Dive Brief:

• Minnesota homebuilders last week asked the state Court of Appeals to delay a law requiring them to install fire sprinklers in new homes measuring 4,500 square feet or bigger.

• In the meantime, the law took effect on Saturday, making Minnesota the fourth state to adopt some form of a residential sprinkler mandate for single-family homes. California, Maryland and Washington, D.C., require sprinklers in new one- and two-family dwellings. In Massachusetts, one- and two-family homes of more than 14,000 square feet must have them. Eight other states require sprinklers in new townhomes.

• The Builders Association of the Twin Cities, which filed the appeal, claims that installing sprinklers adds up to $10,000 to the cost of building a 4,500-square-foot home.

Dive Insight:

The International Residential Code requires sprinklers as a standard feature in all new homes, but pushback from builders' and homeowners’ associations has led legislators in more than a dozen states to prohibit state and local governments from adopting the code’s sprinkler provision. Other states have given local officials the option to adopt the sprinkler mandate, but they do not require it.

The National Association of Home Builders has argued that homeowners should be allowed to choose whether to pay for and install fire sprinklers.