Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 2Jul 28, 2015 11:00 pm 11/11/13- dep paid 4/4/14- settlement Feb '15- DA app 6/8/15- CC site works begin 19/8/15- Formwork 25/8/15- slab 3/9/15- elect. appt 13/10/15 - frame started 19/10- bricks started 31/10 - roof done House Design in BAL40 and Flame Zone 4Jul 29, 2015 12:38 am Ideally you will consider the bushfire requirements when starting to design your house, as that will impact on the cost. I recommend hiring a bushfire consultant before you get far into planning your house because they can advise you on ways your design can reduce (or increase) costs of FZ requirements. If one or two sides of your property have lower BAL ratings, your design may be able to take advantage of that. Eg. The main threat to my property comes from the north, so north, east & west are rated FZ, and the south is rated BAL40. My front door is on east (FZ) but by having it set back about 1m from the front of the house, it is shielded and downgraded to BAL40 like the south side. That means I don’t need a shutter over my front door. BAL40 windows are a big expense, BAL-FZ doubly so. The bigger the window the more it costs, but one big window is generally cheaper than two small ones, so avoid that trend of having 2 or 3 skinny windows instead of one decent window. Unfortunately my FZ sides are the ones I want lots of good windows – north for sunshine, west for the view, east for street appeal, whereas my BAL40 side on the south only needs a few smallish windows (I put garage & all utility rooms that side). (more on windows to follow) The bushfire consultants can also suggest what materials you can & can't use. Brick veneer is cheapest. Any kind of cladding (fibro, etc) will require a layer of Fyrecheck fibro/plaster, which is pretty expensive. We also looked into a few, relatively new ‘environmental’ materials, but they mostly didn’t have the bushfire certification because it costs them a lot to get certified. Making the roof meet BAL-FZ is a huge expense, I’m told. A regular colourbond or tile roof isn’t enough. There are fancy ‘fireproof’ roofing materials like - http://www.tbafirefly.com.au/bushfire-p ... ystem.html, but apparently the cheapest way is something like a layer of plywood then 75mm rockwool insulation under the colourbond (or maybe tile). You also ideally want a roof shape that is as simple as possible – try to eliminate valleys because leaves get caught there. No skylights. No whirly birds. Rangehood & bathroom exhausts should go out the walls or eaves, not up through the roof. If you’re in northern Sydney contact Building Code & Bushfire Hazard Solutions (www.bcbhs.com.au). They were very helpful. (Consultation & report will cost a few hundred dollars, but then you can keep getting advice from them – you won’t get a bill every time you ring them up.) WINDOWS in BAL40 and Flame Zone 5Jul 29, 2015 1:26 am WINDOWS Stick to standard sizes & shapes – our architect tried to get us to have a triangular window right up under the gable eaves, regardless of the impossibility of adding the required shutter to that! Note “standard” sizes of windows is a bit of a trick as each window has their own “standard” sizes. Our house was designed with “standard” window sizes (std sizes taken from a window company website) but after getting quotes & more info we got windows from a different company, so the windows are slightly different sizes (up to 10cm) from the plans council approved. But my certifier says that’s fine. In NSW you can meet the FZ requirements by having an aluminium shutter on a BAL-40 certified window. This is much cheaper than a BAL-FZ certified window or a BAL-FZ certified shutter or blind with a regular window. I don’t think other states can do this, sorry. BAL-40 windows are essentially 5 or 6mm toughened glass in aluminium frame with a stainless steel mesh fly-screen. A window that is “certified” is better than one that simply meets requirements in the standard because I think those requirements are stricter. A few places that I know do BAL-40 windows in Sydney/NSW: • Trend (sliding windows & doors and casement windows; no double-hung in BAL-40), • Stegbar & Airlite (sliding windows & doors and casement windows; no double-hung in BAL-40) • Bradnams (sliding & double-hung, but don’t do casement windows in BAL-40) • Wideline • AWS (manufacturer not retailer; gave up trying to find who sells them) No one does louvre windows in BAL-40. Bradnams was cheapest for us through our builder getting a good trade discount. Shutters: just regular aluminium shutters, but without the insulation that some have (it’s flammable). As with windows one biggish one costs less than 2 small ones, except once over a certain size they have to have an electric motor to open & close them, which of course costs more than one with a manual winder. The electric ones can be battery operated or on mains power. If its on mains power, bushfire regulations say you also have to have manual over-ride in case the power is out during bushfire. This is costs extra. Our lowest shutter quote was from Shutterworld.com.au who was also recommended by a friend. You can have them installed within the brick opening, directly in front of the window, which looks neat from outside but blocks the top of the window, or you have them installed on the bricks around the brick opening, which looks better from inside but worse on the outside. We have 27 BAL-40 windows & 2 BAL-40 sliding doors (most with SmartGlass) – about 51 sqm. The windows & doors cost us $16,884 (other quotes were over $20,000). The shutters for the 18 largest windows (incl sliding doors) cost us $21,650 incl installation (some manual, some battery, some electric with manual option). Bushfire consultants 6Jul 29, 2015 1:47 am BUSHFIRE CONSULTANTS Before submitting my DA to the council, I had gotten some advice from the bushfire consultants, but the council didn’t ask for a bushfire report with my DA, so I thought I’d save money ($400) and not get it. I don’t know if they went off the report with the DA the previous owners had submitted 2 years prior, or if they normally don’t ask for one and just assume the worst. The result was that our DA & CC require all windows & doors to be BAL-FZ even though it specifies the south side is rated BAL-40. Apparently the council likes to increase requirements to cover themselves. The consultants report (that we did eventually get) recommends BAL-40 windows & doors on the south side and shielded parts of the east side. The difference being about $8000 worth of shutters! We submitted the report with a section 961A (application to amend DA). The section 961A cost us $645 (varies according to cost of house). Flame Zone vs Basix 7Jul 29, 2015 2:17 am BASIX One benefit we got from the bushfire rating & requirements was a reduction in the requirement for rainwater tanks. In the Basix assesment there’s a section on how much water you’ll use or save. You get points for water-saving bathroom fittings, rainwater tanks, native garden etc, and lose points for having a big yard and/or lots of lawn. You have to get a certain number of points to pass (required for DA) and I imagine most houses would need a rainwater tank to pass. We have a big property (1200 sqm) and I want the yard to be nearly all lawn (I don’t want gardens to weed). Putting this in the Basix meant we’d need a huge rainwater tank (maybe 5000L) to compensate. That’s where the FZ came to my aid. My bushfire report & DA stippulates that my entire property is to be maintained as an Asset Protection Zone – this means using the front & back yards as a fire-break – keeping it mostly as green lawn, and covering no more than 20% with garden/bushes (or something like that). Luckily that’s what I want anyway. But the point is, there’s an obscure little note in the Basix regarding how to calculate your garden size – you exclude all areas deemed Asset Protection Zone. So, technically, my garden area to be entered into Basix would be 0 sqm! Of course, if you enter “0” it doesn’t believe you, so entered a nominal 50 or so sqm, resulting in a requirement of a 2000L tank. It’s a bit perverse really because it means if you are required to have a large, thirsty lawn and keep it watered (letting it dry out and go brown would create fire fuel) and therefore will use lots of water, then you aren’t required to have a big rainwater tank. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 8Jul 29, 2015 6:39 am We bought our land in November 2013 and are just now starting site works due to the compliance with bushfire regulations. We initially did a BAL self assessment (available on RFS website) which identified the block as BAL 40. Our initial quotes with builders factored this in. When we submitted DA, council required an official fire consultant to assess the block which came out FZ. We disagreed with this and worked with RFS to find a solution. By moving the house forward a metre on the block and reducing the length of the house by a metre we were able to achieve BAL 40 on 3 sides and 29 on the front. So although it took a very long time, it was worth the wait as the cost of complying with BAL 40 is about $60000 and we were quoted $260000 for FZ compliance. We are on 1/2 acre block so had the room to move the house around a bit. 11/11/13- dep paid 4/4/14- settlement Feb '15- DA app 6/8/15- CC site works begin 19/8/15- Formwork 25/8/15- slab 3/9/15- elect. appt 13/10/15 - frame started 19/10- bricks started 31/10 - roof done Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 9Feb 02, 2016 4:46 pm We are building in Wollondilly and have initially come in as FZ but our neighbors are BAL 29 and theres only 12 metres width seperating our block and theirs, anyone have any tips on downgrading from FZ to bal 29 or 40 Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 10Feb 02, 2016 6:24 pm The most obvious one is can you move the physical location of your house where you plan to build? I'm surprised that you can use aluminium frames in these BAL wndows. I've installed numerous fire rated windows for houses, offices and factories around Perth (nothing bushfire related) and we have to use a steel frame and beading. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 11Feb 02, 2016 7:28 pm Huggy_B The most obvious one is can you move the physical location of your house where you plan to build? I'm surprised that you can use aluminium frames in these BAL wndows. I've installed numerous fire rated windows for houses, offices and factories around Perth (nothing bushfire related) and we have to use a steel frame and beading. Hi Huggy, Brilliant as your idea may be unfortunately we cant. Our block has only a 12 metre width so we need every possible metre we can use Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 12Feb 02, 2016 8:39 pm zowiec We are building in Wollondilly and have initially come in as FZ but our neighbors are BAL 29 and theres only 12 metres width seperating our block and theirs, anyone have any tips on downgrading from FZ to bal 29 or 40 Did the same inspector do the rating for each block? If not, try paying for a new report from the org that did the neighbours block. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 13Feb 02, 2016 8:49 pm Matt1 zowiec We are building in Wollondilly and have initially come in as FZ but our neighbors are BAL 29 and theres only 12 metres width seperating our block and theirs, anyone have any tips on downgrading from FZ to bal 29 or 40 Did the same inspector do the rating for each block? If not, try paying for a new report from the org that did the neighbours block. I am not sure how they got it passed through, we met with their builder and they said they could get the same BAL for us if we went with them(however their costs are WAY too high for our budget). The builders refuse to give us the details of who did their inspections and i have contacted our neighbours aswell who claim the builders have all the documents (which i think is suss) My next step is querying if the council can tell me who did the neighbours inspections Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 14Feb 02, 2016 9:28 pm If their went DA it might be in their papers. Otherwise you can just lookup BAL inspectors online and find someone yourself. It's very subjective. Our developer (our local council) classified our block as 40. I found an inspector who had already successfully re-classified some blocks in the estate lower. $300 later and our block was 29/19. Saved me heaps. A neighbour later did a "self-assessment" and called his block 12.5 not sure how he got that through but he did. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 15Feb 02, 2016 9:33 pm You are totally right Matt its very subjective! Gonna see how I go with getting their inspectors info off council and if theres no luck I'll try another inspector. Fingers crossed Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 16Feb 03, 2016 6:38 am zowiec You are totally right Matt its very subjective! Gonna see how I go with getting their inspectors info off council and if theres no luck I'll try another inspector. Fingers crossed Our council has the BAL report for each DA on their website. The variation of BAL rating on very similar blocks confounds me. We are 40/29 ( originally FZ/40 until we moved the house by 1 metre). A house 6 doors up is 12.5 and a house 7 doors up in the other direction is 19. Council told us there was no such thing as a precedent in regards to BAL and we couldn't use this info to reduce our BAL. Go figure!! 11/11/13- dep paid 4/4/14- settlement Feb '15- DA app 6/8/15- CC site works begin 19/8/15- Formwork 25/8/15- slab 3/9/15- elect. appt 13/10/15 - frame started 19/10- bricks started 31/10 - roof done Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 17Feb 03, 2016 8:58 am Does anyone have any experience or suggestions on how best to fix ember screens to the outside of aluminium window frames. My ember screens consist of stainless steel mesh fitted inside an aluminium frame (similar in appearance to a fly screen) but need to be fitted to the outside to protect the glass. My window manufacturer has been unable to advise me. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 18Feb 03, 2016 10:14 am Excellent thread. Very informative kylie40. Beetaloo maybe get some small channel and pop rivet it to the frame and set the screens into that. Stewie Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 19Feb 03, 2016 7:23 pm Betaloo, after the wrong screens came with frames last week, my BAL-29 ones are coming with the glazing tomorrow. Hooefulky I can enlighten you then. I was told they secure with clips. One of the insulation companies seems to have devised several roofing systems for various BAL including FZ levels to comply with AS3959.. https://www.architectureanddesign.com.au/getattachment/4cc15fab-0457-4339-9550-634311db6037/attachment.aspx Naturally their products feature heavily in these solutions. Not sure if there'd still be compliance if using other products though. Re: Info & tips for those building in BAL40 and Flame Zone 20Feb 04, 2016 6:54 pm Glazing arrived and installed today, and the right bushfire screens as well. These are fitted with 4 spring clips that are twisted outward to clip over the frame. The clips are screwed to their own frame with a small philips head. It might vary with different types of window, mine are uPVC. Hopefully the photo shows it better than the description. Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Hi All, Running on the theme that every day is a school day, I just wanted to follow up yesterday's post with some pictures explaining how we are dropping the ceiling due… 95 280499 https://form.jotform.com/240284569218058 Please spare a moment to fill out this survey form for a project. You stand a chance to win a digital gift voucher. Legitimate… 0 1057 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 23678 |