Could a fireproof structure be built around a house?

Question

Say someone had 5-20,000 dollars (lesser the money the better) to save thier house from a forrest fire...could they encompass their house in a fireproof stucture if they had three days?

Answer 1

You need thermal mass, and a house is a big item.  Getting enough mass set up in 3 days seems unlikely to me, but of course I couldn't say it's totally impossible.  The walls could be dirt, because the world's made out of dirt, but that doesn't really help you on top.

It would be better to have a water supply, I'd say, to surround the house with, but I realize that might not be possible to keep the water running when it matters.  Water doesn't need nearly as much thermal mass to work (since it eats up 1000 Btu's just to boil one pound of it), and it's easier to move large quantities of water.

You can bet if my house was going to burn in a forest fire, I'd have it blanketed with water ahead of time.

Answer 2

The way houses catch on fire is usually from a flying ember. So any external structure would not stop a flying ember from flying over it and landing on your roof.

As the other answers said, cut down all vegetation nearby, and fireproof the outside of the house. A slate or tile roof is probably the one big improvement you can make.

Answer 3

From the ground up a house can be built with fireproof structure, studs, electric wire, etc. The contents would probably be the limiting item in fire. In hot climates concrete, stucco, clay tile, etc. is the norm, and they are fireproof.

Answer 4

The best bet would be to start cutting all vegetation (tree, bush, grass) that is close enough to the house, and cover the ground with sand so that nothing that is left can burn. Then one needs to protect the house from radiant heat (which should be less if there is nothing left close that can burn) and from embers and sparks that can fly off nearby tree line. For this, one could use metalized Mylar or even aluminium foil (shiny side out) that needs to cover the whole house.

Answer 5

Several ideas, in no particular order.

Your insurer may have some ideas, as might the fire marshal, etc.

You could try a seriously thick stucco job. Plan to make it pretty later on - go fast cheap ugly and cost effective for now.

Board up the windows and stucco over them for now. Cut them out later with a concrete saw [drill holes at the corners from the inside to find where to cut].

An alternative would be Gunnite, a cementitious material applied with a gun. Be sure to board up the windows first, though, else they would surely break under the impact. Later you can remove the boards and concrete over the windows. You also stucco it to make it attractive.

Much depends on how severe a fire exposure you expect: embers blowing by, or flaming tree trunks hitting it. Halfway between would be windswept flaming debris laying against the house. This is probably the biggest determinant of feasibility. I know everyone says clear flammables away, but do it anyway....  Eucalyptus leaves are just natural napalm.... If there are eucalyptus around, even if you cart all your leaves away, if there are tons of them nearby, they could blow up around your house.

You can buy large tanks fairly cheaply [polyethylene, 1,500 -3,000 gallon]  http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp/wcs/...

Stick a bunch of those somewhere and have a fire pump    see http://www2.northerntool.com/category/10... [NOT electric !  Though having a lot of gasoline around in a forest fire could be pretty scary....Consider a propane powered engine - any gas engine can be converted, though there is some loss of power]. Or if you have a swimming pool use that water.

You may be able to rent a tank.

Depending on what your basement is like, and how much free space you have, you could build in a tank.

Three days would not be enough time to build a cinderblock wall [add pilasters !] across the basement and let the mortar cure sufficiently to reach sufficient strength. But the idea would be to seal it up with Dry-Lok or similar.

If you had a basement room with nothing much in it, especially electrical outlets, you could make a plywood dam to close the door pretty quickly. Put a bulkhead connection near the bottom of the dam and there you are.

1 cubic foot = 7.48 gallons

A room 12' x 12' x 8' would be 8600 gallons. Which may not be enough....

A steel shipping container with a connection added at the bottom and a vent at the top might work as a tank. Don't know if the door mechanism would hold up to the pressure though [not just in terms of leaking, but in terms of bending]. But welding the doors closed would fix that.

If you are in Calif, I gather that containers are fairly cheap since it is too expensive to send them back to China to be refilled.

A 40' container would hold 19,000 gal of water... Which would weigh 80 tons !

You might be able to rent a portable tank, either on a trailer or by itself.

You might be able to dig a fast pond, which you would then need to line [so the water does not seep away] with a polymer sheet [eg, hypalon].

A noncombustible roof is a must !   Even fiberglass/asphalt shingles can burn, though cedar shakes are probably the worst.

Fast fix would be to get some galvanized [or painted] steel barn sheathing and nail that on top of the existing roof. Be sure to use nails [or screws] long enough to reach the roof boards.

Plaster is used in fire protection because when subjected to serious heat it turns back into water and plaster powder. Fireproof safes, plasterboard in houses, fire protection for steel beams, all use this.

A couple of sheets of 1/2" plasterboard under the steel would be a good idea.

If it is a single story, you could perhaps pile dirt against it with a front end loader. This is beyond ugly, I admit, and you would need to be careful not to implode the house. But it would be fast and cheap.

Transite sheet may still be available, though I doubt it. It is a board made of asbestos and cement.

Wonderboard is a brandname for a precast cement board laid down under tiles. A few layers of that might do.

Put plasterboard under either transite or wonderboard.

A bunch of big fire extinguishers would be essential

A critical point is that you do not want any air movement through the house; if there is an opportunity for a draft, when there's fire outside it will go through the house, which would be bad. You will need to seal things up fairly well. If you have basement windows, board them up and pile dirt over them.  A crawlspace could serve as a fire distribution plenum....