Browse Forums Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1 Apr 18, 2020 9:35 am Our home was recently damaged in the NSW South Coast January bushfires. On a small acreage, many of our buildings were destroyed. With the help of some friends and Mr Hondas ever-reliable firefighter pumps we managed to same our house. The elevation facing the firefront was badly scorched but the hardwood weatherboards stayed intact but the 1980's cedar windows were destroyed and the fire-scorched along the gable roofline and tried to get into the roof space. The gable flashing and first sheet of roofing was destroyed and our insurance company only wants to replace the flashing and first sheet of metal roofing on both sides of the gabled roof. ( They have allowed to replace the windows with shutters and all of the cladding to the current standard ) Two certifiers I have spoken with agree that all of the roofing needs to be replaced and built to the FZ standard that the insurer has classified our site. They tell me once you start on an FZ roof then all of the roof must be upgraded to that standard. Is there anybody on the forum found themselves in a similar situation? How did you resolve the issue? Many thanks in advance. Re: Roof Remodel Flame Zone 2Apr 19, 2020 9:10 am Hi Tony Akoni welcome to the forum You will need to contact a Fire Engineer AFAIK they are the only ones that can override Building Surveyors and insurance Company repairs ATM they are flat out dealing with Melbourne's PE Flammable cladding Fiasco Calculating The FRLs for masonry walls in AS3700 You will also need to go thru each of the structural codes AS3600, AS4100, AS1720 and refer to the fire sections, the Calculations will need to be Certified by the engineer Cheers Chris Designer,Engineer (Civil,Const & Envir),Builder,Concrete & Masonry Contract.Struct Repairs Re: Roof Remodel Flame Zone 3Apr 19, 2020 5:03 pm Hi Chris, Thanks for the info, I will follow up on your advice and see where we can find a solution. Many thanks. Cheers Tony. Re: Roof Remodel Flame Zone 4May 01, 2020 12:53 pm You will need to replace/modify the whole roof. Depending on the structure, it won't necessarily be too costly The issue is that being in a flame zone, each element needs to be built to withstand the relevant heat exposure. If you only replace the damaged section, you are still going to have the remaining sections that will fail earlier than the new. I doubt any Engineer is going to put their butt on the line and approve a partial rebuild. It would also be very difficult to prove the existing roofs performance. Another option may be to reduce the sites rating from FZ to a lower rating by modifying the existing conditions. Hi All It has been a few weeks since my last update. The build has been progressing well. No major issues to report. The scaffolding was dropped today, gyprock will be… 96 356757 Hi , I'm currently going through this now within the Whitehorse council which has a similar set of restrictions. We're having to make compromises with our floor plan due… 3 30668 Yes it had a house on it. But Melbourne water only wanted something the original size of the existing house. We managed to fit a 45sq house on. 10 33655 |