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Northwest Fire/Rescue District is pushing to make fire sprinklers a requirement in every new home built on the Northwest Side.

Already, large homes built on the edge of the district are required to have sprinklers installed, but fire officials want the requirement extended to all new homes built in fast-growing areas of Marana and Pima County.

The sprinklers, which add about $3,000 to the price of a new home, are an unnecessary regulation, some home builders said.

Fire officials say the increased cost is balanced by discounted home insurance rates, although according to a survey of two large insurance companies, the discounts would take years to equal the extra cost.

But homeowners could see other savings where it matters most: life and property.

Homeowners who have sprinklers experience about $40,000 less damage than homeowners who don't, according to a 15-year study done by the Scottsdale Fire Department. Once sprinklers were triggered, they stopped fires 93 percent of the time.

And when it comes to life-saving, the same study found that fire sprinklers are perfect: There were no deaths in homes where sprinklers were installed.

The study found that 13 people were killed in homes where fire sprinklers weren't installed during the same time period.

Because the sprinklers activate when a fire begins, they have a better chance of putting out a fire than firefighters arriving minutes after a blaze sets off an alarm, said Northwest Fire/Rescue District Fire Marshall Randy Karrer.

"It's like having 25 to 30 firefighters in your house," he said.

Any home built in Northwest Fire/Rescue District that's bigger than 3,600 square feet and more than 500 feet away from a fire hydrant has to be outfitted with sprinklers, according to the district's fire code.

During a Governing Board meeting on Tuesday, fire officials will seek to expand the fire code, making sprinklers mandatory in model homes so that potential buyers can see what the devices look like.

In the future, district officials would like to expand the requirement to all homes under construction.

The cost could be added to a mortgage payment and save homeowners money on their insurance rates, Karrer said.

Ed Taczanowsky, president of the Southern Arizona Home Builders Association, said any price increase and extra regulation is unnecessary.

Builders have already incorporated fire safety into construction, including built-in firewall breaks in walls and fire-resistant materials installed in garages.

"Most of the fires are in older homes," Taczanowsky said. "We have fire-safety construction built in."

SAHBA officials don't doubt the sprinklers' abilities to save life and property, Taczanowsky said. They just think homeowners should have the choice.

But one Marana home builder said he understands the need for fire sprinklers.

"It gives homeowners peace of mind," said Jim Carlson, senior vice president of Nicholas Homes. "We're glad to offer them and, when we're required to put them in, we support it."

The Scottsdale-based developer and SAHBA member is building 224 homes in Vanderbilt, a development near Gladden Farms in Marana. Home prices range from $235,000 and $350,000 and sprinklers are an option for buyers.

While it's important to realize that any added feature could price people out of homes, fire sprinklers don't add too much extra cost, Carlson said.

Estimates show that a $3,000 fire-sprinkler system increases a home's mortgage by about $20 a month.

"We're always trying to control the cost of housing," Carlson said. "While it's not the popular vote because of rising costs, we think it's a benefit."

Potential buyers often have misconceptions about fire sprinklers, said Scottsdale Fire Marshall Jim Ford.

People have visions of a small fire setting off sprinklers throughout a house, or a sprinkler malfunction soaking their living room.

That just doesn't happen, said Ford, whose department was one of the first in the country to require sprinklers in new homes.

Each sprinkler operates independently, meaning it will only activate when a fire is nearby.

And the chance of a sprinkler failing is one in 16 million, according to the Scottsdale study.

Residential fire sprinklers are designed to blend in with homes and don't stick out of the ceiling the way commercial fire sprinklers do, Ford said.

Homeowners often worry that a sprinkler will cause unnecessary water damage when it goes off to put out a fire.

But if there is a fire, firefighters are going to rip down doors, cut holes in roofs and pour about 14 times as much water on a fire, Ford said.

A sprinkler head uses an average of 357 gallons of water to put out a fire, while firefighters use an average of 4,884 gallons, according to Scottsdale's study.

"As soon as we open a fire hose, water damage kills everything," Ford said. "Sprinklers will turn off."

The sprinkler will catch a fire two minutes after it begins, while it can take firefighters much longer.

"With sprinklers, the fire's out before we even get there," he said.