After seeing all of those homes burning in the last couple of weeks I have a couple of thoughts. First why would anyone put on cedar shingles or shakes, I have reroofed enough buildings where I burnt the old cedar shingles and they would of not burned any faster if I had added gas to the fire. It seems that a tile roof in the south or a metal roof would eliminate or atleast greatly reduce fires starting on the roofs. Next using fiber cement siding and other non conbustible products would greatly help. I have never seen any data but I assume that siding and then a layer of 5/8″ rock could withstand the heat of a fire. My new gun vault is fire rated with basically that type of insulation. Windows may take a little work but I bet that some of the manufactures are going to get motivated to get something out to the market.
I used to work as a Mechanical Engineer and we had rooms that were designed to burn from time to time. Carefull selection of materials made the diference of a couple of hours of work and a pile of smoldering rubble.
It seems that there should be some news about some homes that survived with minimual damage in locations where everything else burned.
Mayby Fine Homebuilding should do a story on building for fire zones.
By the way we also have fires here in Northern Minnesota but we also have 10,000 lakes and 1,000,000 swamps so getting water to a fire is not as much of a problem.
Replies
It's amazing to me. I still see people building log homes with shake roofs here in Colorado forests - with big wood decks of course! Insurance rates may finally "put the damper" on that. : )
I'm putting fiber cement siding and a metal roof on mine.
Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
what I find amazing is the two story $600,000 new homes near me in a "neo traditional" neighborhood. no roof overhangs .
they only allow wood siding.
so all wood siding and all doors and windows get lots of water on them.
why???
beats me
a big roof overhang would stop all that
Shake roofs have been outlawed here. 10k sf decks are still going strong.
The new law has some up in arms. Guess what state they are from.... ROAR..
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Just occured to me ... You have woods / forests down there?
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Like my friend from Wisconsin says: We have booshes. : )
Forestry experts claim that a pj forest is a real forest. ( You know pinon/juniper )Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Actually, I've learned that log homes can do quite well in a fire. Shake roofs on the other hand.....
We've got an article coming out next spring, and we did one in issue 96, which I've asked our web folks to put online at the main site asap. That should mean next week.
Andy Engel, The Former Accidental Moderator
Does it have any reference to the Simi Valley region in CA? When I was in CA last weekend they had a blip on the news on building codes in Simi Valley and how they were much more stringent in regard to fire saftey, I didn't catch the whole thing but it looked they had some good ideas.
I don't think so.Andy Engel, The Former Accidental Moderator
log homes can do quite well in a fire
Yeah... but from the fires I've toured "after the fact", they can also do quite poorly. It's probably different in other areas, but friends on the local fire squad here have told they go "watch log homes burn down".Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one.
For an industry article on Log Home fire resistance (it actually is a pretty good and appears to be pretty objective):
http://www.loghouses.biz/DOWNLOADS/Fire_resistance_tech.pdf
If I remember correctly, structural wood members over 8"x8" are generally considered fire resistant (although the exact size is determined by the expected char depth and the strength of the remaining wood core.) This is because wood is expect to char to something like an inch and a half which provides insulation and fire protection for the remaining unburned wood. I am not sure how this translates to log structures, however.
Hey,
Log homes are pretty fire resistent...it takes a lot to catch them on fire. They also make fire-rated chinking.
Shake shingles are illegal in many counties, including mine.
We do have wood decks, but as soon as I can afford it, I would like to switch them to something else.
There was a guy here who lived up by Gross Reservoir in the Walker Ranch area who was putting shake shingles on his house (this was back in the WebX days). I asked him why he would consider doing such a thing given how close he was to a recent fire. His response was that if the fire is coming, it doesn't matter what is on your house. Frankly, I don't agree.
In some cases, it's all about making your house look good to the firefighters so they will want to defend it. Your house should scream out, "pick me, Pick me!" I'm thinking about putting a vending machine outside my house. I think that will help more than anything! LOL :-)
Paula
p.s. my sister's house was only hundreds of feet away from the fire last week. If the weather hadn't changed, it would have been gone. So bizarre because they are in major suburban sprawl.
We do have wood decks, but as soon as I can afford it, I would like to switch them to something else.
Just be aware from a fire standpoint that composite decking such as Trex takes more to ignite than typical wood decks, but once ignited it burns hotter. Composite decking typically provides more fuel load than a wooden deck.
You're right about the shake roofs in CO. That is insane. But log construction, now that is a different matter, particularly if the logs are large.
Have you ever tried starting a fireplace fire with no tinder . Pretty hard to do. Same for the logs. Unless there is tinder, i.e. trees falling against the house, it is very difficult to ignite a log house. Much harder than any stick framed one. And only a fool would have trees close to his house here, particularly after last year's fires.
So, Logs, yes, shakes, no.
Stef
Abe,
I'm putting a shake roof on myself right now,, (just inside to warm up from the cold) here in my neighborhood they pose no additional risk since we are a pretty urban enviorment. A shingle roof simply would not have the same class on my house as a shake roof and metal would be all wrong.. about the only other roofing material that I would ever consider is slate but I don't have the $2000 a square they say slate costs..
There's a company that makes fire-resistant cedar shingles. http://www.chemcoproducts.com"I want a good clean fight. No head butts, no rabbit punches, and no hitting below the belt. Break when I say break, and protect yourself at all times."
about the only other roofing material that I would ever consider is slate but I don't have the $2000 a square they say slate costs..
Must be a looong way from the quarry. I just checked my price list for Buckingham Va Slate. $400-525/square, depending on size. IIRC, contractor pricing is considerably less. There are a lot of slate roofs (and walks and floors) here.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I'm willing to bet that i could ship a lot of slate for 1500 a square! Need more info, slate is very rare here in Minnesota and what little there is, is in the neighborhood of $2000 a square sitting on the ground..
I'm willing to bet that i could ship a lot of slate for 1500 a square!
I'd think. It's been a long time since I leased a tractor/trailer with driver but it was simple. The brochure doesn't list weight. The one time I went to the quarry I put a couple pallets of flooring on my deuce-and-a-half which IIRC was 2-3 trips for a pickup, but left me with a big majority of my weight rating left.
Good luck. Maybe you've got a new sideline!
http://bvslate.com/features.htmPAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Here's a place you should look at for slate roofing info:
http://www.traditionalroofing.com/index.html
From there you can go to their message area where they have a "buy and sell slate" section. The ads are mostly X many squares located in a given city.
-- J.S.
Thanks,
Much of the roof is already handsplit cedar shakes but perhaps the roof as it heads east could use slate.
Actually there are pockets of houses that were built recently, where the building codes had been improved to require "green" landscapes, instead of dry brush, the houses also had to be within a "safety zone as we firefighters" would call it were there is no fuel, hense the green landscape rewquirement and setback requirement. Fire won't burn without fuel. Hardie plank or similar siding which is non combustible was also required on these houses............... Moral of the story- While the fires were burning around these newer homes kids were still playing football in the back yards while the other houses burned. Just some food for thought.
Two firefighters from Florida also developed a few years back, gel that can be applied to homes when fires are close. The gel holds hundred times it's weight in water. Funny thing is about the gel is its the same thing used in diapers.............
Look for stories on the Stevenson Ranch area -- the houses there are about 3 years old, tile roofs and stucco walls. They also run the stucco under the overhangs and up the fascia, so there's no way in for fire. That plus some clearing between them and the brush appears to have worked quite well.
-- J.S.