Asbestos is a terrific fire retardant.

coco ebert: Modern houses are also crap usually built with shoddy materials.

Yep, and then some.

Peter von Nostrand: AbbeySomeone: coco ebert: Modern houses are also crap usually built with shoddy materials.

Yep, and then some.

The materials aren't necessarily always shoddy. They're just minimized to reduce "waste". Whereas years ago you had a solid piece of wood for a rafter, you may now have a truss. The truss will hold the weight just as good as a solid piece of lumber but it will react differently during a fire. We've gone from a specification code to a performance code and the end result, when it comes to a fire, is less fire resistance, less time to get out, hotter fires, faster spreading fires and increased collapse potential if the smoke or flames don't get you. Of course, some of this can (especially how hot the fires are and the smoke generation) are also due to newer synthetic materials being used for furnishings, clothes, etc.

One of the reasons we live in a very old house.

Ha. As if Wichita has modern houses.

/mobile don't count.

Do your part.

Firemen love wooden I joists in modern houses. Saves from walking down to the basement.

/Rest the souls of firemen who died when the wooden I joists burned out quickly and the whole floor went down in an instant.
//Firemen in some places, are wanting to have a sign on the home that denotes "wooden I joists in use", which means you fight the fire from outside only.

Thankfully my house is over 100 years old.

knowing insurance companies, if there were lots of house fires new houses would feature built-in sprinklers or something like. hating to cut checks has led to many safety features in our lives.

/wife is amused that i buy things like flashlights & fire extinguishers, likes to tuck them away so you're screwed when you need. she's a card.

Better then the B-huts they house soldiers in on bagram air base. The wood is treated with kerosine to keep bugs from eating it and makes it burn very well. We were told from the start of the fire to the whole thing being in flames only takes 2mins.


And to make things worse this is how close they kept the huts together.

Didn't read the article, aren't old homes drafty and stuff like that so a fire would have access to oxygen. New homes are like crypts with regards to airflow. Fires like oxygen.

Wow... cheap ass builder's fight to keep life saving equipment out of their projects. Way to go, fly over states.

Good thing I just bought a sixty year old brick house I guess. Thing is built like a fortress.

Builders are in it for the money. The list of hazards in modern building techniques for fire fighting is too long to list here.

Sprinklers remain one of the best defenses to loss of life and property every developed by fire prevention.

Still, can't engineer out "human stupidity".*

*Old saying in the fire service.

http://www.monolithic.com/topics/homes

What got me is that the state of Kansas has prohibited localities from requiring sprinklers in new construction.

Enigmamf: What got me is that the state of Kansas has prohibited localities from requiring sprinklers in new construction.

Builders tend to have a lot of political pull...when they, themselves, aren't holding public office that is.

KrispyKritter: knowing insurance companies, if there were lots of house fires new houses would feature built-in sprinklers or something like. hating to cut checks has led to many safety features in our lives.

/wife is amused that i buy things like flashlights & fire extinguishers, likes to tuck them away so you're screwed when you need. she's a card.

It's generally a wash with insurance as the sprinklers malfunctioning cause just as much loss of property as they prevent from their action. So in general you do not get an insurance discount with a sprinkler system.

What sprinklers do do is prevent loss of life. However your insurance company doesn't give a darn about that.


In terms of houses burning faster now, yes and no. I think all houses are more flammable. As they point out all the furnishings burn faster now. How many items are MDF rather than solid wood? The article also states that in many cases fire alarms either don't work or are not interlinked. They would probably be better off demanding properly installed and interlinked hardwired fire alarms before a sprinkler system. My house has 6 hardwired fire alarms (all ionic and photoelectric) and 3 carbon monoxide alarms. While I have no doubts it'd burn quite nicely I'm pretty sure I'd have enough warning. Nor would a single dead battery result in an inability for the system to function.

Lath and plaster is the way to go.

I had to sign a form before I moved in my house stating that I knew there could be lead in here.

/sweet sweet fireproof lead

I shall sleep well in my approximately 100 year old Victorian rowhouse.

Well, my third floor apartment in a approximately 100 year old Victorian rowhouse that was converted to apartments at some point in the last couple decades.

Still nothing beats watching a mobile home go up.

*FWOOSH* goes the formaldehyde from the paneling.

Luckily, termites have eaten all the wood in my house and it is held up by nothing more than old plumbing and paint.

DarKrow: I shall sleep well in my approximately 100 year old Victorian rowhouse.

Well, my third floor apartment in a approximately 100 year old Victorian rowhouse that was converted to apartments at some point in the last couple decades.

I sleep well in my concrete block house. Something might burn a hole in the roof, but the fire just really isn't going to spread.

/Every wall in the house is concrete block, even the interior.
//Hurricane proof, but plays hell with 802.11.

My house is 120 years old. We might freeze to death, but we aren't going to burn.

It also has a secret stairway under the bathtub, and a secret door that goes nowhere. It's like a magic house, nothing could happen to it.

/Except fall down the hill, since it also has no foundation. But those things are overrated.

My place was built before 1874. My parent's place around 1805, and my grandparent's place around 1790.

We're all set.

crap-board wrapped in plastic tyvek and sold for $200,000?

no thank you. i'll stick here in my small but well built 1950s ranch.

Worried about fire? Get your dryer checked. (new window)

lexnaturalis: Thankfully my house is over 100 years old.

DarthBart: DarKrow:
I sleep well in my concrete block house. Something might burn a hole in the roof, but the fire just really isn't going to spread.

/Every wall in the house is concrete block, even the interior.
//Hurricane proof, but plays hell with 802.11.

Indeed. My house was built in either 1920, 1908, or 189~ - which is how far back the deed goes. The idiot (in many ways) realtor said 1920, but I found an earlier listing for it that said 1908. This house isn't brick or stone unfortunately, but if we end up taking over my in-law's farm, their house is concrete block - which was built about 1910, after the original house burned down a year or so before that. Current house at least has a lot of the original timbers in it though; you can see huge ones in the basement for supports. Gotta love it :)

I live in a tree.

Peter von Nostrand: AbbeySomeone: coco ebert: Modern houses are also crap usually built with shoddy materials.

Yep, and then some.

The materials aren't necessarily always shoddy. They're just minimized to reduce "waste". Whereas years ago you had a solid piece of wood for a rafter, you may now have a truss. The truss will hold the weight just as good as a solid piece of lumber but it will react differently during a fire. We've gone from a specification code to a performance code and the end result, when it comes to a fire, is less fire resistance, less time to get out, hotter fires, faster spreading fires and increased collapse potential if the smoke or flames don't get you. Of course, some of this can (especially how hot the fires are and the smoke generation) are also due to newer synthetic materials being used for furnishings, clothes, etc.

One huge disadvantage of the trusses is that they are a bunch of short pieces of wood held together with metal plates. Those metal plates deform, and the trusses fail, well before a solid rafter does. I know a number of structural fiefighters who won't go up on truss roofs to vent them. They've seen too many of them fail early.

/Sure the fire/metal thing will bring out the truthers....

Peter von Nostrand: AbbeySomeone: coco ebert: Modern houses are also crap usually built with shoddy materials.

Yep, and then some.

The materials aren't necessarily always shoddy. They're just minimized to reduce "waste". Whereas years ago you had a solid piece of wood for a rafter, you may now have a truss. The truss will hold the weight just as good as a solid piece of lumber but it will react differently during a fire. We've gone from a specification code to a performance code and the end result, when it comes to a fire, is less fire resistance, less time to get out, hotter fires, faster spreading fires and increased collapse potential if the smoke or flames don't get you. Of course, some of this can (especially how hot the fires are and the smoke generation) are also due to newer synthetic materials being used for furnishings, clothes, etc.

As if modern fire protection does not take trusses into account.

Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: Asbestos is a terrific fire retardant.

And asbestosis has a latency of 33.3 years. You're only going to miss out on a couple rounds of Canasta.

Santa Fe adobe please!!
I love these. Energy efficient and a lot of people do solar power.

Oh and no fire girl?
I am disappoint.

Money versus public safety.

sort of a lopsided contest I think.

Joke's on you, subby. My house was built sometime back in the Pleistocene Era, and is too waterlogged to burn.

Peter von Nostrand: Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but every form of construction has problems. You're not that much safer in 100 year old Victorian or a concrete block house. Modern furnishings will put off enough toxic smoke and gas to get you long before the fire does

My concern is more about the viability of rebuilding the house, since I've apparently got the nose of a bloodhound. I'm ALWAYS the first one to smell something burning, which has been a handy thing in the past. Lots of GS/Army/school fire drills as well, including a dryer fire in the basement of my barracks one day... so basically if I'm even in the house I expect I can probably get out pretty easily. I'm more concerned with how much burns before the fire fighters make it the two blocks to my house ^_~

As an architect I"m getting a kick out of *FWOOMP*

/farking fire code

Repo Man: Worried about fire? Get your dryer checked. (new window)

yes, yes, yes, yes!
Back in the day I was very lucky to be home and smell the clothes start to burn when the dryer stopped tumbling but kept heating.
Now, though, with no pets and an underwater house, I'm not quite so worried. I just make sure I don't run the dryer when I'm asleep.