Sprinkler Age A Publication of the American Fire Sprinkler Association
“Cautious Optimism” Continues Into the New Year
A new year brings fresh hopes, renewed energy, and evolving expectations—and the fire protection industry is no exception. The same holds true for members of the American Fire Sprinkler Association (AFSA). While construction industry reports suggest a slower year ahead, most forecasts continue to project modest growth. AFSA contractor members surveyed report a cautiously optimistic outlook for 2026. Explore the industry and member insights highlighted below and throughout this issue of Sprinkler Age. For additional forecasts and analysis, visit enr.com and constructionexec.com.
INDUSTRY REPORTS
Annual reports detailed in Engineering News-Record (Nov. 19, 2025) include Dodge Construction, which predicts the total dollar value of overall construction starts will slightly decline by 0.4% in 2026, following a 6.1% increase last year. For residential construction starts, Dodge expects the total dollar value of residential to increase 1.7% in 2026. It estimates a 9.5% decline in single-family construction in 2025 with another 1.9% drop in 2026. Multifamily housing is forecast to end up 18.1% last year, and climb another 7.6% this year.
Dodge forecasts warehouses should end down 0.5% in 2025, then increase 4.8% in 2026. Hotel and motels were down 2.6% last year but will rise 4.8% this year. Office building starts are expected to jump by 25.2% in 2025 and increase slightly by 0.6% in 2026. Stores and shopping centers are expected to continue the 7.0% increase in 2025, with another 2.6% rise in 2026. Healthcare facilities should grow by 17.3% in 2026, after rising 13.6% last year.
FMI Corp. is forecasting total construction put-in-place for 2025 to decrease 1.4%, with a slight increase of 0.7% in 2026. Total residential construction put-in-place will drop 2.2% in 2025 and creep up 0.7% in 2026. The forecast for single-family construction put-in-place is down 3.1% for 2025 and up a slight 0.8% in 2026. Multifamily put-in-place is expected to decline 9.1% in 2025 and another 2.2% in 2026. Total non-residential construction put-in-place is expected to decline by 2.0% in 2025 and by 0.5% in 2026.
Commercial work is expected to decline 8.5% in 2025 and fall another 4.1% in 2026. Data centers are one area where FMI has seen substantial growth that will continue. In 2024, it jumped 55.7%, followed by a 33.4% increase in 2025, and is forecasted to grow 24.9% in 2026.
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates single-family work is expected to rise 1.4% last year and grow by 7.5% this year. Multifamily will show a 5.8% drop in 2025 but rebound by 10.5% this year.
MEMBERS REPORT ON 2025 AND FORECAST FOR 2026
AFSA Chair of the Board and Region 10 Director Paul DeLorie, senior vice president of Hampshire Fire Protection, Co., Inc., Londonderry, N.H., reports that 2025 was another “very successful” year. “Our region has been hot for a while, and the future looks favorable as large apartment complexes and mixed-use buildings are being approved for construction. There is a lot of hospital, school, and university work available.”
For 2026, he is cautiously optimistic, which is their normal posture. “We expect to maintain our market share in new construction, while increasing our ITM and fire alarm business.”
DeLorie continues, “Our service department handles ITM, and they are very busy. We have a small fire alarm division, and they are integrated into our ITM work. We no longer have the headache of relying on an alarm subcontractor and being disappointed with schedule dilemmas.”
“We expect strong growth in ITM in 2026. Our business goal is to have ITM revenue be on par with our traditional construction work and fire sprinkler service work,” he says. “The pace of mergers and acquisitions for fire sprinkler companies and small fire alarm companies has increased the demand for our services as an independent contractor.”
“We expect to contract more foam replacement work as existing fire protection systems with PFAS chemistry-type foam are being replaced with environmentally friendly non-fluorinated foam.”
“As usual, we need help with quality design work that is timely and the pipe ‘fits’ at installation,” notes DeLorie. “BIM projects are causing through put problems, as the time required to model and coordinate is excessive.”
“We had a rocky start in 2025; our booked work was down from 2024, and going into the third quarter of last year. However, the flood gates opened as the government opened back up, and now, we have exceeded last year’s booked work going into 2026,” notes AFSA Immediate Past Chair of the Board and Region 5 Linda Biernacki, president of Fire Tech Systems, in Shreveport, La. “I am cautiously optimistic for 2026. Based on the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill, we should have a robust year ahead.”
Biernacki notes that labor remains a concern heading into the new year. “As an industry, we should focus on how we can market to the workforce to join our life-saving and property-protecting industry. Also, we must invest in training our workforce.”
Chris Johnson, president and co-founder of Piper Fire Protection, a Fortis Brand in Clearwater, Fla., and AFSA’s Second Vice Chair of the Board and Region 7 Director, says business grew in both the California and Florida markets. “Storm impacts in the Tampa region from 2024 and high interest rates seemed to slow residential and commercial work locally. We were able to increase labor rates this year to match increasing labor costs.”
“We have booked several large jobs in the fourth quarter of 2025. We expect to see moderate growth in southwest Florida markets in construction, service, and testing and inspection services. Storm repairs are still driving fire pump replacements and fire alarm system replacements on the beaches. We are also expecting some condo and apartment work to start back up in the back half of 2026 as interest rates go down and people move back into the area.”
Johnson continues, “We are setting our budgets with aggressive growth forecasts in 2026. We expect to see a bounce back in new construction work starts in the second half of 2026. We closed several large jobs in the fourth quarter of 2025, which has our backlog of new construction work back to 2022 levels.”
Donald Cole, president, Titan Fire Protection, Inc., Largo, Fla., saw a “modest growth” in 2025. He expects similar growth for this year. “Current backlog exceeds last year’s sales.”
Cole notes that the workforce continues to be an issue. “We’re using more subcontract labor to sustain growth.”
Joel Warner, president, Sentry Fire Protection, Inc., York, Penn., says 2025 “was average and not as robust as the last couple of years.” He reports that 2026 is “unstable” at this time and “really hard to gauge.” However, “with all the good news about the economy, I am optimistic.”
Ken Olson, president, Allan Fire Protection Systems, Tucson, Ariz., says last year was “okay,” and expects 2026 to be “much slower” than 2025.
Last year was “a slight tick down for us,” comments Richard Schmidt, general manager, Residential & Commercial Fire Protection, LLC, Waldorf, Md., “We seemed to have been awarded a variety of projects with challenges that created the need for construction schedules to be adjusted into 2026.” He expects a “decent increase” in work opportunities this year. We should be able to build a nice backlog for 2026 and into Quarter 1 of 2027.”
Schmidt says he’s seeing the same problems from 30 years ago today. “Lack of qualified designers and lack of qualified field personnel. As we all get older, these two issues get magnified a bit more.”
Chris Brown, managing partner, Certified Life Safety, LLC, Louisburg, Kan., saw a high backlog of work throughout 2025. “There was plenty of work for all the trades,” he comments. “2026 is trending strongly with four months of backlog work. I am expecting higher growth and earnings for the first quarter.”
Brown concurs with all other respondents, noting that there is “still a low pool of skilled workers in the industry and a lack of experience for workers.”
Justin Smith, president, Ironsmith Fire, LLC, Collierville, Tenn., notes, “Our company grew substantially in 2025. It was a great year!” While he says that “developing our workforce is our biggest challenge, he expects a “minimum of 30% growth” this year, with a focus on heavy industrial and data centers. “We are very optimistic about 2026, and expect growth into new geographical areas as well as product lines.”
AFSA At-Large Director Hunter Brendle, president of Brendle Sprinkler Co., Inc., Montgomery, Ala., began to see some “big projects” on the calendar again in 2025. He also saw some more retrofits, and ITM work was up last year. “We’ve had to add a crew to our service and inspection department,” Brendle notes. “We wanted to focus on ITM service and inspections because we saw a slowdown coming.”
For 2026, Brendle feels work will be steady but slower in the first half of the year, then pick up in the second half. “We added some really big projects in December, so I’m optimistic 2026 will be good.”
ADD TRAINING TO THE MIX FOR 2026
AFSA is here to help its members succeed with top-notch training in all aspects of the industry. From apprenticeship training to education for beginning and experienced designers to hands-on ITM programs, AFSA has the tools and expert instruction contractors need.
“I continue to be grateful to the AFSA leadership and staff for their dedication and commitment to providing contractors with the tools we need to stay relevant with the gold standard in training all areas of life safety,” comments Biernacki.
Read more about training opportunities in this issue of Sprinkler Age or visit AFSA’s website at firesprinkler.org/education-training.