TIME TO FIRE PROOF YOUR HOUSE!
Question: How do you build a fire proof house?
Answer: You use only incombustible materials!
IS THAT TOO COMPLICATED?
Looking around it sure seems that way, when too many people live in houses that are too easy to burn down, with some living in irresponsible wood boxes, that will burn to the ground and endanger the occupants at the smallest fire!
FIRE! What fire?
Here comes the Police and the Fire Department running up the road, for everyone to leave their homes because there is a fast moving fire coming, (of course that will come a day when they won’t come or even attempt to put out the fire, what we have seen many times) and while everyone rushes out leaving all their possessions behind, you just relax and watch the foolishness of the all thing.
Maybe some will seek last minute shelter at your place, it may even be the poorly equipped Fire Department, that many times gets trapped too, with their Combustible Vehicles — what a joke!……….How hard can it be to build a inside out oven, with a cooling system and some oxygen tanks?
They may even come to your door saying there is a mandatory evacuation, to what you will laugh and reply that, “maybe they should evacuate to your house!”
Fires aren’t the problem, the problem is lack of preparation for when they come, and they will come sooner or later.
Remember MURPHY’S LAW!
Compare our House Concept, to ANYTHING available out there!
This is what we call — REAL FIRE INSURANCE!
“You couldn’t burn one of our homes down, even if you wanted to!”
The exterior of a home should not only be incombustible, but also offer protection to the occupants for a minimum of 4 hours, when a fire is burning outside. Basically it shouldn’t let the temperature rise in the interior, to a level that you should determine (not the rating people), regardless of any fire that is burning outside; even if it is a gasoline tanker that just crashed against the house. This must be the minimum requirements you should have when designing your home. Short of a volcano, meteor, or other higher force event, your home will be there to protect you and your family.
To resist a wild fire (brush fire) is not only easy, but it should be the minimum code for building a house. It’s ridiculous how most of you let even a SMALL fire steal what you worked for all your life.
Most so called FIRE-RATINGS are a starting point, but trust and verify those ratings. Tests should be made to the chosen materials, remember that wood doors are fire rated – if it burns slow, it’s OK (THE JOKE IS ON YOU)!
In all cases, an air chamber of around 2 inches, between exterior and interior wall must be used to stop the heat from rising in the interior to unacceptable levels. Air circulating between walls has to be forced and go through a cooling system that could be a thermal mass, as simple as a bed of gravel underneath the house, or more elaborated and include cooling devices, radiators and so on. Any system must have a backup battery system for power outages, or generator outage.
On the interior of the house, all walls should be incombustible. Drywall is not incombustible and even if it could be used inside the house, in the garage it shouldn’t be used at all. The garage ceiling needs metal, or other 4 hour rated material suspended from the ceiling, to allow an air chamber to protect the ceiling or floor above. Possibly a sprinkler system and even a forced air chamber will need to be used and tests must be made to the system and materials used to make sure they perform as desired. A 4-hour rating is heavy fire directly on it for 4 hours, a situation that no car fire should be able to attain for such long period.
If a car was to catch fire in our garages, nothing besides smoked walls will occur; one could even be home and not notice it, if not for the alarms, as the doors from the garage to the house are air tight.
We always provide protection for at least 2x the worst case scenario.
In a really hot fire even cement based products or steel will suffer local damage, but in most cases that will be mostly cosmetic damage and should never render the house inhabitable; but because some smoke penetration should always be expected, regardless of how
well the house is sealed, a real safe house, must carry an air breathing system and a sealed safe room/basement to achieve the best protection. YOU SHOULD NEVER, have to leave your house because of a fire, or weather related event.