Sprinklers in dorms and fraternity houses. What a concept. A Tennessee group is pushing for legislation to require them.
They say if you're sending your kids off to college, you want to make sure they're coming home.
"When we put people to sleep at night. We would like those people to go to sleep with confidence that they'll wake up the next day without a fire," Wayne Waggoner with the Tennessee Fire Coalition says we can't cut corners when it comes to fire safety on campus.
"I've never seen anything any more effective than extinguishing a fire or controlling a fire than a fire sprinkler system," says Waggoner.
[...]
"Within that first minute, minute and a half, the sprinkler head's gonna open and allow water to come through the piping and put out the fire," explains Waggoner.
Exactly why UT plans to have sprinkler systems in all its dorms by 2010.
"We have a ten year capital renovation plan for university housing and part of that plan is the installation of suppression systems in all the residence halls," says Director of UT Student Housing Mike West.
Does your fraternity house have sprinklers? If you are planning to build soon it is cheaper to design them in up front than to retrofit if the laws in your state or town change.
WVLT VOLUNTEER TV Knoxville, TN: Group pushes for safer dorms in Tennessee
tags: Fraternity, Fire Safety, Dormitory
