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Colorado Springs Fire
Nasty nasty nasty.. I'm not looking forward to seeing what this looks like in the morning, was such a nice view driving to work every day. I'll be planting trees up there till I'm dead and it will never be the same.
Comments
My home state is on fire... Looks like there will be nothing left when I get off active duty to come back to - I wish the guy who is doing it would go crawl up in a hole and die.
Holy... http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site36/2012/0626/20120626_113654_colorado_wildfire_waldo_canyon_newcover.jpg
Wooden houses? How could it spread so fast..
What do you think they usually make houses out of...?
Cement and stone?
Roofs...
And 99% of houses are wood.
Then Amercians should learn to build proper houses.
So sad to see.
Sure it's there, but they're not made out of one material. The frame is usually wood at the very least. A good fire doesn't need much.
Yeah, i always wondered why the americans pay crazy money for wooden houses. Granted the houses are usually quite big, but still...
Quick to build, save on energy bills, nice to look at. Also quite cost effective to maintain as it shifts over time, as opposed to other materials. Sure a fire could randomly come through as an extremely rare event, but so could any other natural disaster that other materials could not withstand. You won't find a material that lets you sleep at night if you're too concerned with "what if."
People still buy thatch roofs, and they're a nightmare in cost to maintain.
How does wood do that? I would have guessed that its a worse isolator then proper brick/stone (with additional isolation layers)
I'm not certain that it is the absolute best for energy efficiency but you have to remember that a lot of these homes may not have been built in the last 10-15 years. The best decision today may not be the best decision tomorrow.
Some interesting reading: http://www.ehow.com/info_12083302_heating-brick-house-vs-wood-house.html
It costs 40%+ more to build out of brick or cement. And even when people build brick houses, a good percentage of that house is still wood.
Ouch. And just my luck I will hopefully find out Friday if I'm moving to Colorado (Denver) or not...
Wooden houses are built here too. And the winters have often -30 celsius. They are good insulated, not only because of the wood, but also, since it is wood can stand better isolation without the extra cost and care for a concrete wall that is building humidity due to the very different dew points between itself and insulators.
With that in mind, wooden houses are meant for holiday or second residences because can stand big temperature differences and dont decay if you leave unheated in the winter as much as the concrete ones or even brick and mortar. They also last about half the regular ones (when proper cared for). On my street there are houses from before 1900, not on wood, of course, but they do have artistic internal stairs made of wood that are making very interesting sounds when used. They also have wooden beams to hold the roof and the attic or even the second floor. This makes them much more earthquake resistant unlike the concrete or even reinforced concrete ones built in the 40's that cant stand even a small shake of 6.5 or so unless lucky.
Bucharest went through two 7+ earthquakes (largest 7.4) in the last 100 years and about 10 above 6.5 that very old houses faced bravely unlike the modern ones.
Wood has it's good and bad points, there is no universal recipe for a good house. However, I would build in stone in tornado areas and make sure it is 100% treated against fire if it has to be in wood.
M
As a person who grew up in Colorado (Fort Collins), its always sad to have my state on fire. Also a ton of my friends have already been evacuated due to the fire (not the one in Colorado Springs but the one that's near Larimer) and some of them even lost their homes.
Wooden houses... how quaint.
There was also a fire in oldham, Last night? I think..
and they are all brick houses, But that was caused by a gas explosion.
From the article:
"Chris Taylor, 25, said he was desperate to get back to his house, which is on the same street as the blast, to see whether his two kittens were still alive."
Really...., cats, really...
I'm from the opposite side of Manchester, but know folk in Oldham.
They were 5 miles away from the blast, and heard it pretty well.
The more interesting thing is, the death is being treated as suspicious, and a murder investigation is ongoing, apparently.
Kittens? Hell yeah, gotta catch 'em all.
OT: Hope you guys near the fires are alright.
I had no idea there were so many retired civil engineers and architects here :-)
It's not the house, it's the land. 3 bedroom ranch in Portland, OR is typically ~$200K. Same house in Mississippi might be $45K. Same house in San Francisco could be over $1 million. The cost of the house itself is only part of the equation.
Exactly. The only fire that will likely destroy my house is one that starts in my house. The neighbor's houses are too far away and the foilage in between is small grass.
Then again, on a clear day I can see Mt. St. Helen's, so...
(Actually, it's 3 hours' drive north...but an eruption like the one in the 80s would fill my backyard with ash probably)
Brick is fine, but wood + modern insulation is very comfortable. It's not like they're tinderboxes waiting to erupt into flames or fall over in the breeze...the insulation is flame-retardant, the wood is treated, the foundation is made of stone, etc.
Really?
Does this mean another data center move? :-)
Colorado is an awesome place to live. One of the best places in the world to just drive.
@raindog308 I hope not, because I like the datacenter's location. :x
As far ask I know it was a gas explosion.
We use concrete houses because we have a lot... US have wooden houses because they have a lot...
It depends where you live. My parents' house in NJ is wood, but down here in Florida mine is concrete. I think in the case of the Colorado fires even if the homes were concrete they'd have to be knocked down and rebuilt anyway, going off of the image @Jacob sent.
seems to be wood... I haven't seen a house to be rebuilt if catched in fire here in Mexico=P
but thank to knowing that not all houses there are wood
Looks like the fire is moving more into the city. My uncle and cousin's houses both burned down this afternoon.
would he troll the fire into submission?