California just adopted effective next year a requirement that all new one- and two-family dwellings include indoor sprinkler systems. Other states are debating similar mandates, spurred by changes to national building code standards. Earlier legal mandates have required the inclusion of smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms, but the cost of those devices is relatively minor, whereas full-blown sprinkler systems add measurably to the cost of a new home, as well as posing challenges in such areas as maintenance, aesthetics, and risk of property damage through accidental activation.

It will surprise not a single reader of these columns, I suspect, to learn that the fire sprinkler industry has been a major force in pushing the new mandate. As for the opposition, home builders have managed to mount a bit of resistance — New Jersey, for example, saw the current depressed state of the residential construction business as reason to postpone its mandate for a year. But the builders are pretty much on their own in the fight, since future buyers of new homes are a group with no organized political presence whatsoever.

Real estate blogger Christopher Fountain writes that he’s “never heard of a home buyer voluntarily ordering this equipment when building a house, so it sounds to me like one more instance of people who know better dictating to those who don’t.” Exactly. A South Carolina paper quotes a state official as saying if buyers feel priced out of the new home market by the cost of the mandate, they have other ways to save money “such as choosing less expensive flooring or countertops, or not installing yard sprinklers”. Easy to make someone else’s budget decisions for them, isn’t it? And shouldn’t the “affordable housing” community be taking more of an interest?