to have had to have sprinklers prior to occupation.

But that shouldn't allow Greeks to get off the hook. Granted, there are a LOT of firemen in my family, but the bottom line is, a fire can start so much more easily than most people realize, and smoke detectors can be disabled by something as simple as a spider.

We raise money for philanthropies, both Greek and non-Greek. Why aren't we working on keeping our own organizations alive (literally!) by raising money for sprinkler systems? Once a goodly amount is raised in an NIC/NPC joint project, loans against that money could be made. It can be done, it's just a matter of picking up the torch. (ouch, bad simile!)

honeychile, you are on fire! (My turn to be bad!)

But in all seriousness, I agree. As I posted earlier, I think it would be a great show of unity for Greek systems to group together and raise money for sprinkler systems and other safety upgrades.

For example, a simple and quick way to raise funds would be to have buckets at all the gates for all the home football games. $1 per person times 50,000 attendees per game with at least five home games and you have $250,000.00. (50,000 x 5 = 250,000) While that won't cover the whole Greek system, it sure would help.

Great blazes, TStevens! Great idea! (are we having fun yet?)

I'd really like to see a joint NIC/NPC accord on this, but can you imagine if every GLO on every campus would cooperate? There would be an incredible sinking fund, for sprinkler systems, and anything else deemed necessary.

Now, how do we get this idea to NIC/NPC?

Not that I would think anyone would have statistics on this... but I wonder what percentage of greek housing is equipped with sprinklers. I don't see every NIC/NPC chapter on every campus participating- because many already have sprinkler systems (like our own campus, honeychile).

I would hope that all newly built houses would have sprinkler systems, I'd imagine that the cost of installing it for new construction would be less than installing it on an older structure.

I do think GLOs should each have more low interest loans available to their chapters for things like this, or at least do more to assist them in securing the funds. KD, for example, has a chapter house loan program thing, where you can borrow towards renovations, etc. Back around 2000 or 2001, the interest rate on that, an internet loan program, was 9%. That high of an interest rate makes an already more expensive project more expensive. Obviously, there has to be some interest, but keep it down! (yes, that still irritates me to this day that the interest rate was so high)

I'd say that at least half of the Greek houses already have sprinklers, that's why I think such a fund should include other necessities. Obviously, something that keeps the chapter alive is more important than, say, decorating, but having a fund with a low interest rate would only benefit the system as a whole.

We have a fund such as this (low interest loans for renovations), but the reality is that fraternities are hit with this much more often than sororities, even though sorority women enjoy the fraternity facilities almost as often as the guys do. In fairness and respect for each others' costs, I think it would be good for the joint NIC/NPC undertaking.

I think your estimate is way too high. I've been in quite a few Greek facilities and I can only think of one that has sprinklers.

You could be right. I was trying to factor in the amount of newer fraternity housing, or that which is built by the various universities. In the past few years, I can't think of any fraternity or sorority houses that don't have sprinklers - but they're newer, built by the university in question, or faced the sprinkler clause years ago.

Just finding out how many places don't have a sprinkler system would probably be a very good first step.