Automatic fire sprinklers

Bullshit... Airbags are supplemental, they work best when deployed on someone who is belted in...

They will stop you from hitting the steering wheel and windshield if you aren't wearing your seat belt...

Seat belt laws don't *MAKE* people wear them, even when it is a primary offense that the police could make a traffic stop if they observe you not belted in...

Airbags are not just there to make it easier on the people properly wearing seat belts, they are a last ditch effort to save the idiotic who don't wear belts too...

~~ Evan

Ok Ed,

If someone can not afford an extra $18k when building a house, they should be building a house... They should be living in the public project housing in a nasty city on welfare...

I hear people piss and moan about houses and the market, too many idiotic people bought "investment properties" with not one clue how to either "invest" nor rent them out...

Don't cry over the market -- you are supposed to buy a house because you want to live there for a very long time, not because you want to upgrade to the next biggest and best thing when you have paid down your mortgage enough to have 20% down on another house you aren't able to afford...

Buy a house that you can afford and live within your means, not a house which has a mortgage payments you can't really afford if you were honest, those 2 shiny new leased cars in the garage/driveway and the lastest and greatest shiny electronic toys...

~~ Evan

You keep missing the point, if someone wants a house full of sprinklers or a car with airbags and seatbelts fine but don't have the government mandate it

If you look at the legislative history of the airbag you will see that you are wrong. In 1977, when President Carter appointed former Ralph Nader lobbyist Joan Claybrook to head the NHTSA. Claybrook actively sought to establish an effective safety restraint law and her efforts partially paid off when Transportation Secretary Brock Adams ordered all new cars to have automatic safety belts **OR**air bags by 1984.(This was also called the passive restraint law because of the either mandate where the driver/occupants did not have to do too much more than just sit in the seat. (emphasis mine). After a little hooha under Reagan, (State Farm vs Auto Mfrs Assoc) the Department of Transportation issued new regulations ordering Auto producers to install air bags between 1986 and 1989. But it left one loophole: If, by

seat belts, they are a last ditch effort to save the idiotic who don't wear belts too...

Evan-

So everyone should live their lives according to the plan that you endorse?

cheers Bob

? "Evan" wrote

There are people like that, but there are many hard working people buying or building modest homes that plan to live in them for life and $48 a month extra is difficult. I can not only name you a half dozen families in that category, I can also show you their unburned houses that have never had a fire.

I agree, Evan, but not everyone lives like that. Building a 5000 sq. ft. McMansion? Perhaps a fire abatement system is not a big deal, but for a modest two bedroom ranch house, it is. There have been many houses built like that over the years. How about Habitat for Humanity houses?

The problem is community's that have run these model sprinkler programs have good water supply relatively flat etc etc. which makes a big difference I can look out my window and I am even with water tank on hill what kind of pressure you think we have here. They always cite this community outside philly with sprinklers again a flat community with all new 18" water lines Then you have to wonder how many systems are actually still turned on after first hard freeze I will bet at least 20% will not work. but as usual no one wants to talk about it it is always rosy glasses. guess there going to have to find out 20 years out what bad mistakes where made. just like with this new pex pipe looks great now what about 20 years from now.

here want to see some code double talk here is a comment on new arc fault protection they ant put into old wiring which actually provides no protection

From Electrical contracting magazine Analysis: As aging wiring systems become more of a concern in the electrical industry, the Code is taking a proactive approach to providing protection of these systems. Many areas of a dwelling require the use of AFCI protection in an effort to help avoid electrical fires. When AFCIs were first introduced into the NEC, the substantiation for their inclusion was based largely on electrical fires in older homes. With the inception of these devices, the Code began protecting new and future wiring systems but didn=92t address the older ones that contained many of the fires discussed in the AFCI arguments. This change expands the AFCI requirements to older homes. Because these older homes often don=92t contain an equipment grounding conductor, installation of an AFCI circuit breaker does very little in the way of protecting the branch circuits. The receptacle-type AFCIs also provide a significantly lower level of protection, but they will be required, nonetheless.

Yeah and by now I have forgotten what tremendously salient point I was trying to make (g). I have always thought it sort of an interesting example of the law of unintended consequences that airbags were originally thought as a replacement for seat belts, until they started killing people. Bureaucratic oopsy. ALthough to be fair, the regs for airbags called for inflation forces that were above what most of the airbags at the time were doing. (Which triggered another round of rulemaking, BTW). I have often wondered if the less aggressive airbags might have actually done their job.

to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."

Just look at anti lock brakes how they where suppose to save lives and instead end up taking lives when people push down here the strange noise there suppose to make and then let off and try to pump there brakes instead. again lack of education and people die.

Less aggressive air bags certainly would be better, assuming seat belts are properly worn. OTOH, if everyone wore seat belts, airbags would likely have never made the scene.

koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."

Seat belts are hardly an issue of lack of education.

Or as a FA once said during a pre-flight briefing: "For those of you who have been in a coma since the early 60s, this is how the seat belt works."

Yeah, except if you're under 40 or so and haven't been on an airplane before, the seat belt unbuckles differently from what's in a car. That's why the FAA-required announcement exists.

Of course we have locks on the doors. We also have a very low crime rate; security systems seems like expenditure for very little return. Not that I think you're interested, but here's a crime map for my area:

I was just curious about how many people have security systems. My previous house had a really crappy one; the previous owner was some kind of paranoid cheapskate. It kept going off by itself, so we disconnected it.

My 1948 house probably will never be retrofit with sprinkler systems, and I think a security system is unlikely while I live there.

Cindy Hamilton

te:

Would seem to me that anyone wanting to break into a home just might look at a "low crime" area as a place where few people have alarm systems ...... or that a lot of people have alarm system.

The thing to keep in mind is ..... anyone who has the mentality to think that breaking into homes is ok, is not likely to have the mentality to evaluate where the crime rate is high or low. If it looks easy and the conditions are right ..... they do it. Ya just never know ..... Security systems are like insurance. You have it just in case you need it hoping that you never need it. If you don't have a security system when the time comes .... you regret it for the relatively small cost as compared to the loss you suffer... particularly the sentimental items and the "invasion of privacy" issues that no one ever can appriciate until it happens to them. Statistically, people with alarm system suffer a lower dollar amount of loss then those who don't have systems. The other probably more important reason is the fire alarm.

There's got to be something to it if the insurance companys give a discount for having an alarm system. Many times the discount almost equals the cost of the central station monitoring fee. You never know if you're going to be one of those "statistics"

It is the smaller houses that are "more affordable" and therefore more often found in very densely laid out neighborhoods where the houses are closer together which should have said systems...

The McMansions on huge lots are less of a risk of causing any damage to neighbors...

Remember, this was about protecting everyone else from your house, the bonus is that the occupants of the houses thus equipped with fire sprinklers enjoy increased odds of survival if a fire happens...

~~ Evan

And for someone who is supposedly busy "working" and doesn't have enough time to explain his personal method of performing an industry standard technique on something, and then keeps stating that the actual industry standard when described by someone who knows it is wrong... well...

But it does seem like you have enough time to constantly window shop Harbor Freight products and make off the wall commentary on Usenet, just not defend your REAL position on something you claim to be an experienced tradesperson in... oh well...

You are starting to sound much more like an un-handy handyman troll who does quite a few things but none of them well...

~~ Evan

I'm not sure that alt.security.alarms suddenly has more lurkers, the whole thread has been cross posted to ASA and AHR, most of the replies probably originate from alt.home.repair.

Anyway I saw this in a local (Southern California) newspaper this morning