Idea for fire-proof California home...

[morningglory]

Not a chemist, never lived in a desert. There is a product for mobile homes called Cool Seal or kool seal or something, which is a thick paint that insulates a trailer roof and makes it easier to heat/cool. Maybe some inventor could make an un-flammable thick paint to paint the roof and the whole house, where embers could land and not ignite the roof. Something like adobe mud. Thick. How 'bout igloo-shaped houses where the embers slide off? Just an idea. Here in Florida in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, there are many hunting cabins, inaccessible by any road, have to use swamp buggy or something to get to them. I was on an archaeological survey of the Big C Swamp and looked in many of them. The doors are never locked. When the water is high, the owners go out to their cabin--which are always on high hammocks, 6"-1' off the swamp floor--and burn their hammock. Since it was burned last year there is no underbrush, and the cabin, and trees never burn. Water is high, surrounding the hammock, so the "prairie" does not ignite. All the animals that were up on the hammock, dive off into the surrounding water and save themselves. Then during the next low water period, they go back in and set fire to the prairie. The animals run up on to the hammocks and all is well. They are fire proof for another year. Must be some solution.

[Trillo]

1. Part of the problem is the building code, another is people's expectations.

Myself, I really like Nader Khalili's super-adobe plans (calearth.org).

If my house had burned down, I would have tried to rebuild it using the plans for Nader's "vaulted house".

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Good article here re: the need for stricter standards, and the Rancho Santa Fe area (San Diego)

http://www.siouxcityjournal.com/articles/2007/10/31/news_business/local/df84467ecb0c5d5c8625738500064624.txt

[Trillo]

5. Stricter standards may be one way of improving the fire problem.

We had to evacuate, ended up at relatives in La Mesa. While there, one day we drove to a restaurant, and on the way back it was pointed out to us that a number of the homes in the area had been constructed of concrete (walls and roofs) as WWII housing. They're still standing and haven't "fallen" as a result of earthquakes.

I've read that there are a lot of hurdles to jump through if you want to build something that isn't the standard 2 x 4 frame home in this area. That's one problem with the existing building codes, they seem to be infiltrated with an accumulation of corporates' latest "approved" widgets, often using "timber" sold off from our forests. There are other designs that make more sense.

Cal-Earth's homes are earthquake approved, and they cost (as of a couple of years ago) in the neighborhood of $33-$50 per square foot, that compares with $250 per square foot for "typical" construction. If one used tempered glass for the windows, they should be largely fire proof, as earth and stucco simply don't burn, though it's not one of Nader's advertising points.

It would have been okay with me if our house had burned, but, we're glad it didn't as well. Rebuilding with any type of structure is a big job.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. ICFs (insulated concrete forms)

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/article/0,,20153991,00.html

[Strelnikov_]

4. Quotes from NPR program concerning California wildfires a couple weeks ago

<NPR talking head> What you have is a house that is 9x as likely to survive a passing wildfire. Developers in southern California . . . so far have strenuously opposed attempts to make the fire-safe construction practices mandatory. A plan to do just that in San Diego fizzled a few years ago when builders said it could raise home prices by several thousand dollars.

<Former fire official> "In California, the idea that you mandate something is onerous to many, many different levels. But by the same token, you talk about expense, I can't help but think that everybody who lost those 1500 houses over the last couple of days, if they had been given a chance to invest $5000 to prevent that from happening, they would have done so. They're just not motivated to do so until its too late."


<Burned out homeowner> "Never in the world did I think something like this would happen," he said. "Sunday, we're making dinner. Everything's fine. We're watching the Malibu fires on TV and feeling for them. And the very next day, you're left homeless with nothing. That quick, it can change for you. That's a lesson for everyone."

[aquart]

6. "Several thousand dollars" vs. total loss of everything you own.

This is a contest?

[Selatius]

11. There is when your paycheck is dependent upon the law not being passed.

Many of these developers are simply doing what the shareholders want them to do: Make a profit. A law requiring fire-resistant construction materials, simply put, cuts into profit margins, and whenever there is a conflict between private profit and public safety, public safety often fails when there is no government intervention.

[LWolf]

7. I remember, when I lived in CA,

looking at several alternative ways to build houses. Several of them were very fire resistant. None of them, though, seemed ideal for seismic areas.

In CA, you don't just build for stability during earthquakes on the off chance you might someday experience one. It's a sure thing, if you expect that house to stand the test of time.

[Doctor Cynic]

8. I have a better idea

Don't build homes on mountain hilltops filled with bushes. You're asking for your home to be turned to rubble.

[yurbud]

9. won't be done because someone profits from stupidity & death: building contractors

think about it: every year or two you have get to rebuild the same house in the exact same location. If you make the house fireproof, you put yourself out of a job.

An architectural magazine I read had a great one: concrete with a roll down steel door over the glass, and a shallow pond on the roof that would also cool the house in the heat of the summer. It was very stylish looking, but oddly, I think that was the only one made like that.

Underground homes would be good too.

[Trillo]

10. Article about Urethane Foam's fire resistance

at monolithic.com. Also see Monolithic Dome Suffers Slight Scorching In Oklahoma Wildfire That Destroys Five Homes

Foam As A Fire Barrier

by David B. South

Urethane foam is an excellent fire barrier when used on the exterior of a building. There are numerous examples of urethane foam roofs saving a building from fire. Burning brands, that can include anything from hot embers to large pieces of burning wood, can lay on a urethane roof for a considerable time before burning through. The urethane insulated roof will simply char. If there is no external heat source, the fire will go out. Urethane requires a lot of heat to keep burning. Where the heat can radiate to the atmosphere, the urethane makes a superior fire barrier.

Back in the days before we worried about heat sinks, thermal barriers and the like, we insulated a common wall in a mattress factory in Twin Falls, Idaho. We sprayed one inch of urethane foam on the metal wall to protect the office from losing heat into the furniture storage area. One night, the mattress storage area caught fire. That fire burned for a very long time.

The Fire Marshall told me that the fire was against the building's common wall for better than an hour before they could cool it. He was amazed that the heat did not come through that common wall.

It didn't because the urethane insulation sprayed on the wall reflected the fire's heat back into the storage area, rather than allowing the heat to come through. The Fire Marshall declared that he knew of no other material, besides concrete, that could hold back fire for the time they needed to extinguish that fire.

read more ... Foam As A Fire Barrier"

The monolithic dome home uses an interesting construction technique: an air form is placed, and layers of various materials are sprayed on from the inside.