SC House Passes Sprinkler Bill

There are several fire sprinkler bills introduced in the SC House of Representatives, which may become important to engineers. One of these bills passed the House the week of Feb. 11.

Engineers’ interest in these bills is to keep the registered engineer’s ability to design the sprinkler systems. Some states, and in fact, South Carolina entertained legislation several years ago that would have taken away this privilege. However, the bill that passed the House did not address this issue.

Indeed it may stimulate work for those engineers that design sprinkler systems because the bill gives tax credits equal to 80 percent of the cost of buying, installing and retrofitting fire sprinkler systems.  Also, the systems would be exempt from state sales tax.  Moreover, cities, counties and other water providers cannot charge more than the actual cost associated with the cost of adding waterlines to support fire sprinkler systems.

This bill was sent to the Senate where it must go through committee review and probably a hearing before the full Senate votes.

Other bills have been filed in the Senate but none have been addressed.