BAL Bushfire Attack Level Ratings - anyone with experience?

Just remember, the ratings and systems are all well and good until you put a nice flammable couch in your alfresco area.... The rules and regs don't make you fireproof. Just because your building meets the regs doesn't mean you are absolved of the responsibility to maintain your block, gutters, etc etc.

That's right Wonky, nestled in the trees on the real estate agents ad isn't so glamorous anymore!!
I spoke to my wife about the possibilities of a fire hitting our joint - BAL 19- and she said she would be safe because I'd come home and save her and the kids. I told her she may have only minutes to decide what to do from when it starts, the phones, water, power etc may be down and it may just be a battle she's gonna have to manage alone. The realisation that it might happen at night or day, from far away or next door, from any direction and at incredible speed kinda shook her up a bit so our escape plan is now memorised.
We are pretty right though I believe, I have advice from a close uncle with similar experience to your dad and our house is compliant. I also love my chainsaw so 'reduction' is my weekend fun

MGardz, your draftie or building designer should be able to advise you there. Failing that, go and talk to one of the senior local rural fire guys or someone in your council regarding fire ratings etc. Quite often they do BAL assessments on the side and will give you good advice.
If you go through the council for a DA, whoever does your assessment needs to certify it as complying with the rating.

Sterwie

So our block has been confirmed as a 29. The RFS says that fencing and gates must be non combustible materials only. The further the block goes back though I think the BAL drops obviously as its further from the trees at the front. The estates preference is we have wood fences but obviously wood is combustible. So they are being difficult by saying that where the fence starts is not a BAL 29, i would think it should be taken from the blocks highest rating as the risk also includes ember and radiant heat. I can't seem to find black and White evidence! Can anyone help? All I have is the rfs sheet that specifies material for fences depending on BAL but not what to do if your block technically has several BALs as the fence starts further back on the property.

We have a BAL Rating 12.5 and the additional cost to building was astonishing. You have to have many things, too many to list here, though the most costly were the 20,000 litre dedicated underground water tank with appropriate storz fitting, a 5hp dedicated petrol pump with enough lines to cover the entire home, a fire rated front door with stainless steel screens fitted to all doors and windows etc.
The biggest shock was the leaf gutter guard which added a cost of over $10k to the project. I admit it is a large home with almost 265 metres of gutter, never the less, we have no trees on our home pad for almost 200 metres away.
Unfortunately for us, I wasn’t aware of the particular type of wood you could use on the front door and I had a custom made double door designed and fitted in Western Red Cedar and had to have it replaced with an appropriate fire rating door…what a $7500 waste of money….
Let alone I still had to fit an additional screen door to the front of it, so it doesn’t matter how beautiful your front door may be, you don’t see it with a screen door fitted in front of it.

Unfortunately, I owner built my house. In hindsight, I wish I would have left it to the professionals, we went over 1m over budget and we are still counting.
I am gobsmacked on your fencing issue as we have almost 1.3 klm's of fencing around our property and it's all 3 rail and post timber painted primrose and many beautiful timber country gates and nothing was ever said about any fencing having to be fire rated.

What they require and what individual councils may insist on may be different, not quite sure on the laws.
I can assure you that a screened door on the front and an underground tank and all associated pump, hose and fittings were in my DA approval documents. Not only that, the tank needed to be fully underground with the top of the tank with associated pump fixtures and fittings being 400mm underground. Which meant the tank need to be built with a particular rating so that 400mm of soil could cover the top of the tank, very, very expensive exercise.
I have no idea if being on rural and having no town water supply makes any difference, but all I can say is that if the council put it into the DA approval, you need to comply to get an occupancy certificate.
These are the things we are dealing with right now to get our occupancy certificate. They are even making me change the storz fittings from 50mm to 65mm.
He has scrutinised every aspect of our build, and there are several areas at the moment with a larger than 3mm gap on the exterior of the building that needs to be rectified also.

Very frustrating. I should have used a private certifier, silly me used Council certifiers because I just thought I would comply anyway so why would there be a difference...I was wrong. I didn't think I would have any issues and so much thought went into the project including all steel framing and many other things which made us think we were Ok.
A very sharp learning curve.
Maybe our Council doesn't like us, who knows. Our Envirocycle had to have all underground dispersion rather than sprinklers because the slope on the block was more than 5 degrees, 1400 square metres of front lawn with all underground irrigation....and our nearest neighbour is 250 metres away. Go figure.