Fire Sprinkler Systems

[Gareth Fisher]

I recently put an office building under contract at a good price.   The plan was to convert it from an office building to a 4 unit apartment building.  It had plenty of parking and the building was in decent shape.  Due to the great price it seemed that everything was coming together nicely.    

However a friend tipped me off that we were going to probably add a fire sprinkler system.     After digging some more we found out not only were we going to have to add a fire sprinkler system, we were also going to have to make one of the units handicap accessible.     

Obviously these added costs blew up the budget and killed what was looking to be a great deal.

I find myself pretty bitter at this.  I live in a 300k plus home, yet I don't have a sprinkler system.    Why should a tenant who is paying 750 a month have one?   Regulations like this create larger barrier to entries, hurt our local economies and keep a small guy from growing.

Has anyone had experience with this and has anyone found any good work around's?   I thought we had found a really good strategy but now see very little future in it knowing that building codes are such.

I have considered looking into taking classes and becoming certified in the systems, so I can do it myself.   Has anyone looked into this?

Any other advice  on get budgets to work with so many codes and regs.