When I contacted my water purveyor about replacing my 5/8-inch to with a ¾-inch, the engineer who responded reviewed the costs. The meter and replacement labor would run a few hundred dollars. That seemed reasonable because they have to replace my old-style meter pit as well. The kicker was their "system development fee" of $2500.00.
The theory of system development fees
The purpose of the fee is to fund increases in capacity. It is based on the reasoning that additional customers increase demand, which requires adding new mains, larger storage tanks, more water treatment plants, etc. By levying the fee on new customers, the purveyor avoids placing the burden on existing ones. When an existing customer requests a larger meter, it is assumed that they will also increase demand and thus should pay the same fee as new customers.
The engineer was not up on fire sprinklers, so I gave a short recap of how they reduce the demand for water. In the event of a fire, I explained, my system would use a couple hundred gallons of metered water as opposed to several thousand gallons of unmetered water that the fire department would use. We left it at that. The engineer would discuss it with her superiors and let me know.
Educating water purveyors
The answer I received was disappointing. They justified the fee for the following reason. Although my sprinkler system itself lowered my home's demand on the public water system, a larger meter would enable me to install a lawn irrigation system, which would increase the demand on the system. Therefore, I needed to pay the fee because I could potentially add to the need for increasing capacity.
It was clear from our conversations that the engineering staff was not aware of the value that fire sprinklers provide in reducing demand on public water supplies. They also were largely unaware of how sprinklers can reduce other infrastructure costs, such as narrower roads and smaller cul-de-sac turnarounds just to name a couple. I requested a meeting with the engineering staff so I could explain how the water district could be part of the solution instead of the problems of sustaining viable places to live and work.
They were very open to meeting with me, and definitely wanted to learn more. Coincidentally, they had recently heard about the new requirements in the International Residential Code and figured that they would have to deal with the issues at some time in the future. They saw my participation as helping them become proactive instead of reactive.
Residential Fire Sprinklers 101
My goal at the meeting was two-fold. First, I wanted to provide documentation to back up my statements. I collected a half-dozen documents, some educational and some with data, and placed them into a presentation binder. I also included items I found about how other water purveyors have dealt with the situation. My other goal was to tell the story of residential sprinklers so they would appreciate how valuable they are to life safety. Instead of lecturing from a bulleted list, I highlighted key parts of each document. As I described the content of each enclosure, the highlighted material gave me my talking points.
I kept my presentation short and sweet, and left the binder so they can study the detailed contents. I came away feeling that they see me as an ally, someone who can help them find a practical solution to the problem with system development fees, just as other water purveyors have. It is going to take time and more meetings, but so far so good. I'll continue reporting on this as things progress.
