PerpetualPlanet

As we planned where to place our driveway and parking area we realized there might be some fire equipment access requirements to be met. The Tualitin Valley Fire and Rescue Department is who responds to emergencies in our area. We are protection code B8. Their closest station is about 2 miles from our house at 185th and Highway 26. There is a document authored by the Oregon Fire Code Metro Code Committee here that describes the requirements. Our contact at TVF&R is Drew DuBois at 503-356-4700. Relief from these requirements is possible if we install an approved automatic fire sprinkler system in accordance with the provisions of ORS 455.610(5)). I’ve never seen a house with one but perhaps there is some merit to looking into this both to simplify the site and also to better protect the house.

A fire truck needs to be able to get within 150′ of any portion of the structure. Since we are more than 150 feet from the road and a dead end, we must supply a turnaround. This could be a T, Y or cul-d-sac of adquate dimensions.

The road size is important. A vertical clearance of 13.5 feet is required. We have a couple of vertical and horizontal bottlenecks that can be opened by doing some pruning. The code calls for a width of 20 feet, but “when serving two or less dwelling units and accessory buildings (does two houses and a barn fit?), the driving surface may be reduced to 12 feet, although the unobstructed width shall be 20 feet. Turning radii for curves and turnarounds on reduced width roads shall be not less than 28 feet and 48 feet respectively, measured from the same enter point.”

This last item is the trickiest. We have a tight 90 degree turn upon coming on to the property. To make make it less sharp will require removing a forsythia and probably some rare black bamboo and/or moving our fence back. An alternative may be to get a wider easement from our neighbor or running the road out back of our current house.

Update from 8/9/07. Our fire marshall came to see the property and provided some excellent information.

If the we do the house as a renovation and the combined square footage of all living areas exceeds 3600 square feet, a residential sprinkler system will be required. We are confident of staying under this minimum but putting in a sprinkler sprinkler system still looks attractive for safety and may reduce the constraints for access including the need to run a driveway up to the house.  Note that a completely separate structure that is more than 15 feet from the current house would be counted as separate square footage. This poses the question of how far the new building could be from the existing one and still be considered a renovation.

Sprinklers are much less expensive when installed in new construction — about $1.50/sq ft.  They can reduce insurance costs and are much more effective at saving a structure from an internal fire.  The marshall noted most rural houses are an automatic loss in a fire. The department’s efforts go to preventing the fire from spreading.

There are lots of myths about sprinkers all going off when there is no fire or bursting.  However the heads trigger individually and not from kitchen smoke but from 165 degree heat. Breakage occurs in 1 of 16 million systems.

Systems should conform to NFPA 13D sprinkler standards.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:25 pm and is filed under NishikiGardens. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.