Getting fire alarms and sprinklers in your rental properties is a way to provide value and safety to your tenants while also protecting your investment. Here is the how and why of installing fire sprinklers and alarms in a rental property.

Beyond Smoke Detectors

Smoke detectors are often required as the bare minimum for fire suppression in rental properties. But they often don't do enough to stop a fire. Consider that a smoke detector will begin to sound the alarm only once the fire is going and enough smoke has accumulated to set the alarm off. And the alarm doesn't do anything to stop the fire; it simply alerts you that action needs to be taken.

On the other hand, a fire sprinkler system can start to take action on an emerging fire as soon as the fire sprinklers detect an excessive level of heat. They will begin to quench the fire so that there is less work needed when the firefighter team arrives. Since the fire sprinklers start working immediately to reverse the trajectory of a fire, they can save a lot of water and effort on behalf of your fire department.

Adding fire-alarm installation on top of this is important because it lets the entire rental property know that there is an issue. If you have multiple units, a fire-alarm system can be connected between them to alert everyone when there's a fire so that they can all evacuate the building. 

Property Damage and Insurance

Fire sprinklers may help you get a discount on your property's insurance. Fire sprinklers help reduce the total amount of insurance claims on infrastructure damage, property losses, and personal injury, and that means that insurers can charge you less for insurance.

Installation of Systems

If you already have tenants in the property when you decide to do fire-alarm installation, you'll need to get their permission to do the work. This would include multiple visits to the property and access for you and any inspectors or workers that need to come through the space. Your tenants may not wish to grant this access, which is within their rights, and that means you would need to wait until the current tenants move out to proceed with installing fire sprinklers.

A fire-suppression specialist is a great option for installing your sprinkler and alarm system. They will go through and expertly plan the system so that it accounts for the size and shape of each room, where the greatest fire hazards are, and the areas that are most valuable and need the most protection. 

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