Fire-safety testing for the new Duval County Courthouse will resume Saturday.

But after repeatedly trying and failing to fix a smoke-control system inside  the vast building, courthouse builder Turner Construction has begun considering  a backup plan that could entail weeks of additional work, City Councilman Bill  Bishop said Thursday evening.

"That alternative would involve changing out all 10,000 sprinkler heads in  the building," said Bishop, an architect and City Council president-designate  who sat in on a meeting Thursday on the project.

"I was told Turner said if it had to go that way, it would take a month to do  that," Bishop said, but added he could picture the needed work taking  longer.

The basic thinking is that if smoke control systems can't work correctly, the  solution is to reduce the amount of smoke that might happen in a fire.