Clearview Township Wants New Homes To Have Residential Fire Sprinklers

Clearview Township has decided to recommend to anyone wanting to build a new home in Clearview that they should install fire sprinklers. There was a movement on the council to try and make them mandatory but it was decided that it either wasn't the time or they didn't have the authority.

Regardless of what I think about residential sprinklers in single family homes what this shows is clearview councils complete lack of knowledge on the rising costs of building yourself a new home.

There have been so many changes to the building code in the last 5 years that the cost of building a new home has skyrocketed to the point where most normal people cannot afford to have a home built for themselves.

Here are some of the building code changes that have raised the cost of building a new home regardless of the size of the home, each change adds thousands of extra dollars;

• Insulation. There have been several insulation changes not only in the walls but in the ceilings and the basement floors. The changes are scheduled to continue into the future with more changes happening over the next two decades.
• Smoke detectors costs have doubled as the code changes require double the amount and they most have a strobe affect in them.
• There have been several changes to the building code regarding electrical outlets and breakers that have raised the costs for the installation of the electrical system in a new home.
• Septic upgrades have raised the cost of new septic systems

There have been 1000's of changes to the building codes in the last half decade, everyone of them has raised the cost of building new homes, there are more changes coming driving the cost up higher over the next decade or two.

Lets talk about the cost of installing a sprinkler system, the average cost in Canada is somewhere between 3 and 6 dollars a sqft. The average house of 2500 sqft that means that 7500 to 15,000 dollars! Those numbers only apply to homes that would be built IN TOWN, homes that would be hooked up to town water with town water pressure. 

If you were to build a home outside of town and you were on a well then you would have to spend a lot more money because you would have to install a holding tank system to be able to have enough water and water pressure to make sure that they functioned properly.

If you look at the building of new homes that happens in Clearview it's mostly happening outside of town as that is the only place you can find places to build as there is a complete lack of building lots. 

Lets now add in the increase to the building permits in the township to cover the losses the building department has incurred and you start to understand that all this does is make building new homes only available to the wealthy, 

There has been a lobby group working to force Ontario to amend the building code to force everyone to not only install them in new homes but also install them in all existing homes. At the moment it isn't law, maybe technology will make it cheaper in the future but at the moment the cost isn't something that we in Clearview Township should have to pay.

Rob Abbott

Village Builders Inc.