For those on well water - fire insurance? (Madison: homeowners insurance, home)

[FutureNHRetiree]

Having been a suburbanite my whole life, I have no experience with private well water as my water source. We are purchasing some land for a future retirement home which will be well/septic, and no town water near by. How do insurance companies handle fire insurance for these properties? I understand that the town has water trucks for fire purposes, and there may be a "fire pond" near by. Do any of you have sprinklers connected to your well? Thanks in advance!

[BF66389]

A whole building sprinkler system is generally dependant upon a fairly high flow rate generally higher than the average residential well can provide (at least for any sustained period).

Simply put the insurer will ask if you have hydrants, a sufficient pond, or stand pipe...if the answer is no your insurance will be slightly higher. It's not going to be some insanely high cost though, just a little more due to the increased risk.

Proximity to the fire department also comes into play...

[MtDreamer]

BF66389 What is a 'stand pipe'?

[NewNHguy]

A stand pipe is a charged or uncharged pipe in which water can flow to allow water supply for fire attack.

If you have ever worked or walked in a hi-rise, the pipe that runs in the staircase is a standpipe. Most are empty, and are them filled by a Fire Department pumper. Some can even be filled by the water service in the building, but most Fire departments choose not to use building water. The main reason for this is the dependability of the pressure, and the supply for fire suppression activities.

In a residential home, there are two types of sprinkler systems....wet and dry.
wet allows the sprinkler pipes to be charged with water, and it sits static until a sprinkler hear is ativated by a heat source.
the dry system work just like the wet, but the system is charged with compressed air, and remains 'dry' until the sprinkler head is activated, thus flooding the pipe to said activated sprinkler head. A dry system is mostly used where there is a high probability of the pipes temp. dropping below freezing.

Both work well.
And no, when a sprinkler system is activated, ALL the sprinkler heads DO NOT go off at once like U see in the movies.

NewNHguy,
Fire Chief~

[NHDave]

The Chief pretty much summed it up. Most small towns only have a hydrant system in town, on the outskirts the Fire Dept relies on standpipes or dry hydrants as they're also known. You may see a pond that has a PVC pipe sticking out of the ground with a cap on it. This connection has no pressure, you can remove the cap and you'd get nothing, but the FD can connect to this and draw water from the pond to supply the firefighting efforts, either by running a 4" or larger line to the fire scene if it's close or by filling a tanker shuttle, FD water trucks that take the water to the scene and transfer it to the attack apparatus.

[NewNHguy]

Originally Posted by NHDave

The Chief pretty much summed it up. Most small towns only have a hydrant system in town, on the outskirts the Fire Dept relies on standpipes or dry hydrants as they're also known. You may see a pond that has a PVC pipe sticking out of the ground with a cap on it. IThis connection has no pressure, you can remove the cap and you'd get noting, but the FD can connect to this and draw water from the pond to supply the firefighting efforts, either by running a 4" or larger line to the fire scene is it's close or by filling a tanker shuttle, FD water trucks that take the water to the scene and transfer it to the attack apparatus.

Exactly Dave.

The pipe with a cap on it that y'all see by your pond are called drafting stations;
the pumper hooks up a hard suction hose to this pipe and draws a suction, or 'draft' to pull the water out of the pond.
The engine that gets positioned on the draft cannot leave;
they are there to hold the draft and supply either:
1. a tanker, that will shuttle the water to the fire, where it is dumped into a manmade 'pool' and then drafted from the pool and applied to the fire.
or
2. the firefighters can hook large diameter hose to the draft pumper, and lay up to 1000 feet in the road way, thus creating an above ground water main for fire supression water to pass through. At or before the 1000 foot mark, another pumper must be placed if the distance is more than 1000 feet from the water source, and the fire.
It's a long lengthy process, that NH firefighters are tops at.
I'm a urban Chief. Here in NJ, we have hydrants every 165 feet, and pumpers that pump 200 Gallons per minute. water supply is nary an issue, and in my municipality, I have 3 2000gpm pumpers and a ladder truck with a 2000gpm pump at my disposal for fire attack.

At my madison home however, water supply for my home is about an 1/8th of a mile from the house, and the Madison FD would have to draft as I have described.
When I applied for homeowners insurance, I merely explained that there are no hydrants, and that the FD drafted, they understood. The difference between the NH insurance and the NJ insurance is minimal, believe it or not.

I have priced out retro-fitting a sprinkler system into the NH house, but it is costly; what with the price of another well, fire pump, and all the piping for the runs and rises.

In NJ, there is a big push for residential sprinklers to be installed during construction. It's win-win....great for the fire service, and also great for the homeowner.