Love it.?ÿ That needs to get out to every venue possible to help people understand how important it is to play by the rules, whatever those rules may be.
In my opinion 12 feet separation is still inadequate without all sorts of fireproofing/retarding of both structures.?ÿ I have a history of playing with fire, including lighting off four big brush piles on Saturday.?ÿ The flames easily reached thirty feet high and at times over 20 feet out from the edge of the pile.?ÿ Standing within 50 feet was sometimes TOO HOT.?ÿ And, that was an intentional fire with numerous precautions in place.?ÿ An accidental fire that is not discovered and extinguished very quickly can be exceedingly dangerous.
That's just...weird. No form check done? Glad the neighbors took action and got the problem fixed.
I used to do a lot of staking for custom homes in Houston around 10-15 years ago, and even though I thought it was pretty stupid to cram a house within 3 hundredths of every single setback line, at least form checks were de rigueur for that time...we caught a couple of sizable violations, but nothing like in the video.
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Concerning the fires and setbacks, I agree that most separation limits are inadequate.
One of our commercial projects went up in flames recently, and although it was a decent-sized building, the nearest homes were across several railroad tracks, 300 feet away horizontally and on top of an 80 foot bluff. Didn't take long at all for the embers to start dropping on houses. Our office is right next door, we had a front-row seat for the fire.
Hah?ÿ There's no way someone didn't notice that... the surveyor or super or somebody.?ÿ I'd be curious to know how it got that far along before the plug got pulled.
Being from FL. that looks about right to me. Here they place two story houses (starting in the low '$800k's) on lots with 5' setbacks all the time. There are some single story "villas" with 3' setbacks. ?????ÿ
With the typical setback I've seen in any town I've visited, an uncontrolled house fire would cause severe damage if not fully involving those next door.?ÿ The only hope is having the FD there pouring water on them.
I've participated in burning two abandoned houses. It gets awesomely hot at surprising distances. I salvaged a telephone from one and set it by the front fence 35 feet from the house, only to later find it melted. Cars parked on the road in front (maybe 75 ft) got moved when it became uncomfortable to stand next to them.
I make a lot of $$$ from this, in my area?ÿ the bldg depts always as for a setback letter certification before conc.
Building too tall, 2007.?ÿ We did the precise height/airspace survey which was not disputed
Fire moving through a standing structure can do amazing things that you can not believe until you see them with your own eyes.?ÿ Whatever the peak height of the structure happens to be predicts a doubling of that height to be the location of the highest flames at some point in the fire.
Fifteen or so years ago a neighbor's house caught fire and I was the second person to make note of that fact and call 911.?ÿ When the first fire truck finally arrived they saw immediately that there was no hope of saving the very old farm house.?ÿ They immediately put their effort into spraying the 500 gallon propane tank that was getting far too hot from the radiating heat.?ÿ Eventually one of the firemen made it to the tank and shut off the valve leading to the house.?ÿ A few years later I arrived at a house fire where they seemed to have an exceptionally difficult time getting one area of the fire to go out.?ÿ Finally, the homeowner who had been absent when the fire started asked if anyone had shut off the line supplying the house with natural gas.?ÿ He pointed to where the valve was located far from the house.?ÿ One of the crew dashed over there, shut it off and within a couple of minutes they had the final part of the fire controlled.
Another concern is with the direction the walls go as they become structurally unstable.?ÿ An entire wall and a major portion of the roof may shift laterally until it collapses full length away from the foundation.?ÿ That moves some intense fire much closer to anything else that had been relatively fine a minute earlier.
it amazes me how an item in a wildfire can be burnt to a crisp less than 10 feet away another item barely touched.?ÿ
And sometimes it is something you would expect to melt.
picture it...House on top of hill, burnt down, fire engine pulled into driveway, completely fried, pickup in front facing out, completely burned, fire engine facing side of pickup about five feet away, barely touched, needed new headlight lenses. The pickup and engine had turned around to leave when the burned up engine showed up and blocked them in. They didn't have time to unravel the vehicle mess so the crews escaped on foot.
At the beginning of my survey career in British Columbia it was a routine job to survey single family residential formwork and provide a location certificate. The building inspector required it before signing off on the foundation. As the trend around here is to build houses that use up every allowable inch of the lot it continues to baffle me why such certificates are not required in Oregon.
The setback is dictated mostly by fire code. Where houses are built very close together there must be certain building elements to control any fire from getting outside of the building envelope for long enough for the fire to be discovered and for the fire department to respond. So the zoning setback is dependent, in part, on the distance to the nearest firehouse. There are circumstances where rowhouses are built with zero setback. Naturally the common walls are very fireproof, with every possible pinhole in the barrier sealed up.?ÿ ?ÿ?ÿ
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Where houses are built very close together there must be certain building elements to control any fire from getting outside of the building envelope for long enough for the fire to be discovered and for the fire department to respond.
I'm reminded of the time about 20 years ago when a local art gallery owner bought an old house on a choice downtown corner and relocated his facility there.?ÿ It was so successful that he decided to expand the space, including a 4-story addition.?ÿ He called me and asked about the cost of a boundary survey, I said I'd work up a number and get a proposal to him.?ÿ He said he needed a rough cost right now, it didn't have to be exact.?ÿ I stupidly ran some numbers in my head and came up with $2,100.00, emphasizing that it could be more or less.?ÿ He said get me a contract, so I did a proper estimate and after including the stuff that I hadn't figured on earlier it came out around $2,800.00.?ÿ When he got the contract he phoned, mad as a wet hen, and said I was trying to hold him up.?ÿ I tried to explain the difference, but he kept saying he could get it done for a lot less and hung up.
About 6 months later I was hired to do a boundary survey on the adjacent parcel for a new 3-story mixed-use project.?ÿ On the south side of my client's lot the almost-completed 4-story gallery addition was encroached about 0.7' at one end, tapering to half a foot clear at the other end.?ÿ (The west side of the addition was 2.4' over onto the other adjoiner.)?ÿ I presented my findings to the client, who -- after consulting with his design team and the city, had to change the design of the south wall from wood-frame to CMU due to fire code requirements, an expensive change.?ÿ Add in the cost of a Lot Line Adjustment and the purchase of the encroaching sliver, and the gallery owner was on the hook for a substantial sum.
I later learned that after spurning my proposal the gallery owner decided not to get a survey at all.?ÿ The project was privately-financed so an ALTA survey was never ordered, and he had directed the contractor to use the then-existing fence as the property line from which the addition was laid out.
I believe the 2.4' encroachment is still lying dormant, just waiting for its day in the sun.
I was waiting for "due to a surveyor's error..."?ÿ
