speaker-0: Hello and welcome to the Build Better Homes podcast. With me in the studio today, I have my trusty COO, Mr. John O'Shea. How are you doing today,
speaker-1: I'm doing really good. It's a sunny day here in Oregon and can't complain. It's Friday. It's my wife's birthday today. We're gonna go have nice Italian dinner tonight. So I'm on point.
speaker-0: There you go. Oddly enough, it's a rarity. It really is a rarity. Also a sunny day in Florida.
speaker-1: No way.
speaker-0: It's a rarity. It's a rarity. ⁓ yeah, so for those, those, ⁓ don't know, ⁓ we're, recording, ⁓ today, April 3rd, good Friday. And it has been a very good Friday. ⁓ I, I, you, your wife's birthday, obviously a very important event, ⁓ but it's had a good start to the day. Did you get your workout in this morning?
speaker-1: way, you know, I it's hit and miss with the little kids. But yes, I did get a I got a short one in if they're sleeping, I sneak out of the bed, my whoop wakes me up quietly. I get out, go sneak in there. And then usually by the time I'm out half an hour to an hour, and one of them is at the top of the stairs at the gate, I can hear him kind of one of them snuck out of their room or or the bed if they're with mom. But yeah, go get them and have a moment with them. Just me and them usually.
speaker-0: Hahaha It's amazing how they can fall asleep like in some of the oddest positions and places. And it can be loud blasting, whatever out. But then it's like in your bed and you try and sneak out there awake.
speaker-1: Yeah. And the helicopters they do inside the bed, you know, in face, you know, like, they're like hanging off the side of the bed and you're like, what is going on?
speaker-0: Yeah, I told my daughter she sleeps like a like a Chinese throwing star. It's just it's just ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're not allowed in the bed. You're not allowed in the bed. And then my son is just all elbows and knees. It's like he wants to snuggle, but he like throws his elbows and his knees out. It's like, that's not a snuggle. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
speaker-1: You're taking a swing, dude. So good thing you trained for that.
speaker-0: So good stuff, good stuff. right. Well today, I'm actually really excited about this topic because it's something that comes up in question ⁓ quite a bit. Now, John, when you were at a builder and I was on the other side, we were doing the plans. I mean, we battled with some big jurisdictions for, felt like a year.
speaker-1: Yeah, almost a year and a half on that one. Yeah, was a serious, serious. It's I mean, it's a serious business. It's a serious deal. We're talking about the state people's safety and right. You know, a lot of people have a lot of opinions.
speaker-0: Right. But the, was just, was code interpretation versus what they want versus, know, what we could make work aesthetically. Yeah. And, ⁓ you know, but what we're talking about is, is firewalls and fire assemblies, especially how it applies to attach products. So multifamily that in like the Plex or the townhouse realm. And this is a, this is a point of contention in a lot of things. actually got retained as an expert on a big condo complex in Seattle because I do structural and I do fire protection. And it was interesting because the issue got completely overlooked by the plans examiners. ⁓ Then their expert said, ⁓ you guys have to do all these things to make it right. And it was like a million dollar claim that they put together. And then I came in and went, ⁓ actually all you need to do is this, this, and this. that cost about 30 grand. And they went to the, the other expert with that and the other expert conceded, he was like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, that would actually fix the issue too. Right. So, know, so it just shows that even with experts that know a lot about this stuff, we can get it. We can look at it from different ways. And that's why there's. You know, the intent of the code versus the interpretation of the code or, know, some people refer to it as the gray area, but there's, there's intent and there's interpretation and then there's actual application. And this is something that constantly is a battle. It's constantly a battle and it can cost a lot of money and can hold up construction. So really this is going to be very educational, educational podcast for anybody in construction that is, has to deal with fire assembly.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So excited. Yeah. know, a lot of people think they're building a firewall. but they may be building a fire barrier, right? ⁓ they may be building, ⁓ an area separation wall, ⁓ structurally independent, if you will. ⁓ but those are the three kind of overarching, ⁓ types of firewalls and how they're assembled in the field makes a huge difference. And we were just talking before the pot.
speaker-0: So.
speaker-1: about something we wanted to cover, was, you know, plexes versus townhomes. And, ⁓ you know, some are structurally independent if there's a property line separating them, ⁓ if, and some are tied together with, ⁓ you know, a shared wall and how that fire separation works or fire barrier or firewall works is really important. So. Right. Right.
speaker-0: So, so yeah, so let's get into the definition. So first off, there's, there's what's called a rated wall. Okay. And a rated wall is just there to slow fire progression. Where most people will see this in their typical residence is, is your separation between your garage and your living space. And that's because garages have the highest probability of a fire starting. ⁓ most I've investigated a lot of homes post fire and it's two things. One it's in the garage or two. It's the barbecue on the back porch. They got left on. Yeah. Right. It's one of those two things. And I, I joke about that because I know both you and I have very nice barbecues that we leave on overnight.
speaker-1: I just, I just did that a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, why is the propane empty?
speaker-0: Yeah, but we whether whether purposely or accidentally we leave them on overnight. ⁓ It's something it happens ⁓
speaker-1: I decided to have that steak and get out there and eat with your family, I guess.
speaker-0: I mean, it's one thing when you're doing a brisket and you're monitoring it. It's another thing where it's like, ⁓ yeah, I cooked the meal. I'm just going to leave the grill on for a little bit just to, just to chart, you know, burn off the stuff. And then, and then you, you're two whiskeys deep.
speaker-1: Two whiskeys in one 90 minutes.
speaker-0: Yeah, I'm 190 minutes cigar and then it's like I'm go to bed
speaker-1: Just a funny caveat to everybody Royal taught me the difference in cigar lengths, widths, diameters and color variations all dictate different tastes, smell, feels and how long you're actually going to sit there and talk to someone. it's an interesting fun fact for everybody.
speaker-0: It's important lessons in life. are things that you... My son's eight. I'm teaching him.
speaker-1: I always wondered why are some so long? Why are some so short? Why are some so yeah. Okay, yeah. So so let's go back to the other one, which is the likelihood of fire in the garage. Right? Yeah.
speaker-0: which ⁓
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: downstairs you don't want that progressing quickly upstairs so that's why under the side of the underside of stairs are now sheetrocked to hinder the access to the fuel that is the stairs to allow the fire to progress up there quickly as well as protecting the structure if somebody's not able to say get out of an upper floor egress window they hopefully still have the structure of the stairs to get back down.
speaker-1: So you bring up an important point. when you say you have enough time to get out, so a key distinction is what the rate of the wall is, whether it's an hour or whether it's two hours and whether it's designed to be structurally independent or not, which is further down the line in the conversation. But one of the things that strikes me right off the bat about that ⁓ interior fire. rated wall is what about the Tesla's that burn so hot? How do they with with the wall plug? And how are we looking at that from an industry and saying, Well, if we're going to transition, and I think you've brought this up in other podcasts, if we're going to transition to the electric cars, what does that do for and you've seen a couple calls that you've been on, actually, I'm not sure since I've been here or not, but where the car like, exploded and it burnt. twice as much as it should have or something like that or you know, it went off quite a bit because it was the electric car burns so hot. So are codes keeping up with that? Do think?
speaker-0: Unfortunately, they're not. ⁓ And it is a problem because if you do have an EV, EVs, it's a rarity that they do catch on fire. But if they do, your difference is, it's about a five, four to five X difference in the temperature.
speaker-1: That's amazing.
speaker-0: that these EVs burn at that fire departments have actually retrofitted and they now have special heads on their fire hoses to account for the fact that it is so hot. It literally puts out instead of a straight stream like you would typically see coming out of a fire hose, it puts out this almost wall of water.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Because the firefighters, when it's burning at over 5,000 degrees on an EV versus around 1,000 degrees on a conventional vehicle, think of how much further back you have to be from the fire before you start to feel it. is a, fire rated assemblies are being, have been historically rated just on a standard gas burning site fire on one side of the wall.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, which are not. Yeah, sorry.
speaker-0: up and
speaker-1: Yeah, so important distinction, it's not structurally independent. It's slowing the progression of the fire. And ⁓ that's what it's designed to do. And ⁓ so you just have to be really cognizant of that when you're talking about fire rated or separations. ⁓ And so some of the conversation then can be ⁓ guided towards the PLEX conversation, which is very much different than the townhomes who are structurally independent. can be vertically or horizontal separated if I'm not mistaken, right? So you hear of an apartment complex, is that a plex?
speaker-0: They can. Yep. They can. Still aplex, yep, still aplex. They do not have to be structurally independent. They are separated by fire barriers to try and slow the fire between. You are seeing more apartment complexes being required as per the code to be fire sprinklered. And that's again because it allows it to be a fire barrier and then they're trying to consolidate the fire to where it occurs. Because obviously if a fire occurs in an apartment, In some of these apartment complexes, it can be in one building, 30, 40, 50 units. So depending on how many stories and the width of it. it's, it, it is important to keep it consolidated and not allow that fire to progress into adjoining units. And so that's, that's why you have this combination of fire barrier with fire sprinklers. Now with a plaques, a plaques isn't necessarily required to be fire sprinkler. And they still use a fire barrier. And you are in a situation of... not only the fire barrier is continuous, it is from foundation to roof. ⁓ Foundation to roof. It's intended there, but you are allowed, it's typically a one hour, you are allowed to penetrate it as far as bringing floor joists and other stuff in there, but then you have to walk around it, provide your blocking in your ceiling. But.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: we don't have to make the units structurally independent. So if I have a fourplex, fiveplex, sixplex, I can design that just as one big building. So we're not designing it to be each unit to be structurally independent from itself.
speaker-1: ⁓ What is the, I know a property line would be a driving factor. And so I know a lot of our customers are talking about being able to ⁓ either rent and then eventually sell them out. Or if someone's gonna build a Plex versus a townhome, ⁓ what guidance could we give them?
speaker-0: Right, the in. ⁓ So, yeah, so you can do... ⁓ what's called a condo conversion. And in this situation, you typically are going to be going with a fire sprinkler situation in that, in that you, are using the fire barrier. You're not making the system structurally independent. ⁓ but then you're basically saying, Hey, these are no longer flexes. I'm considering these condos. So it's called a condo conversion and then you can sell them individually.
speaker-1: Okay Yeah. even though they're not structurally independent.
speaker-0: even though they're not structurally independent because a condo complex is not structurally independent.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, right. It's not.
speaker-0: So and we have the fire barriers and then you basically do lot line adjustments Yeah to then put property lines between them to make them their own property lines, but it is now it's not a townhouse now It's considered a condo and there's differences of how you have to set things up with that a townhouse You can just own and own it outright not even be a part of an HOA Whatever. Yeah condo is different. You basically if you move into a condo You're working with everybody around you to make sure that building is maintained.
speaker-1: Gotcha. So, yeah, that's a big difference. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, it seems like, ⁓ you know, the the raided wall is in every single family home for the most part in the garage under the stairs. would they find it anywhere else on the house? Probably not. But if they have a zero lot line condition where either the building is cantilevered out to the zero lot line or within three feet in some areas, five feet and others. the exterior shell would need to be clad with some type of fire rating as well, which that is a fire rated assembly, not a fire barrier, if I'm correct. Right. That's a rating shell.
speaker-0: Correct, so once you go from five to anything less than five, then there's restrictions, there's requirements as far as the fire rating of the.
speaker-1: Sometimes the eaves or sometimes we treat the eaves if they're past the plane of whatever the five foot or the three foot. I think in Washington you can go up to three feet, right? I'm not sure but and then those are are rated assemblies when they're we're talking about offset from property lines. I should have said that at first but yeah so the shell needs to be a rated wall ⁓ and inside the garage that's where the other rated wall is non-structurally independent. So
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. And then from once you get three foot, that's your other big wall threshold. Yeah. And once you're under three foot, then there's restrictions on the openings and there's a higher requirement, the venting and there's higher requirements on the actual rating of the, the wall assembly as well.
speaker-1: the venting. Yeah. Hang on.
speaker-0: And then after fire barrier, we get into what is common with townhouses. And that is a full fire wall in which we're basically. So there's. In residential, is the condition. There's other reasons for it in commercial, but in residential, the condition is we have a shared property line. So just like in a new single family dwelling that's being constructed too close to the property line, those requirements and restrictions basically applying out to townhouses because we're building adjoining a property line. And that, and that's condition. It's basically typically a double wall. they're structurally independent and which means that if townhouse A was to burn down and fall to the ground, townhouse B is unaffected. That's the intent. And there are higher restrictions on it because it's typically a double two hour fire assembly. So a two hour firewall on one unit, a two hour firewall on the other unit, both structurally independent and
speaker-1: Yep.
speaker-0: Your penetrations are limited to you have the only thing that's allowed is any wood member that qualifies as heavy timber, which is a minimum six inch, minimum six by dimension. ⁓ and then any hangers or anything that you even affixed to the surface of that two hour firewall have to be fire rated. So that's kind of your restrictions on those. But that's your jump from plexes to townhouses. It's a pretty significant cost jump, but it's the ability of, it's a different ability where plexes are typically rented and townhouses can be rented or sold individually.
speaker-1: Yeah. And my 30 year career, I've dealt with several different ways to approach this. And it seems like the challenges around it remain the same throughout my entire career. So there's always seems to be a conversation around the two hour modified wall versus the two one hour walls. So what we're talking about is if you have two structurally independent units like, and you have and we call it an air gap between ⁓ the two. If you're talking two exterior or two interior walls that are separating two units and they're running front to back and you can either put your gypsum board on both sides, which is one hour and one hour on both sides of the wall. And then on the other unit, you have an air gap, one inch from each side of the property line. And then you have your gypsum and your gypsum and you have this. two-hour wall over here, one hour on each side. Now traditionally that is the way that it's done, however, there's complications and application in the field with that, especially when it comes to the Northwest when it's raining and you're trying to deal with the gypsum product. So builders have switched to trying to use fiber like Dens glass type of product. ⁓ They've tried to do another thing called a two hour modified. And then there seems to be a lot of consternation around the two hour modified from a plan review perspective and an application perspective in the field. by the inspectors because most of what goes on is miss installation. The installations aren't done right. The ceiling isn't done. The ceiling of the penetrations isn't done right. Or there is a penetration that's not where it should be. Or maybe the fasteners are not done correctly or the fire taping is not done or the product selection is wrong or something like that. It seems like there's a lot of misapplication in the field. ⁓ But so starting with just the one hour, the two one hour walls with gypsum on each side. The challenges that you face is when a framer lays a wall down to frame it, let's say, and they frame the wall and then they put their. gypsum on there, they have to have an inspection before they can cover it up. They also have to have it fire taped, sealed. Everything needs to be done to it before they can stand this wall up. And so that causes delays because they have to call in an inspector to come in and look at the fasteners. Then they have to seal it and then they have to stand it up, you know, and all that while it's raining. So in my career, it seems like there's been a pivot to the two hour modified wall, which is the two layers on one side. So you still have the two structure that you have one solid mono foundation. Then you have the two walls sitting on top of it. You have the two inch air gap in the middle, the stud wall, and then you have the two layers on the interior of the building. And that's traditionally how a lot of people have approached it, but then you run into no penetrations unless it's heavy timber. ⁓ And you have to seal things in the right way and fire tape things in the right way. And so it becomes complicated. And so we've kind of seen ⁓ the contemporary builder, if you will, go to even the next level, which is the area separation walls in a shaft liner assembly.
speaker-0: Right?
speaker-1: And the shaft liner assembly has become ⁓ something that the installers, the framers out in the field really like and the builders do as well. I shouldn't say all builders, but you don't have to have your sheet rocker show up to sheet rock a wall that's laid down. Your framers can actually install the shaft liner system as they're building. ⁓ and just slide sheets down, you know, frame a floor system, the first floor, then they'll just, and I can explain this a little bit more, but, ⁓ it's, it's, it's an easier install, ⁓ for the field and it's one less trade mobilization and there's less issues with weather because it's quicker and you can cover it up. and so. I personally, the last couple of builders I've been with have pivoted when I managed those architectural groups, I pivoted to those shaft liner walls. To be honest with you, I drove by and saw another builder doing it. And I stopped and I said, Hey, what is that? This is, know, I don't know, five, six years ago, maybe longer seven years ago. And they told me about it. And then I pulled it. I, you know, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is a great system, a little more expensive, a little bit of training for the trades. Once that gets there, it becomes a really viable solution that's very quick and doesn't have issue as much issue with moisture and the biggest thing and I'm not here to ⁓ sell the shaft liner system. I'm just from an X framer standpoint. I would want this on my job, you know, ⁓ the biggest part of having the shaft liner system that is ⁓ a win for people across the board builders all the way down to the vendors and the trades is ⁓ that it puts the dens glass together in the middle over the mono foundation from foundation up to the bottom side of the roof. So when I say that, that means that traditionally you'd have things that fix to the walls. Like I just talked about a minute ago, you'd have the gypsum, the wall, the gypsum, the space, the gypsum, the wall, the gypsum. This pushes the dens glass down to the middle, to the center of that mono foundation. and has a double layer from the foundation all the way up to the bottom of the roof. So it takes the air gap and puts them together and puts the air gap on the other side of the den's glass. And so there's these little things called breakaway clips that as you're framing your walls, you just screw to the inside of the wall, a little 90 degree aluminum clip, and there's a little base track and there's a top track that you can put on there. ⁓ and you have to use the system that's approved. You can't deviate from it at all with different track or different material. Each each manufacturer like ICF has a very specific ⁓ approved ⁓ way to do it. But it puts these two dens glass panels together. And I think they're, if I'm not mistaken, they're three quarters. They're not five eighths like the gypsum, but ⁓ puts them together. And then ⁓ the air gap is on each side of it. than the framed wall. So the biggest kicker, like I was saying earlier, is you can now run in your structurally independent demising walls, any wiring, any plumbing, ⁓ no penetrations needed above and beyond what a traditional system would need because you've essentially taken the firewall and put them in, you you've taken the fire protection and put it in the middle. So.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a really cool system. And, and it's been, it's been something I've, know, when, when you and I worked together on, like on opposite sides where you were with the builder and I was in the designer, when I first saw it, was like, this too many, too many engineers and experts kind of like, ⁓ abhor to of horror to the new stuff, right? You know, cause we've got our UL tested systems. We've got the GA manual, the Dipson manual. We've got, you know, the WP wall configurations. Those are all things that we know. but when you're working in a commonly wet environment or frankly, I also saw this assembly being done in Texas. ⁓ Now, Texas is Satan's weather playground. So you never know what the weather is going to be like, but it is. It is a situation of they did definitely get moisture. get a ton of hail. They get, you know, all kinds of weather. You never know. And it's, is, it is a great system. So. And as you alluded to this brings the firewall instead of being on the, the outside or the interior face of if you're living in a townhouse, right? The face, the face of the wall that you see that's neck that goes then to your neighbor's unit. That is commonly where the firewall assembly start. It has been for years. And so when we're doing framing, when we're running trusses, when we're laying out floor beams, anything like that, we have to account for that. it, so then it's a situation of, well, we can't run trusses left to right because we've got the firewall assembly. We have to run them front to back. We can't run the beams there. We got to have a post stop before the wall because we can't penetrate the firewall.
speaker-1: and has been for years. Yeah.
speaker-0: This takes all that out because now we can actually use that wall framing as a structure. As normal? Yeah, as normal. understand the dense glass itself is structurally independent. It is independent basically of the firewalls. ⁓ And so then in addition, if we're in a high wind, high seismic region where we need that fire separation wall to function as a shear wall, and we have to put sheathing and stuff on there.
speaker-1: and do it.
speaker-0: We can now do that because that was also another complication of well, why you're sheathing that now show us in the UL or the GA manual where it allows us to have wall sheathing underneath the double layer of sheetrock and it still works. Okay. Like what, what else do you want me to do? I need a shear wall there, right? So, so it's, it really, it really assists in all of that. So
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Big fan of the assembly. ⁓ We'll actually have to get somebody from the actual manufacturer on here to discuss it more and do it. But if you aren't currently using or have looked at this system, do consider it. you know, feel free to reach out to our, to us and we can, we can share with you the details, listings, all the product materials that justify the use of it. And John's been on the other side of the aisle. He's crunched the numbers. We've worked with the building officials. We've, you know, shown it to him and we've got it approved. and, and Georgia Pacific and with the Denzel us system does have enough supplemental provided ⁓ listings and testing and documentation. to show that it does meet the requirements. it's a nice system.
speaker-1: Yeah, quick caveat. So it's speaking about being on the other side because everybody likes a good story. Not that this is a good story, but it's a story. Yeah. The, the, the, really triggered me, what you said was the roof configuration. I don't know how many. So I want to say two things about the roof configuration. I don't know how many. Cost. costs are associated with whether you have to run trusses front to back versus left to right. But I guarantee you that in townhouse construction, the buildings are much deeper than they are wider. So if there's an ability to turn those trusses and have them be smaller, not only is that better for the framer and everyone else involved, but what ⁓ to us is that we weren't using Shaft Liner in the beginning. a roof got designed where ⁓ the project manager was having to have the framer and the drywall there together when there was a girder truss and perpendicular trusses coming off of it and they were having to firewall between in two foot sections.
speaker-0: I remember that.
speaker-1: Yeah, it was a nightmare. Yeah. And so every one of those, there could have been 100 of those in that subdivision had to be taken and independently sealed all these little two foot areas. And so was the framer was anxious about it. The drywaller was pissed. The project manager was behind. It was a big expense. I mean, we're talking a big expense to have those people there doing that separation like that. And so really the the opportunity cost and the dollars and cents for a different type of design really drove this contemporary firewall design, which is what we're talking about. So I think that we'll see a big pivot in the industry towards that. ⁓ from a cost time and just frustration standpoint. so, then secondarily, the second other point I wanted to make was a lot of times when I was managing pre-con departments, it's all about, ⁓ if you can't start a house, you can't finish the house, you can't close it, right? So sales is sexy, because that's revenue. ⁓ Closings are profit, and that's what drives the business. ⁓ you know, margin and profit and then, but everybody kind of misses that middle part, which is the start and the start was always so important. And so what I found was as I started to battle, I guess, so to speak with these different jurisdictions, once I got through the battle of what is this, why are you doing this? Why are you changing? We don't change this as a home building industry. ⁓ explaining that. Yes, there was that one that we fought for a year and a half, but the majority ⁓ seem to kind of accept an explanation as long as there's approved listings and all of that for it and manufacture specs for it. And then they got comfortable with it and it was easier for them as a plan reviewer to look at it and say, ⁓ yeah. For instance, ⁓ one example was just yesterday. We had a client call us and they said, Hey, my lumber supplier. ⁓ It doesn't understand the system and the details on the plans ⁓ clearly couldn't quite tie it together. Could you give him a call? And ⁓ I said, of course. And so I gave him a call. And then once I explained it to him ⁓ and gave him the details. then it made a lot of sense. And so ⁓ that was something that we were able to solve really quickly with a lumber supplier. And another example went into that same area with the area separation wall in a configuration of a shaft wall liner. The jurisdiction pushed back on a plan that we had submitted. ⁓ I sent him the information, the building official the information, he kind of scratched his head a little bit, I had a call with him and he was like, ⁓ yeah, this is great. And then we were able to move it forward. And so For back to taking it back to the start, which was always kind of the area of these larger businesses that I managed. It's all about the start. If you can't start the home, you can't finish it. Right. So how can you condense that pre con section of from contract or release of an inventory home or contract with a customer to get that to a start out of the jurisdiction going vertical, the dig out started the foundation started. So if you can get that start a hundred percent of the time, you're going to finish the house. But if you can't get that start, you could be stuck in a jurisdiction. for a year. ⁓ Right. And they take fire separation and fire life and safety very seriously. And so that's what they're looking for in a whole section of your review when you put a set of plans in. ⁓ anyway, point being, it'll get your expedited permits out quicker once you explain that system, because it doesn't fall back on all the penetration and the ceiling and all these things that have to go with those other assemblies. So yeah,
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ I think we've hammered it home. ⁓ That was my real hope in this is educate people that there's another option. ⁓ And we can easily provide that education to the other people involved because we've done it for other jurisdictions. We've done it for some really bullheaded building officials too. don't act like, ⁓ your building officials are pushovers.
speaker-1: you are.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah like no well we we we've worked with some building officials that were working for some very, very large jurisdictions. Some of the largest, probably the largest in their entire state. And we were able to find, we were able to educate them on the system to where they were like, oh yeah, that actually works. And then it went to the plan examiners and we moved forward. it is a possibility. now beyond with the shared fire, with the shared property line, we've got the firewall. Now the other thing that occurs when you have a shared property line is the four feet and people need to understand this is that once four feet from that shared property line is still within the fire zone. So that's why we have to look at penetrations. They typically don't allow any kind of window or door penetrations within four feet. ⁓ You ⁓ can put in these little, we've done it multiple times and I. What would you even call them? The little walls that we just jotted out to. The parrot. Well, parrot, but walls typically go vertical. what I, but I guess like when we have like our garages and they're super close together, ⁓ the we.
speaker-1: the parapet walls. ⁓ Yeah, they're just fire separation walls in the entryways. And that's what you're talking about, right? And in the garage side, separate two units.
speaker-0: So you can jot those out to then get that right because it's they look at you got to look at yeah So you look at it horizontally or you look at it outwards? And so if we can do a wing wall out a couple feet then that Accommodates that length of fire separation because they're looking at it. Basically the property line is here We're gonna measure the total amount of wall or distance ⁓ It's not as the crow flies, but it's actual measured distance from that property line to the opening. So we can do those wing walls to accommodate that, but you still have to use fire rated materials in there. So you've got your flame block, you've got your fire rated plywood, both work great. And structurally they have about equivalent values to a standard OSB or regular plywood. So whether they're fire rated doesn't really affect that. So that's, that's a good positive thing.
speaker-1: I want to make an important distinction here that came up yesterday with the material supplier when I was talking with them was, you know, does like, since we've call out, let's say LP flame block, is that interchangeable with a pressure treated plywood? You and I chatted about it you just alluded to yes, as long as it has the code. And it has fire rating. Yeah. As long as it has the.
speaker-0: Right, now use that pressure treaty.
speaker-1: Sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as a fire rate. Yeah, don't get that twisted, folks. But as long as it's fire rated plywood, ⁓ and it's rated to the correct ⁓ rating that you're okay to use that. And that's again, because that's a fire rated wall, not a firewall. ⁓ And so that's again an important distinction that you need to make. can interchange materials when it is a rated wall. You cannot interchange materials when it is an area separation wall or I believe fire barrier. You might not be able to as well. Don't quote me on that one. I need to look it up. But an area separation wall, ⁓ you want to make sure that you use the manufacturer specified product. So I just want to make that point when we're talking talking about interchanging, you know, an LP flame block or a fire retardant, a plywood on the shell. Meaning if you have two units that are put together and you have a property line that's separating them, what Royals talking about, what he already said was four feet off the property line, front roof down the back. the facade of the front, the roof and down the back, that whole thing, has an imaginary sliced plane that you have to be four feet each side of. And so the material that you use is very important because it has to have that rating to slow that fire down. And so just want to be clear because I had to clarify that with the supplier that should you choose to use the Dan's Glass ⁓ shaft liner method, yes, they're tested assemblies, but you have to use the specific material. You can interchange in a fire rating. You can interchange it as long as it has the correct rating.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. If you go, if you go with the shaft liner assembly, that's the shaft liner assembly for the entire system period. Front to back, top to bottom. But, but when you're on, yeah, once you're outside there and correct. So yeah, that's perfect. I appreciate the clarification on that. So yeah. ⁓ yeah, but that's the big, I mean, those are the big things.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: You got anything else?
speaker-1: Yeah, I was just trying to think what else matters. And I guess some of the things that came up as a builder was the mono foundation underneath. you put ⁓ beam pockets ⁓ in a mono board? So you have your two walls sitting on a big mono block stem wall. Didn't we run into issues where people were running beam pockets in that thing? ⁓ jurisdiction didn't like that and didn't we have to battle that back and forth but ⁓ so you're allowed to do beam pockets.
speaker-0: You are allowed to do beam pockets because the fire, the, the fire rating of the concrete foundation is much, much higher. Right. So if I had, if I had that monopore and say I'm pouring a 12 inch wide wall to account for the double two by fours and the air gap, I can, I can run a beam pocket and even that amount of Especially with the shaft liner wall because now my beam pockets aren't penetrating underneath the firewalls.
speaker-1: Let me, the assumption would be a two hour modified. Can you put beam pockets if you're using the two hour modified? That'd an interesting question. Cause I think that's what most, I think that's where the discussion came up with. I'm not sure. Right. Obviously it's a no brainer if you use the shaft liner, cause you're moving that whole thing to the center.
speaker-0: Right, so it is a situation of. It's a hard, I don't, I personally don't have an issue with it. I think you should be able to do it because typically the fire stops at the floor level, right? You have thick floor sheathing that the fire, there's no pure. It has a rating as well. You're not typically going to be getting fire going underneath. And even if it did get underneath, now I've got a concrete barrier. So.
speaker-1: as well.
speaker-0: Its ability to progress from one unit to another through a concrete foundation wall is just not.
speaker-1: Yeah, and it's to be too nuanced. I think we're only getting three inch deep pockets and I'm not quite sure where everything's sitting but ⁓
speaker-0: but a six ⁓ inch firewall, a six inch concrete wall is a four hour rating. So that's the other thing, you in addition to your shaft liner, something I've been a big proponent of is using ICF or CMU block as your, as your common wall, because then you don't, then it's a four hour wall and you can attach to it all you want. And it serves both sides and
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: That's what it is. that's in it, especially in wet environments, because you can just stack your ICF, pour it, and then you're building the units right between them.
speaker-1: Yeah, that is such an interesting ⁓ I was going to ask that question actually, because we're, you know, heavily focused in the ICF industry, but we don't, everything that's coming through a single family. I haven't seen anything that's. ⁓ And if you did, if we did have a recommendation to make on an attached ICF, ⁓ would we recommend, pun intended would, we recommend concrete partition walls on something like that. And would that depend on the part of the country that it's in maybe that you would need that maybe or not or the exposure or what you need for sheer or maybe you know I don't know
speaker-0: Well, so we just looked at some townhouses. We just looked at some townhouses that are under new constructions or three stories tall. I think they're 16 or 18 feet wide. Okay. And the three stories tall with the super narrow and then them being townhouses, not to mention where I'm at in Florida, we're in like 160 mile an hour wind zone. Right. Well, compared to Oregon, which Oregon is at like most of Oregon right now under the, under the new code is like 96.
speaker-1: ⁓ okay. I was gonna say you.
speaker-0: And I 96 to about 100. Right. Yeah. So that gives you an eye. The coast of Oregon is, one 20 unless you're direct ocean front. Then it's one 35. Right. That gives you an idea. We're 160. That's inland. That's not even on the water. That's inland. We're at 160. So they did, uh, they did CMU. They did full masonry, uh, and then massive.
speaker-1: Hahaha!
speaker-0: Massive tie rods and everything and everything we have to have to hear because we're in a hurricane zone our roof systems Everything that all your your roof trusses tied to a girder truss and then the girder trusses actually have a full tie-down that goes from the girder truss all the way to the foundation
speaker-1: Yeah, like a tie rod.
speaker-0: Huge tie rod, like three quarter inch diameter tie rods. and we're talking full height on a three story building. So that's a situation where ICF or CMU block, you have to have it because you need it for the sheer, not only the fire separation, but for the sheer capacities. So very important in that aspect.
speaker-1: Would you say, sorry to interrupt you, but I just, I was if you would, the cost differential, would, you know what I haven't calculated is like, oh, should I build a CMU partition wall or should I build a shaft liner with the construction? What the cost differentially, you're saying it's a requirement where.
speaker-0: where we're at.
speaker-1: Yeah. But is there a way to promote the ICF or the CMU? ⁓ And do you not have to have the separation? It can just be one common wall in the middle. Yeah. Because, and so you're not building two walls. So, ⁓ you know, ⁓
speaker-0: one comment. The biggest argument that we get is then that's another trade that we have to bring in. Because I've got my guys that do the foundation. They don't want to do masonry or ICF. I got my guys and they do the foundation and flat work. That's it. I got my framers. Now you're telling me I got to bring in another trade to coordinate with? Which I get. I fully understand. ⁓ if you're getting into big enough stuff,
speaker-1: Right. Yeah.
speaker-0: it helps. And then there's no question of whether or not, hey, do I have a fire separation? Are these structurally independent? I've got a solid wall of concrete. got my fire separation.
speaker-1: Yeah, I like that for so many reasons for multifamily, but yeah. Interesting. I think that's, think that covers it pretty well. mean, you know, we could go into the ULGA and WP discussion, but maybe that's a separate podcast.
speaker-0: Yeah. I don't think we want to put our listeners to sleep. really, yeah. If you, if you, if you struggle with sleeping at night, just grab a gypsum manual, open it up and, um, don't worry. It's yeah. It's got a lot. It's got a lot of cartoon and just start reading how they describe these fire assemblies and you'll be, you'll be fast, fast asleep.
speaker-1: Yeah, I guess for me, it's just most. Builders are savvy enough to know what type of wall they're building, a raided, a barrier, or a firewall, which the firewall is interchangeable with area separation wall, and it's structurally independent. So everybody out there, if you're attempting to be your own general or you're building in an area that has less restrictions and you need to figure out some of these things on your own, please contact us or make sure that you understand the differences in all three of these because people's lives and safeties are at stake.
speaker-0: Yeah. All right, man. Well, hey, yeah, not going to keep you any longer. You got a, you got a wife's birthday to go, go to Italian food. There you go. Beautiful. And, uh, otherwise have a wonderful weekend. Have a wonderful Easter for those who listening to this next week. I hope you had a wonderful Easter and, uh, I'm going to go enjoy a nice cigar. I don't know about you.
speaker-1: So. Beautiful. Yeah.
speaker-0: Nice sunny day, nice cigar on the back porch. All right, man. See you. Bye.
speaker-1: Perfect, let's do it.
speaker-1: I'm doing really good. It's a sunny day here in Oregon and can't complain. It's Friday. It's my wife's birthday today. We're gonna go have nice Italian dinner tonight. So I'm on point.
speaker-0: There you go. Oddly enough, it's a rarity. It really is a rarity. Also a sunny day in Florida.
speaker-1: No way.
speaker-0: It's a rarity. It's a rarity. ⁓ yeah, so for those, those, ⁓ don't know, ⁓ we're, recording, ⁓ today, April 3rd, good Friday. And it has been a very good Friday. ⁓ I, I, you, your wife's birthday, obviously a very important event, ⁓ but it's had a good start to the day. Did you get your workout in this morning?
speaker-1: way, you know, I it's hit and miss with the little kids. But yes, I did get a I got a short one in if they're sleeping, I sneak out of the bed, my whoop wakes me up quietly. I get out, go sneak in there. And then usually by the time I'm out half an hour to an hour, and one of them is at the top of the stairs at the gate, I can hear him kind of one of them snuck out of their room or or the bed if they're with mom. But yeah, go get them and have a moment with them. Just me and them usually.
speaker-0: Hahaha It's amazing how they can fall asleep like in some of the oddest positions and places. And it can be loud blasting, whatever out. But then it's like in your bed and you try and sneak out there awake.
speaker-1: Yeah. And the helicopters they do inside the bed, you know, in face, you know, like, they're like hanging off the side of the bed and you're like, what is going on?
speaker-0: Yeah, I told my daughter she sleeps like a like a Chinese throwing star. It's just it's just ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're not allowed in the bed. You're not allowed in the bed. And then my son is just all elbows and knees. It's like he wants to snuggle, but he like throws his elbows and his knees out. It's like, that's not a snuggle. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
speaker-1: You're taking a swing, dude. So good thing you trained for that.
speaker-0: So good stuff, good stuff. right. Well today, I'm actually really excited about this topic because it's something that comes up in question ⁓ quite a bit. Now, John, when you were at a builder and I was on the other side, we were doing the plans. I mean, we battled with some big jurisdictions for, felt like a year.
speaker-1: Yeah, almost a year and a half on that one. Yeah, was a serious, serious. It's I mean, it's a serious business. It's a serious deal. We're talking about the state people's safety and right. You know, a lot of people have a lot of opinions.
speaker-0: Right. But the, was just, was code interpretation versus what they want versus, know, what we could make work aesthetically. Yeah. And, ⁓ you know, but what we're talking about is, is firewalls and fire assemblies, especially how it applies to attach products. So multifamily that in like the Plex or the townhouse realm. And this is a, this is a point of contention in a lot of things. actually got retained as an expert on a big condo complex in Seattle because I do structural and I do fire protection. And it was interesting because the issue got completely overlooked by the plans examiners. ⁓ Then their expert said, ⁓ you guys have to do all these things to make it right. And it was like a million dollar claim that they put together. And then I came in and went, ⁓ actually all you need to do is this, this, and this. that cost about 30 grand. And they went to the, the other expert with that and the other expert conceded, he was like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, that would actually fix the issue too. Right. So, know, so it just shows that even with experts that know a lot about this stuff, we can get it. We can look at it from different ways. And that's why there's. You know, the intent of the code versus the interpretation of the code or, know, some people refer to it as the gray area, but there's, there's intent and there's interpretation and then there's actual application. And this is something that constantly is a battle. It's constantly a battle and it can cost a lot of money and can hold up construction. So really this is going to be very educational, educational podcast for anybody in construction that is, has to deal with fire assembly.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So excited. Yeah. know, a lot of people think they're building a firewall. but they may be building a fire barrier, right? ⁓ they may be building, ⁓ an area separation wall, ⁓ structurally independent, if you will. ⁓ but those are the three kind of overarching, ⁓ types of firewalls and how they're assembled in the field makes a huge difference. And we were just talking before the pot.
speaker-0: So.
speaker-1: about something we wanted to cover, was, you know, plexes versus townhomes. And, ⁓ you know, some are structurally independent if there's a property line separating them, ⁓ if, and some are tied together with, ⁓ you know, a shared wall and how that fire separation works or fire barrier or firewall works is really important. So. Right. Right.
speaker-0: So, so yeah, so let's get into the definition. So first off, there's, there's what's called a rated wall. Okay. And a rated wall is just there to slow fire progression. Where most people will see this in their typical residence is, is your separation between your garage and your living space. And that's because garages have the highest probability of a fire starting. ⁓ most I've investigated a lot of homes post fire and it's two things. One it's in the garage or two. It's the barbecue on the back porch. They got left on. Yeah. Right. It's one of those two things. And I, I joke about that because I know both you and I have very nice barbecues that we leave on overnight.
speaker-1: I just, I just did that a couple of weeks ago. I'm like, why is the propane empty?
speaker-0: Yeah, but we whether whether purposely or accidentally we leave them on overnight. ⁓ It's something it happens ⁓
speaker-1: I decided to have that steak and get out there and eat with your family, I guess.
speaker-0: I mean, it's one thing when you're doing a brisket and you're monitoring it. It's another thing where it's like, ⁓ yeah, I cooked the meal. I'm just going to leave the grill on for a little bit just to, just to chart, you know, burn off the stuff. And then, and then you, you're two whiskeys deep.
speaker-1: Two whiskeys in one 90 minutes.
speaker-0: Yeah, I'm 190 minutes cigar and then it's like I'm go to bed
speaker-1: Just a funny caveat to everybody Royal taught me the difference in cigar lengths, widths, diameters and color variations all dictate different tastes, smell, feels and how long you're actually going to sit there and talk to someone. it's an interesting fun fact for everybody.
speaker-0: It's important lessons in life. are things that you... My son's eight. I'm teaching him.
speaker-1: I always wondered why are some so long? Why are some so short? Why are some so yeah. Okay, yeah. So so let's go back to the other one, which is the likelihood of fire in the garage. Right? Yeah.
speaker-0: which ⁓
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: downstairs you don't want that progressing quickly upstairs so that's why under the side of the underside of stairs are now sheetrocked to hinder the access to the fuel that is the stairs to allow the fire to progress up there quickly as well as protecting the structure if somebody's not able to say get out of an upper floor egress window they hopefully still have the structure of the stairs to get back down.
speaker-1: So you bring up an important point. when you say you have enough time to get out, so a key distinction is what the rate of the wall is, whether it's an hour or whether it's two hours and whether it's designed to be structurally independent or not, which is further down the line in the conversation. But one of the things that strikes me right off the bat about that ⁓ interior fire. rated wall is what about the Tesla's that burn so hot? How do they with with the wall plug? And how are we looking at that from an industry and saying, Well, if we're going to transition, and I think you've brought this up in other podcasts, if we're going to transition to the electric cars, what does that do for and you've seen a couple calls that you've been on, actually, I'm not sure since I've been here or not, but where the car like, exploded and it burnt. twice as much as it should have or something like that or you know, it went off quite a bit because it was the electric car burns so hot. So are codes keeping up with that? Do think?
speaker-0: Unfortunately, they're not. ⁓ And it is a problem because if you do have an EV, EVs, it's a rarity that they do catch on fire. But if they do, your difference is, it's about a five, four to five X difference in the temperature.
speaker-1: That's amazing.
speaker-0: that these EVs burn at that fire departments have actually retrofitted and they now have special heads on their fire hoses to account for the fact that it is so hot. It literally puts out instead of a straight stream like you would typically see coming out of a fire hose, it puts out this almost wall of water.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Because the firefighters, when it's burning at over 5,000 degrees on an EV versus around 1,000 degrees on a conventional vehicle, think of how much further back you have to be from the fire before you start to feel it. is a, fire rated assemblies are being, have been historically rated just on a standard gas burning site fire on one side of the wall.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, which are not. Yeah, sorry.
speaker-0: up and
speaker-1: Yeah, so important distinction, it's not structurally independent. It's slowing the progression of the fire. And ⁓ that's what it's designed to do. And ⁓ so you just have to be really cognizant of that when you're talking about fire rated or separations. ⁓ And so some of the conversation then can be ⁓ guided towards the PLEX conversation, which is very much different than the townhomes who are structurally independent. can be vertically or horizontal separated if I'm not mistaken, right? So you hear of an apartment complex, is that a plex?
speaker-0: They can. Yep. They can. Still aplex, yep, still aplex. They do not have to be structurally independent. They are separated by fire barriers to try and slow the fire between. You are seeing more apartment complexes being required as per the code to be fire sprinklered. And that's again because it allows it to be a fire barrier and then they're trying to consolidate the fire to where it occurs. Because obviously if a fire occurs in an apartment, In some of these apartment complexes, it can be in one building, 30, 40, 50 units. So depending on how many stories and the width of it. it's, it, it is important to keep it consolidated and not allow that fire to progress into adjoining units. And so that's, that's why you have this combination of fire barrier with fire sprinklers. Now with a plaques, a plaques isn't necessarily required to be fire sprinkler. And they still use a fire barrier. And you are in a situation of... not only the fire barrier is continuous, it is from foundation to roof. ⁓ Foundation to roof. It's intended there, but you are allowed, it's typically a one hour, you are allowed to penetrate it as far as bringing floor joists and other stuff in there, but then you have to walk around it, provide your blocking in your ceiling. But.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: we don't have to make the units structurally independent. So if I have a fourplex, fiveplex, sixplex, I can design that just as one big building. So we're not designing it to be each unit to be structurally independent from itself.
speaker-1: ⁓ What is the, I know a property line would be a driving factor. And so I know a lot of our customers are talking about being able to ⁓ either rent and then eventually sell them out. Or if someone's gonna build a Plex versus a townhome, ⁓ what guidance could we give them?
speaker-0: Right, the in. ⁓ So, yeah, so you can do... ⁓ what's called a condo conversion. And in this situation, you typically are going to be going with a fire sprinkler situation in that, in that you, are using the fire barrier. You're not making the system structurally independent. ⁓ but then you're basically saying, Hey, these are no longer flexes. I'm considering these condos. So it's called a condo conversion and then you can sell them individually.
speaker-1: Okay Yeah. even though they're not structurally independent.
speaker-0: even though they're not structurally independent because a condo complex is not structurally independent.
speaker-1: Yeah, no, right. It's not.
speaker-0: So and we have the fire barriers and then you basically do lot line adjustments Yeah to then put property lines between them to make them their own property lines, but it is now it's not a townhouse now It's considered a condo and there's differences of how you have to set things up with that a townhouse You can just own and own it outright not even be a part of an HOA Whatever. Yeah condo is different. You basically if you move into a condo You're working with everybody around you to make sure that building is maintained.
speaker-1: Gotcha. So, yeah, that's a big difference. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, it seems like, ⁓ you know, the the raided wall is in every single family home for the most part in the garage under the stairs. would they find it anywhere else on the house? Probably not. But if they have a zero lot line condition where either the building is cantilevered out to the zero lot line or within three feet in some areas, five feet and others. the exterior shell would need to be clad with some type of fire rating as well, which that is a fire rated assembly, not a fire barrier, if I'm correct. Right. That's a rating shell.
speaker-0: Correct, so once you go from five to anything less than five, then there's restrictions, there's requirements as far as the fire rating of the.
speaker-1: Sometimes the eaves or sometimes we treat the eaves if they're past the plane of whatever the five foot or the three foot. I think in Washington you can go up to three feet, right? I'm not sure but and then those are are rated assemblies when they're we're talking about offset from property lines. I should have said that at first but yeah so the shell needs to be a rated wall ⁓ and inside the garage that's where the other rated wall is non-structurally independent. So
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. And then from once you get three foot, that's your other big wall threshold. Yeah. And once you're under three foot, then there's restrictions on the openings and there's a higher requirement, the venting and there's higher requirements on the actual rating of the, the wall assembly as well.
speaker-1: the venting. Yeah. Hang on.
speaker-0: And then after fire barrier, we get into what is common with townhouses. And that is a full fire wall in which we're basically. So there's. In residential, is the condition. There's other reasons for it in commercial, but in residential, the condition is we have a shared property line. So just like in a new single family dwelling that's being constructed too close to the property line, those requirements and restrictions basically applying out to townhouses because we're building adjoining a property line. And that, and that's condition. It's basically typically a double wall. they're structurally independent and which means that if townhouse A was to burn down and fall to the ground, townhouse B is unaffected. That's the intent. And there are higher restrictions on it because it's typically a double two hour fire assembly. So a two hour firewall on one unit, a two hour firewall on the other unit, both structurally independent and
speaker-1: Yep.
speaker-0: Your penetrations are limited to you have the only thing that's allowed is any wood member that qualifies as heavy timber, which is a minimum six inch, minimum six by dimension. ⁓ and then any hangers or anything that you even affixed to the surface of that two hour firewall have to be fire rated. So that's kind of your restrictions on those. But that's your jump from plexes to townhouses. It's a pretty significant cost jump, but it's the ability of, it's a different ability where plexes are typically rented and townhouses can be rented or sold individually.
speaker-1: Yeah. And my 30 year career, I've dealt with several different ways to approach this. And it seems like the challenges around it remain the same throughout my entire career. So there's always seems to be a conversation around the two hour modified wall versus the two one hour walls. So what we're talking about is if you have two structurally independent units like, and you have and we call it an air gap between ⁓ the two. If you're talking two exterior or two interior walls that are separating two units and they're running front to back and you can either put your gypsum board on both sides, which is one hour and one hour on both sides of the wall. And then on the other unit, you have an air gap, one inch from each side of the property line. And then you have your gypsum and your gypsum and you have this. two-hour wall over here, one hour on each side. Now traditionally that is the way that it's done, however, there's complications and application in the field with that, especially when it comes to the Northwest when it's raining and you're trying to deal with the gypsum product. So builders have switched to trying to use fiber like Dens glass type of product. ⁓ They've tried to do another thing called a two hour modified. And then there seems to be a lot of consternation around the two hour modified from a plan review perspective and an application perspective in the field. by the inspectors because most of what goes on is miss installation. The installations aren't done right. The ceiling isn't done. The ceiling of the penetrations isn't done right. Or there is a penetration that's not where it should be. Or maybe the fasteners are not done correctly or the fire taping is not done or the product selection is wrong or something like that. It seems like there's a lot of misapplication in the field. ⁓ But so starting with just the one hour, the two one hour walls with gypsum on each side. The challenges that you face is when a framer lays a wall down to frame it, let's say, and they frame the wall and then they put their. gypsum on there, they have to have an inspection before they can cover it up. They also have to have it fire taped, sealed. Everything needs to be done to it before they can stand this wall up. And so that causes delays because they have to call in an inspector to come in and look at the fasteners. Then they have to seal it and then they have to stand it up, you know, and all that while it's raining. So in my career, it seems like there's been a pivot to the two hour modified wall, which is the two layers on one side. So you still have the two structure that you have one solid mono foundation. Then you have the two walls sitting on top of it. You have the two inch air gap in the middle, the stud wall, and then you have the two layers on the interior of the building. And that's traditionally how a lot of people have approached it, but then you run into no penetrations unless it's heavy timber. ⁓ And you have to seal things in the right way and fire tape things in the right way. And so it becomes complicated. And so we've kind of seen ⁓ the contemporary builder, if you will, go to even the next level, which is the area separation walls in a shaft liner assembly.
speaker-0: Right?
speaker-1: And the shaft liner assembly has become ⁓ something that the installers, the framers out in the field really like and the builders do as well. I shouldn't say all builders, but you don't have to have your sheet rocker show up to sheet rock a wall that's laid down. Your framers can actually install the shaft liner system as they're building. ⁓ and just slide sheets down, you know, frame a floor system, the first floor, then they'll just, and I can explain this a little bit more, but, ⁓ it's, it's, it's an easier install, ⁓ for the field and it's one less trade mobilization and there's less issues with weather because it's quicker and you can cover it up. and so. I personally, the last couple of builders I've been with have pivoted when I managed those architectural groups, I pivoted to those shaft liner walls. To be honest with you, I drove by and saw another builder doing it. And I stopped and I said, Hey, what is that? This is, know, I don't know, five, six years ago, maybe longer seven years ago. And they told me about it. And then I pulled it. I, you know, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is a great system, a little more expensive, a little bit of training for the trades. Once that gets there, it becomes a really viable solution that's very quick and doesn't have issue as much issue with moisture and the biggest thing and I'm not here to ⁓ sell the shaft liner system. I'm just from an X framer standpoint. I would want this on my job, you know, ⁓ the biggest part of having the shaft liner system that is ⁓ a win for people across the board builders all the way down to the vendors and the trades is ⁓ that it puts the dens glass together in the middle over the mono foundation from foundation up to the bottom side of the roof. So when I say that, that means that traditionally you'd have things that fix to the walls. Like I just talked about a minute ago, you'd have the gypsum, the wall, the gypsum, the space, the gypsum, the wall, the gypsum. This pushes the dens glass down to the middle, to the center of that mono foundation. and has a double layer from the foundation all the way up to the bottom of the roof. So it takes the air gap and puts them together and puts the air gap on the other side of the den's glass. And so there's these little things called breakaway clips that as you're framing your walls, you just screw to the inside of the wall, a little 90 degree aluminum clip, and there's a little base track and there's a top track that you can put on there. ⁓ and you have to use the system that's approved. You can't deviate from it at all with different track or different material. Each each manufacturer like ICF has a very specific ⁓ approved ⁓ way to do it. But it puts these two dens glass panels together. And I think they're, if I'm not mistaken, they're three quarters. They're not five eighths like the gypsum, but ⁓ puts them together. And then ⁓ the air gap is on each side of it. than the framed wall. So the biggest kicker, like I was saying earlier, is you can now run in your structurally independent demising walls, any wiring, any plumbing, ⁓ no penetrations needed above and beyond what a traditional system would need because you've essentially taken the firewall and put them in, you you've taken the fire protection and put it in the middle. So.
speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's a really cool system. And, and it's been, it's been something I've, know, when, when you and I worked together on, like on opposite sides where you were with the builder and I was in the designer, when I first saw it, was like, this too many, too many engineers and experts kind of like, ⁓ abhor to of horror to the new stuff, right? You know, cause we've got our UL tested systems. We've got the GA manual, the Dipson manual. We've got, you know, the WP wall configurations. Those are all things that we know. but when you're working in a commonly wet environment or frankly, I also saw this assembly being done in Texas. ⁓ Now, Texas is Satan's weather playground. So you never know what the weather is going to be like, but it is. It is a situation of they did definitely get moisture. get a ton of hail. They get, you know, all kinds of weather. You never know. And it's, is, it is a great system. So. And as you alluded to this brings the firewall instead of being on the, the outside or the interior face of if you're living in a townhouse, right? The face, the face of the wall that you see that's neck that goes then to your neighbor's unit. That is commonly where the firewall assembly start. It has been for years. And so when we're doing framing, when we're running trusses, when we're laying out floor beams, anything like that, we have to account for that. it, so then it's a situation of, well, we can't run trusses left to right because we've got the firewall assembly. We have to run them front to back. We can't run the beams there. We got to have a post stop before the wall because we can't penetrate the firewall.
speaker-1: and has been for years. Yeah.
speaker-0: This takes all that out because now we can actually use that wall framing as a structure. As normal? Yeah, as normal. understand the dense glass itself is structurally independent. It is independent basically of the firewalls. ⁓ And so then in addition, if we're in a high wind, high seismic region where we need that fire separation wall to function as a shear wall, and we have to put sheathing and stuff on there.
speaker-1: and do it.
speaker-0: We can now do that because that was also another complication of well, why you're sheathing that now show us in the UL or the GA manual where it allows us to have wall sheathing underneath the double layer of sheetrock and it still works. Okay. Like what, what else do you want me to do? I need a shear wall there, right? So, so it's, it really, it really assists in all of that. So
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Big fan of the assembly. ⁓ We'll actually have to get somebody from the actual manufacturer on here to discuss it more and do it. But if you aren't currently using or have looked at this system, do consider it. you know, feel free to reach out to our, to us and we can, we can share with you the details, listings, all the product materials that justify the use of it. And John's been on the other side of the aisle. He's crunched the numbers. We've worked with the building officials. We've, you know, shown it to him and we've got it approved. and, and Georgia Pacific and with the Denzel us system does have enough supplemental provided ⁓ listings and testing and documentation. to show that it does meet the requirements. it's a nice system.
speaker-1: Yeah, quick caveat. So it's speaking about being on the other side because everybody likes a good story. Not that this is a good story, but it's a story. Yeah. The, the, the, really triggered me, what you said was the roof configuration. I don't know how many. So I want to say two things about the roof configuration. I don't know how many. Cost. costs are associated with whether you have to run trusses front to back versus left to right. But I guarantee you that in townhouse construction, the buildings are much deeper than they are wider. So if there's an ability to turn those trusses and have them be smaller, not only is that better for the framer and everyone else involved, but what ⁓ to us is that we weren't using Shaft Liner in the beginning. a roof got designed where ⁓ the project manager was having to have the framer and the drywall there together when there was a girder truss and perpendicular trusses coming off of it and they were having to firewall between in two foot sections.
speaker-0: I remember that.
speaker-1: Yeah, it was a nightmare. Yeah. And so every one of those, there could have been 100 of those in that subdivision had to be taken and independently sealed all these little two foot areas. And so was the framer was anxious about it. The drywaller was pissed. The project manager was behind. It was a big expense. I mean, we're talking a big expense to have those people there doing that separation like that. And so really the the opportunity cost and the dollars and cents for a different type of design really drove this contemporary firewall design, which is what we're talking about. So I think that we'll see a big pivot in the industry towards that. ⁓ from a cost time and just frustration standpoint. so, then secondarily, the second other point I wanted to make was a lot of times when I was managing pre-con departments, it's all about, ⁓ if you can't start a house, you can't finish the house, you can't close it, right? So sales is sexy, because that's revenue. ⁓ Closings are profit, and that's what drives the business. ⁓ you know, margin and profit and then, but everybody kind of misses that middle part, which is the start and the start was always so important. And so what I found was as I started to battle, I guess, so to speak with these different jurisdictions, once I got through the battle of what is this, why are you doing this? Why are you changing? We don't change this as a home building industry. ⁓ explaining that. Yes, there was that one that we fought for a year and a half, but the majority ⁓ seem to kind of accept an explanation as long as there's approved listings and all of that for it and manufacture specs for it. And then they got comfortable with it and it was easier for them as a plan reviewer to look at it and say, ⁓ yeah. For instance, ⁓ one example was just yesterday. We had a client call us and they said, Hey, my lumber supplier. ⁓ It doesn't understand the system and the details on the plans ⁓ clearly couldn't quite tie it together. Could you give him a call? And ⁓ I said, of course. And so I gave him a call. And then once I explained it to him ⁓ and gave him the details. then it made a lot of sense. And so ⁓ that was something that we were able to solve really quickly with a lumber supplier. And another example went into that same area with the area separation wall in a configuration of a shaft wall liner. The jurisdiction pushed back on a plan that we had submitted. ⁓ I sent him the information, the building official the information, he kind of scratched his head a little bit, I had a call with him and he was like, ⁓ yeah, this is great. And then we were able to move it forward. And so For back to taking it back to the start, which was always kind of the area of these larger businesses that I managed. It's all about the start. If you can't start the home, you can't finish it. Right. So how can you condense that pre con section of from contract or release of an inventory home or contract with a customer to get that to a start out of the jurisdiction going vertical, the dig out started the foundation started. So if you can get that start a hundred percent of the time, you're going to finish the house. But if you can't get that start, you could be stuck in a jurisdiction. for a year. ⁓ Right. And they take fire separation and fire life and safety very seriously. And so that's what they're looking for in a whole section of your review when you put a set of plans in. ⁓ anyway, point being, it'll get your expedited permits out quicker once you explain that system, because it doesn't fall back on all the penetration and the ceiling and all these things that have to go with those other assemblies. So yeah,
speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ I think we've hammered it home. ⁓ That was my real hope in this is educate people that there's another option. ⁓ And we can easily provide that education to the other people involved because we've done it for other jurisdictions. We've done it for some really bullheaded building officials too. don't act like, ⁓ your building officials are pushovers.
speaker-1: you are.
speaker-0: Yeah, yeah like no well we we we've worked with some building officials that were working for some very, very large jurisdictions. Some of the largest, probably the largest in their entire state. And we were able to find, we were able to educate them on the system to where they were like, oh yeah, that actually works. And then it went to the plan examiners and we moved forward. it is a possibility. now beyond with the shared fire, with the shared property line, we've got the firewall. Now the other thing that occurs when you have a shared property line is the four feet and people need to understand this is that once four feet from that shared property line is still within the fire zone. So that's why we have to look at penetrations. They typically don't allow any kind of window or door penetrations within four feet. ⁓ You ⁓ can put in these little, we've done it multiple times and I. What would you even call them? The little walls that we just jotted out to. The parrot. Well, parrot, but walls typically go vertical. what I, but I guess like when we have like our garages and they're super close together, ⁓ the we.
speaker-1: the parapet walls. ⁓ Yeah, they're just fire separation walls in the entryways. And that's what you're talking about, right? And in the garage side, separate two units.
speaker-0: So you can jot those out to then get that right because it's they look at you got to look at yeah So you look at it horizontally or you look at it outwards? And so if we can do a wing wall out a couple feet then that Accommodates that length of fire separation because they're looking at it. Basically the property line is here We're gonna measure the total amount of wall or distance ⁓ It's not as the crow flies, but it's actual measured distance from that property line to the opening. So we can do those wing walls to accommodate that, but you still have to use fire rated materials in there. So you've got your flame block, you've got your fire rated plywood, both work great. And structurally they have about equivalent values to a standard OSB or regular plywood. So whether they're fire rated doesn't really affect that. So that's, that's a good positive thing.
speaker-1: I want to make an important distinction here that came up yesterday with the material supplier when I was talking with them was, you know, does like, since we've call out, let's say LP flame block, is that interchangeable with a pressure treated plywood? You and I chatted about it you just alluded to yes, as long as it has the code. And it has fire rating. Yeah. As long as it has the.
speaker-0: Right, now use that pressure treaty.
speaker-1: Sorry, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As long as a fire rate. Yeah, don't get that twisted, folks. But as long as it's fire rated plywood, ⁓ and it's rated to the correct ⁓ rating that you're okay to use that. And that's again, because that's a fire rated wall, not a firewall. ⁓ And so that's again an important distinction that you need to make. can interchange materials when it is a rated wall. You cannot interchange materials when it is an area separation wall or I believe fire barrier. You might not be able to as well. Don't quote me on that one. I need to look it up. But an area separation wall, ⁓ you want to make sure that you use the manufacturer specified product. So I just want to make that point when we're talking talking about interchanging, you know, an LP flame block or a fire retardant, a plywood on the shell. Meaning if you have two units that are put together and you have a property line that's separating them, what Royals talking about, what he already said was four feet off the property line, front roof down the back. the facade of the front, the roof and down the back, that whole thing, has an imaginary sliced plane that you have to be four feet each side of. And so the material that you use is very important because it has to have that rating to slow that fire down. And so just want to be clear because I had to clarify that with the supplier that should you choose to use the Dan's Glass ⁓ shaft liner method, yes, they're tested assemblies, but you have to use the specific material. You can interchange in a fire rating. You can interchange it as long as it has the correct rating.
speaker-0: Right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. If you go, if you go with the shaft liner assembly, that's the shaft liner assembly for the entire system period. Front to back, top to bottom. But, but when you're on, yeah, once you're outside there and correct. So yeah, that's perfect. I appreciate the clarification on that. So yeah. ⁓ yeah, but that's the big, I mean, those are the big things.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
speaker-0: You got anything else?
speaker-1: Yeah, I was just trying to think what else matters. And I guess some of the things that came up as a builder was the mono foundation underneath. you put ⁓ beam pockets ⁓ in a mono board? So you have your two walls sitting on a big mono block stem wall. Didn't we run into issues where people were running beam pockets in that thing? ⁓ jurisdiction didn't like that and didn't we have to battle that back and forth but ⁓ so you're allowed to do beam pockets.
speaker-0: You are allowed to do beam pockets because the fire, the, the fire rating of the concrete foundation is much, much higher. Right. So if I had, if I had that monopore and say I'm pouring a 12 inch wide wall to account for the double two by fours and the air gap, I can, I can run a beam pocket and even that amount of Especially with the shaft liner wall because now my beam pockets aren't penetrating underneath the firewalls.
speaker-1: Let me, the assumption would be a two hour modified. Can you put beam pockets if you're using the two hour modified? That'd an interesting question. Cause I think that's what most, I think that's where the discussion came up with. I'm not sure. Right. Obviously it's a no brainer if you use the shaft liner, cause you're moving that whole thing to the center.
speaker-0: Right, so it is a situation of. It's a hard, I don't, I personally don't have an issue with it. I think you should be able to do it because typically the fire stops at the floor level, right? You have thick floor sheathing that the fire, there's no pure. It has a rating as well. You're not typically going to be getting fire going underneath. And even if it did get underneath, now I've got a concrete barrier. So.
speaker-1: as well.
speaker-0: Its ability to progress from one unit to another through a concrete foundation wall is just not.
speaker-1: Yeah, and it's to be too nuanced. I think we're only getting three inch deep pockets and I'm not quite sure where everything's sitting but ⁓
speaker-0: but a six ⁓ inch firewall, a six inch concrete wall is a four hour rating. So that's the other thing, you in addition to your shaft liner, something I've been a big proponent of is using ICF or CMU block as your, as your common wall, because then you don't, then it's a four hour wall and you can attach to it all you want. And it serves both sides and
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: That's what it is. that's in it, especially in wet environments, because you can just stack your ICF, pour it, and then you're building the units right between them.
speaker-1: Yeah, that is such an interesting ⁓ I was going to ask that question actually, because we're, you know, heavily focused in the ICF industry, but we don't, everything that's coming through a single family. I haven't seen anything that's. ⁓ And if you did, if we did have a recommendation to make on an attached ICF, ⁓ would we recommend, pun intended would, we recommend concrete partition walls on something like that. And would that depend on the part of the country that it's in maybe that you would need that maybe or not or the exposure or what you need for sheer or maybe you know I don't know
speaker-0: Well, so we just looked at some townhouses. We just looked at some townhouses that are under new constructions or three stories tall. I think they're 16 or 18 feet wide. Okay. And the three stories tall with the super narrow and then them being townhouses, not to mention where I'm at in Florida, we're in like 160 mile an hour wind zone. Right. Well, compared to Oregon, which Oregon is at like most of Oregon right now under the, under the new code is like 96.
speaker-1: ⁓ okay. I was gonna say you.
speaker-0: And I 96 to about 100. Right. Yeah. So that gives you an eye. The coast of Oregon is, one 20 unless you're direct ocean front. Then it's one 35. Right. That gives you an idea. We're 160. That's inland. That's not even on the water. That's inland. We're at 160. So they did, uh, they did CMU. They did full masonry, uh, and then massive.
speaker-1: Hahaha!
speaker-0: Massive tie rods and everything and everything we have to have to hear because we're in a hurricane zone our roof systems Everything that all your your roof trusses tied to a girder truss and then the girder trusses actually have a full tie-down that goes from the girder truss all the way to the foundation
speaker-1: Yeah, like a tie rod.
speaker-0: Huge tie rod, like three quarter inch diameter tie rods. and we're talking full height on a three story building. So that's a situation where ICF or CMU block, you have to have it because you need it for the sheer, not only the fire separation, but for the sheer capacities. So very important in that aspect.
speaker-1: Would you say, sorry to interrupt you, but I just, I was if you would, the cost differential, would, you know what I haven't calculated is like, oh, should I build a CMU partition wall or should I build a shaft liner with the construction? What the cost differentially, you're saying it's a requirement where.
speaker-0: where we're at.
speaker-1: Yeah. But is there a way to promote the ICF or the CMU? ⁓ And do you not have to have the separation? It can just be one common wall in the middle. Yeah. Because, and so you're not building two walls. So, ⁓ you know, ⁓
speaker-0: one comment. The biggest argument that we get is then that's another trade that we have to bring in. Because I've got my guys that do the foundation. They don't want to do masonry or ICF. I got my guys and they do the foundation and flat work. That's it. I got my framers. Now you're telling me I got to bring in another trade to coordinate with? Which I get. I fully understand. ⁓ if you're getting into big enough stuff,
speaker-1: Right. Yeah.
speaker-0: it helps. And then there's no question of whether or not, hey, do I have a fire separation? Are these structurally independent? I've got a solid wall of concrete. got my fire separation.
speaker-1: Yeah, I like that for so many reasons for multifamily, but yeah. Interesting. I think that's, think that covers it pretty well. mean, you know, we could go into the ULGA and WP discussion, but maybe that's a separate podcast.
speaker-0: Yeah. I don't think we want to put our listeners to sleep. really, yeah. If you, if you, if you struggle with sleeping at night, just grab a gypsum manual, open it up and, um, don't worry. It's yeah. It's got a lot. It's got a lot of cartoon and just start reading how they describe these fire assemblies and you'll be, you'll be fast, fast asleep.
speaker-1: Yeah, I guess for me, it's just most. Builders are savvy enough to know what type of wall they're building, a raided, a barrier, or a firewall, which the firewall is interchangeable with area separation wall, and it's structurally independent. So everybody out there, if you're attempting to be your own general or you're building in an area that has less restrictions and you need to figure out some of these things on your own, please contact us or make sure that you understand the differences in all three of these because people's lives and safeties are at stake.
speaker-0: Yeah. All right, man. Well, hey, yeah, not going to keep you any longer. You got a, you got a wife's birthday to go, go to Italian food. There you go. Beautiful. And, uh, otherwise have a wonderful weekend. Have a wonderful Easter for those who listening to this next week. I hope you had a wonderful Easter and, uh, I'm going to go enjoy a nice cigar. I don't know about you.
speaker-1: So. Beautiful. Yeah.
speaker-0: Nice sunny day, nice cigar on the back porch. All right, man. See you. Bye.
speaker-1: Perfect, let's do it.
