Is it true that fire sprinklers are fire protection overkill? Most homeowners realize how important it is to install fire alarms and change the batteries on a yearly basis. But many people don’t know that home fire alarms leave significant gaps in fire protection. Here’s a look at the benefits and drawbacks of these types of systems.

Fire alarms are cheaper. A fire alarm is cheap and easy to find—you can pick one up at any hardware store—and easy to install. Comparatively, fire sprinklers are less accessible. You’ll need to hire a qualified installation firm that specializes in fire sprinkler installation—it’s not a job just any construction company can handle. The cost is typically the same as the cost of installing new carpet—not as expensive as you’d think, but still more of a financial commitment than buying a home fire alarm.

Fire alarms are higher maintenance. Most fire prevention experts say you should test your home fire alarms once a month and replace the batteries once a year. But seriously, do you really test your fire alarms once a month? Most people don’t—and this could have tragic consequences. Fire sprinklers are more dependable and don’t require such regular checking.

Fire alarms rely on batteries. And batteries can fail or run down without warning—leaving you defenseless in case of a fire. Fire sprinklers don’t run on batteries, and they trigger automatically when a fire starts. Yearly maintenance is a good idea, but you’ll be able to trust the system to perform without worrying about faulty or expired batteries.

Home fire alarms are more likely to malfunction. Surveys suggest as many as one in seven home fire alarms malfunction at critical times, even when the batteries are charged. By contrast, fire sprinklers have a failure rate of approximately one in sixteen million. It’s extremely rare for a fire sprinkler system to fail to respond to a fire.

Fire alarms are passive protection. All they do is wake you up and alert you to a fire. You have to do the rest—get your family out of the house, extinguish the fire, or contact the fire brigade. Leaving this much in the hands of homeowners can be extremely dangerous. Fire sprinklers offer active protection—they act to extinguish the fire automatically, before the fire brigade arrives and sometimes before anyone in the house realizes there’s a fire.

For decades, fire brigades in dozens of countries have promoted fire alarms as a necessary tool for fire protection. But home fire alarms don't offer the best protection, and in recent years fire chiefs in many different countries have called for stronger promotion of fire sprinkler systems. The simple truth is that only fire sprinklers can actively work to stop a fire as it starts. Fire alarms force homeowners to rely on their own abilities to get safely away from fire-and that may not be possible for everyone. The results are in: if you really want to protect your family from fire, a sprinkler system is the best option.