Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp The
Speaker 1: House Whisperer on demand on the iHeart radio app. You know,
Speaker 1: this very program is the House Whisperer podcast that you
Speaker 1: can listen to anytime, anywhere on demand. Hundreds of episodes
Speaker 1: I've got for you. We've been doing this now we
Speaker 1: are beginning our ninth season. Can you believe that hundreds
Speaker 1: of episodes, all searchable by topic it is or could
Speaker 1: be maybe should be your home improvement reference library. And
Speaker 1: if you're thinking, hey, that's all great, but you know
Speaker 1: what we really need is Dean and Tina in our
Speaker 1: house to looking at our stuff telling us what to do, well,
Speaker 1: you can do that too. You can book an in
Speaker 1: home design consult with me and the tea who's sitting
Speaker 1: right across the table from me here. You just go
Speaker 1: to house Whisperer dot design. Okay, we are having a
Speaker 1: very serious conversation about fire hardening your home, one that
Speaker 1: I want you to listen very carefully too, because it
Speaker 1: is sane and rational, and I want you to be
Speaker 1: able to discern and assess the needs of your home
Speaker 1: and not just go with kind of the fire hardening
Speaker 1: frenzy that's already begun on in standard media, traditional media,
Speaker 1: and especially on social media right now, and we are
Speaker 1: talking this is I'm going to move on from this.
Speaker 1: But the first and foremost threat to homes in any
Speaker 1: kind of fire condition are the embers that are flying
Speaker 1: off the fire line the fire. Nowhere near your home,
Speaker 1: nowhere near your home, but embers that can fly up
Speaker 1: to two miles away and actually start structure fire. Now,
Speaker 1: how often did that happen?
Speaker 2: Do you know?
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, realistically, yeah, realistically, ninety percent of
Speaker 1: the homes that ignite in a wildfire event ignite because
Speaker 1: of embers not on the fire line, do you hear me?
Speaker 1: And that is why I have my very special guest
Speaker 1: on the line with me right now, Kelly Berkampas who
Speaker 1: is the vice president and co founder of brand Guard Vents,
Speaker 1: which is my number one recommendation for you for your
Speaker 1: enber proof vents. Kelly, We're going to go one extra
Speaker 1: segment here because I still have a couple of questions
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Number one, I'm going to start off with this.
Speaker 1: I want everybody to realize this, and Kelly is going
Speaker 1: to lead into our next quick conversation here.
Speaker 2: Whether you know it or not. Most homeowners wouldn't know this.
Speaker 2: Why would you?
Speaker 1: But the California Building Code is updated triannually every three years.
Speaker 1: Every three years we gather together all the things that
Speaker 1: are going to be the updates to the building code
Speaker 1: and then they are affected in those years. Twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: this year that we are in right now is on
Speaker 1: that three year cycle. That means that this year things
Speaker 1: are going into the California Building Code that will be
Speaker 1: applicable and effective as of January first, twoy twenty Okay,
Speaker 1: this is the year, and we already know, Kelly knows,
Speaker 1: I know, we already know that for all new construction
Speaker 1: and for major remodels all across the state of California,
Speaker 1: that fire resistant EMBER resistant venting is a from now
Speaker 1: on in the history of California, a requirement. Just like
Speaker 1: in earthquakes, earthquake retrofitting, a requirement, ember resist in venting,
Speaker 1: now a building requirement in the building code. So, okay, Dean,
Speaker 1: that's fine. That applies to you, know, you know, people
Speaker 1: who are building new and who are doing a major remodel.
Speaker 2: That's not me.
Speaker 1: What does it have to do with me? Well, you've
Speaker 1: been listening to the news at all. You've been hearing
Speaker 1: the ongoing conversation that these very, very costly, the most
Speaker 1: costly fires in US history, are creating for insurance company
Speaker 1: and insurance coverage out Let me just say this. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into the politics of it at all.
Speaker 1: That's not what I do. But I will tell you this,
Speaker 1: if the California Insurance Commissioner pulls off the miracle of
Speaker 1: keeping or requiring insurers to offer fire insurance for California residents,
Speaker 1: if he successfully pulls that off, I guarantee you that
Speaker 1: one of the variables will simply be but you don't
Speaker 1: have to ensure a home that doesn't have a certain
Speaker 1: level of regulated fire hardening by code, and that will
Speaker 1: include I guarantee you it will include amber proof vents. Kelly,
Speaker 1: what have you heard along those lines?
Speaker 3: Yeahan, I mean that's correct, You're totally spot on about everything.
Speaker 3: And in fact, some insurance company is already actually mandate
Speaker 3: mber resistant. I mean we get calls from homeowners all
Speaker 3: the time. Over the past I mean some started doing it,
Speaker 3: you know, as much as ten years ago, but especially
Speaker 3: over the past year or two, we've seen an uptick
Speaker 3: for sure where insurance companies are mandating, as a condition
Speaker 3: of binding a policy or as a condition of renewal,
Speaker 3: that you have to install ember resistant vents. I think
Speaker 3: it's what this fire has done is now it's probably
Speaker 3: going to make it more at a larger scale with
Speaker 3: more companies.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, wow, Okay, So Kelly, before I let
Speaker 1: you go as succinctly as you can so that we
Speaker 1: all understand it and remember it. All right, I'm convinced.
Speaker 1: Dean convinced me. Dean and Kelly, you've convinced me. We
Speaker 1: got to get mber proof fence from my house. How
Speaker 1: do I begin? What's the process? What happens?
Speaker 2: What do I do?
Speaker 3: Well? The process is extremely straightforward and easy. If you
Speaker 3: were a do it yourself for you know this is
Speaker 3: not rocket science. You can call us, go to our website.
Speaker 3: You can order the events. You can call us go
Speaker 3: to your go to our website. You can tell us
Speaker 3: what sizes you need, will ship you just events. If
Speaker 3: you don't mind getting on a roof, or you don't
Speaker 3: mind doing it yourself. However, if you need help with
Speaker 3: the installation portion of it, give us a call. We
Speaker 3: have a whole network of professional installers throughout the state
Speaker 3: of California and even further east that we will then
Speaker 3: help you coordinate to send to your house. They'll come out,
Speaker 3: they'll take measurements, we'll get you a quote, and then
Speaker 3: you can have them installed. I mean, installation is like
Speaker 3: I said, it's very easy, very non intrusive. It does
Speaker 3: not affect the home you're not going to you know,
Speaker 3: we're not going to be breaking up your stucco or
Speaker 3: cutting into the sidewalls or even cutting into your roof
Speaker 3: at all. So it's extremely easy and you just need
Speaker 3: to give us a call or go to our website
Speaker 3: and request an estimate, and we got you covered, whether
Speaker 3: you're a do it yourselfer or whether you need help
Speaker 3: with the installation through a contractor right on.
Speaker 1: All right, Kelly, here's your big shot. Uh who uh?
Speaker 1: Where do people go to get a hold of you?
Speaker 3: So you can go to our website, which is brand
Speaker 3: guard vents dot com. Brand guard vents dot com. You
Speaker 3: can also give us a call. We're there Monday through Friday,
Speaker 3: all day long. The phone number is nine four nine
Speaker 3: three zero five eight zero five nine.
Speaker 2: All right, repeat it one more time for us real quick.
Speaker 3: It's area code nine four nine three zero five eight,
Speaker 3: zero five nine, and we will pick up the phone
Speaker 3: and help you right away.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, Kelly, I think thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I promised our listeners that I would not only be
Speaker 1: explaining the vulnerability of their home and explaining the rat
Speaker 1: sane way to fire harden it, but also handing out
Speaker 1: resources and everybody who's listening to me Kelly at brand
Speaker 1: Guard Vents here in southern California, this is your number
Speaker 1: one house whisper recommended resource, so call them. Go to
Speaker 1: brand Guardvents dot com. Kelly, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: your time this morning, and good luck with everything that
Speaker 1: lies ahead.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dean, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: All Right, y'all, we're going to move on to the
Speaker 1: next phase of fire hardening your home. We've talked about
Speaker 1: when the fire is near and the threat of embers.
Speaker 1: Now let's turn our attention towards when the flames are here,
Speaker 1: and what part or parts of your home do we
Speaker 1: really need to focus on and why we'll discuss all
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 4: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 4: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: I don't take our show very seriously, thank goodness, but
Speaker 1: I take you in your home very seriously, and today,
Speaker 1: because everybody is still in the place where you're thinking
Speaker 1: about the LA wildfires, I am taking yet another weekend
Speaker 1: to talk to you very honestly, very forthrightly about how
Speaker 1: to properly assess your home so you can figure out
Speaker 1: how to harden it. There's all sorts of stuff. Please
Speaker 1: don't lead out, lead with what you and I are
Speaker 1: talking about right now. Don't lead out with stuff you're
Speaker 1: seeing randomly on social media or even in mainstream traditional
Speaker 1: media formats on TV. And so there's a certain amount
Speaker 1: of sensationalism that tends to win the day in those places,
Speaker 1: and with it comes lack of attention to what's actually
Speaker 1: actually on the ground happening. Okay, So I'm here to
Speaker 1: tell you that when it comes to assessing your home
Speaker 1: for fireheartening, we're using a very very simple formula. Two
Speaker 1: phases when the fire is near, and then phase two
Speaker 1: when the flames are here. Okay, Now we've spent the
Speaker 1: first part of the show talking with my very special guest,
Speaker 1: Kelly Bercompas from Brand Guard Events, about when the fire
Speaker 1: is near and how that is statistically actually the greatest
Speaker 1: threat to your home because that's what ninety percent of
Speaker 1: homes actually ignite in a wildfire event. But but let's
Speaker 1: not ignore the fact that flames reach homes. Okay, that's simply,
Speaker 1: you know, against all of our wishes. That's the truth.
Speaker 1: So now let's turn and spend a little time talking
Speaker 1: about when the fire is here. Now, what is the
Speaker 1: first thing that I want to explain to you. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Class A fire rating exterior surfaces. Okay, A
Speaker 1: Class A fire rated surface is anything that has been
Speaker 1: approved by the California Building Code cal Fire and the
Speaker 1: Uniform Building Code as a material and or a surface
Speaker 1: that can resist direct contact with heat and flame for
Speaker 1: an hour one hour burn through time. Okay, it is.
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same as a one hour fire rating.
Speaker 1: And I'm not going to get into the differential details there,
Speaker 1: but just kind of go with that. Now you're like, well, great,
Speaker 1: that's the best. Yes, that's the best. Okay, so we're
Speaker 1: all toast. No, No, you're not, okay, And here's why.
Speaker 1: If you know how fires burn and how they move,
Speaker 1: especially how they move through neighborhoods, you know, a fire
Speaker 1: moves past your home or could move it theoretically past
Speaker 1: your home relatively quickly. The idea of a flame just
Speaker 1: there burning for an hour on one location, on one
Speaker 1: bit of fuel, on one surface. There's a reason why
Speaker 1: Class A fire rating is in fact a Class A
Speaker 1: fire rating. It's because that is an unlikely event. So
Speaker 1: now the big question is this, how much of this
Speaker 1: Class A fire rating do you have on your home already? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: let me tell you. If you've got wood siding on
Speaker 1: your home, you do not have a Class A fire
Speaker 1: rated wall, okay, And I'm not going to tell you
Speaker 1: to tear off your wood siding. I am going to
Speaker 1: tell you that we need to make that a Class
Speaker 1: A fire rated surface by using a Class A fire
Speaker 1: rated coating on top of that wood siding.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: There are paints out there that will take the undersides
Speaker 1: of decks, structures, decking material wood decking materials themselves, and
Speaker 1: wood sighting, all exterior kinds of woods and protect them
Speaker 1: with a Class A fire rated protection service. Now, it
Speaker 1: will require maintenance as the years roll on, but they
Speaker 1: are there and they actually work. If though you live
Speaker 1: in a typical southern California home and with a typical
Speaker 1: southern California stucco exterior and a typical southern California asphalt
Speaker 1: composition roof. And I say typical because about eighty percent
Speaker 1: of the homes in Southern California fall into those categories.
Speaker 1: Then you are living in a structure that is covered
Speaker 1: in a class A fire rated surface. All right, one
Speaker 1: inch thick stucco is concrete on the outside of your wall.
Speaker 1: Can fire burn through it?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Absolutely right. If you take a look at the power
Speaker 1: and the eaten fire destruction, you don't see stucco walls
Speaker 1: standing in place when everything else is gone. But does
Speaker 1: it burn through quickly?
Speaker 2: No? No, it does not.
Speaker 1: Will it withstand flame in a you know, in an
Speaker 1: ideal situation while the fuel that it's using on the
Speaker 1: ground is exhausted.
Speaker 2: Yes? Likely?
Speaker 1: Okay, So do I need you to go to heroic
Speaker 1: measures to wet the surface of your house when it's
Speaker 1: a stucco house painted in exterior weather proof paint, which
Speaker 1: by definition precludes the stucco getting soaked with moisture. It's
Speaker 1: not a really the most important thing for you to do.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So the stucco is an adequate surface, fire hardened surface,
Speaker 1: you're roofing material. I know you've seen countless, countless video
Speaker 1: of roofs burning. Let me tell you how that happens.
Speaker 1: Roofs burn from the attic out, just like we were
Speaker 1: talking with Kelly Bercompass at Brand Guard Vents about. They
Speaker 1: burn most likely from the underside of those rafters up
Speaker 1: through the roofing material, not usually the other way around. Okay,
Speaker 1: an asphalt composition roof, any asphalt composition roof that you
Speaker 1: have purchased or has been purchased and installed on your
Speaker 1: roof in the last thirty plus years, is a class
Speaker 1: A fire rated roof simply unless you bought it off
Speaker 1: the black market somewhere in Indonesia and smuggled it into
Speaker 1: the United States illegally.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is the manufacturers of these
Speaker 1: roofs are required to produce this roofing material in this way.
Speaker 1: If you've got a Spanish tile roof or a lightweight
Speaker 1: concrete roof, all the more so. Okay, you have a
Speaker 1: roof that is already ember protected in that sense and
Speaker 1: flame protected as reasonably as possible. All right, So think
Speaker 1: of the outside of your house, the envelope of your house.
Speaker 1: What's left if the walls are Class A. If the
Speaker 1: roof is Class A number one, we don't have to
Speaker 1: go to heroic measures to keep them all wet. Okay,
Speaker 1: number two, what's left? What's left is any exposed wood
Speaker 1: sticking out from the side of your house aka your
Speaker 1: roof eves, the underneath side of your roof eves. You
Speaker 1: look underneath your eaves, it's wood up there. Now, if
Speaker 1: you've got enclosed eves, meaning that the stucco runs up
Speaker 1: and closes over the then great, fantastic, Okay, But most
Speaker 1: people don't. Most people have exposed rafters. And I say rafters.
Speaker 1: Those tails sticking out of your house, those are the
Speaker 1: rafters that are holding up your roof. They are a
Speaker 1: and when they ignite, they climb right into your attic space.
Speaker 1: So the roof eve area is a highly vulnerable area.
Speaker 1: It's vulnerable for embers to get up in there. That's
Speaker 1: why we're changing out the vents. But if the flame
Speaker 1: has arrived at your house, it's vulnerable because the flame
Speaker 1: is right down at the base of your wall, burning
Speaker 1: up heat, embers, sparks and flame. And guess what's right
Speaker 1: directly above it the roof eve catching it all. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is how these areas catch on fire. So now
Speaker 1: the question is if that's a vulnerable area, then we
Speaker 1: should give that attention. We should give that attention before
Speaker 1: we spend money with limited funds, as we all have,
Speaker 1: on areas that are already Class A fire rated. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying if you've got an unlimited budget that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't just coat your dip your whole house in fireproof substances. Great,
Speaker 1: But if you are like me and you have a
Speaker 1: limited budget, then we have to address the holes in
Speaker 1: the boat. Okay, not just it's thick in the hole,
Speaker 1: but we have to actually patch the holes in the
Speaker 1: boat if we don't want to sink.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 4: All right, you're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on
Speaker 4: demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2: Dean Sharp the house whisper. That's me.
Speaker 1: We're talking about fire hardening your home, sanely, affordably, rationally,
Speaker 1: fire hardening your home. For everyone who is listening to me,
Speaker 1: I don't care if you don't live right next to
Speaker 1: an open space, if you don't consider your home as
Speaker 1: a threat from wildfires. Here's the fact that we've already
Speaker 1: established earlier today, after these mega expensive wildfires. Insurance fire
Speaker 1: insurance for any home anywhere in the state of California,
Speaker 1: it's up for grabs right now. It really, truly is
Speaker 1: a big question mark. I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: are saying a lot of things, but it is a thing.
Speaker 1: If by some miracle we push through and may the
Speaker 1: right to have fire coverage on your home, you can
Speaker 1: be guaranteed that those insurance companies are going to be
Speaker 1: requiring certain things be in place for a home to
Speaker 1: get and receive fire insurance. So hardening and the steps
Speaker 1: that we're talking about today, not the heroic kind of
Speaker 1: crazy stuff that you see on DIY and social media
Speaker 1: right now, but the stuff we're talking about this is
Speaker 1: the stuff that will enable you to move down that
Speaker 1: pathway for the future. So we are at this place
Speaker 1: now where we're talking about when the fire is here,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking about plugging holes, Okay, metaphorically and literally,
Speaker 1: what we're about to talk about holes in the boat
Speaker 1: as it were. In other words, your roof with Class
Speaker 1: A fire rated material on it is not a hole
Speaker 1: in your boat. Neither is the stucco on the outside
Speaker 1: of your house. But the roof eves the over lap
Speaker 1: the overhang of exposed wood. That's a hole. It can
Speaker 1: be treated, doesn't have to be all just cut off.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be covered in stucco. It can
Speaker 1: be treated with a fire resistant fireproof coatings like fireproof paints. Now,
Speaker 1: should I just paint the whole house, Dean, Well, you shouldn't,
Speaker 1: certainly could. But the stuff that I'm recommending that you
Speaker 1: use that has again to use this word again into
Speaker 1: messin qualities to it, Okay, into messin properties. The stuff
Speaker 1: I recommend you're going to find it from reputable companies
Speaker 1: at about four hundred dollars for a five gallon jug.
Speaker 1: Yeah you heard me right. I didn't say forty. I
Speaker 1: said four hundred dollars. So here's the thing. Very few
Speaker 1: of us feel comfortable buying enough to cover our entire
Speaker 1: home in that material. And what I'm pointing out to
Speaker 1: you today is the stucco is okay as it is,
Speaker 1: so is the roof, But the eve. I would encourage
Speaker 1: you to invest in enough of that material to treat
Speaker 1: your eve because it's the hole in the boat, okay,
Speaker 1: that will bring you at least up to snuff on
Speaker 1: that that class a fire resistance on the outside of
Speaker 1: the house. So don't think about the whole house. Think
Speaker 1: about the eves, think about those vulnerable wood overhangs, think
Speaker 1: about your wood decks, and and so on. You get me,
Speaker 1: You feel me? All right, let's talk about the other holes.
Speaker 1: Doors and windows. Doors are not an issue if you
Speaker 1: have a legal house in southern California. Exterior doors, by definition,
Speaker 1: are class A fire rated exterior doors. Excuse me, Sliding
Speaker 1: glass doors are by definition class A fire rated doors.
Speaker 1: They have tempered glass in them, not just because they
Speaker 1: were done that way for fire purposes. They have tempered
Speaker 1: glass in them a sliding glass door, or because the
Speaker 1: Building Code states universally across the planet that any glass
Speaker 1: that occurs in your house, glazed surfaces below eighteen inches
Speaker 1: off the floor are in the kick zone, right, I
Speaker 1: mean where your feet are running around smashing into things,
Speaker 1: and so that glass can't be standard annealed glass. It
Speaker 1: has to be tempered glass strong enough to withstand you
Speaker 1: kicking it with your foot and it not shattering. So
Speaker 1: sliding glass doors not a problem. Standard exterior doors not
Speaker 1: a problem. The problem is windows. Windows are standard annealed
Speaker 1: glass unless otherwise specified. What do we want from our windows. Ideally,
Speaker 1: this is the most expensive way to go. But ideally
Speaker 1: we want fire rated windows. Now, what is a fire
Speaker 1: rated window. It's a big ugly thing. No, it's just
Speaker 1: your window with tempered glass in it as a part
Speaker 1: to standard annealed glass. Tempered glass is I explained this
Speaker 1: last week. I'll do it really quick again. The problem
Speaker 1: is that when the heat of a flame from a
Speaker 1: fire gets on the outside of that window, it raises
Speaker 1: the temperature to an extreme several hundred degrees, if not
Speaker 1: over one thousand degrees, depending on the conditions on the
Speaker 1: inside your seventy degree house.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: The temperature differential from the outside of that glass to
Speaker 1: the inside of that glass causes it to expand unevenly
Speaker 1: and it shatters. And when it shatters, it falls out
Speaker 1: of the window sash and leaves a hole. Now in
Speaker 1: your home, an open door, an open window literally for
Speaker 1: the flames to start intruding into the interior of the house. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the tempered glass. Tempered glass is manufactured at five
Speaker 1: thousand degrees fahrenheit. All right, Tempered glass does not get
Speaker 1: about the heat of a wildfire brushing up against it
Speaker 1: because it was manufactured at almost three and a half
Speaker 1: times the temperature that that wildfire can produce. Therefore, fire
Speaker 1: rated windows understood. Okay, Now, if you do not have
Speaker 1: in your budget to replace all the windows of your
Speaker 1: home or the side that faces the open, vulnerable space,
Speaker 1: you've heard me say, there are some coatings, tinting films,
Speaker 1: films like you know, tinting your windows on your car,
Speaker 1: window films by very reputable corporation like three M. Three
Speaker 1: M produces some fantastic fire rated window films. Now, let
Speaker 1: me be clear on this. The windows are going to shatter.
Speaker 1: But the point is this, the film will not dissipate
Speaker 1: and fail you when the flame is licking up against
Speaker 1: it and the film, despite the fact that your standard
Speaker 1: window glass will shatter, the film holds the glass in
Speaker 1: place and therefore the opening does not open. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the theory behind it. Is it ideal? No, the fire
Speaker 1: raided window is better by far. But again we've been
Speaker 1: talking about all sorts of levels of what you can do,
Speaker 1: because I'd rather have you do something than nothing. Fire
Speaker 1: raided window film doesn't have to darken the house, doesn't
Speaker 1: have to tint the house or anything like that. It
Speaker 1: can just simply be there, like safety glass is on
Speaker 1: your car windshield. You know your car windshield. The safety glass,
Speaker 1: if you've ever seen one get smashed in, it doesn't
Speaker 1: shatter and just fall to bits all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: It just kind of pushed in there. That's because there
Speaker 1: is a film in between two layers of glass on
Speaker 1: your car windshield that holds all the glass in place.
Speaker 1: That's what we're talking about you. For these window films,
Speaker 1: they can be applied by di wires and there are
Speaker 1: plenty of companies out there that will tint and work
Speaker 1: your windows for you. The point is there is some
Speaker 1: price point where you can invest in your home and
Speaker 1: increase its fire hardness. Okay, decking materials, I've already kind
Speaker 1: of covered. That's where we're going with all these soap
Speaker 1: Let me well, okay, I'm going to back up one
Speaker 1: thing here. I don't want to jump over this. I've
Speaker 1: heard a lot of talk this week about people who
Speaker 1: are like, yeah, and what we've also decided to do
Speaker 1: is zero escape our landscape. In other words, we're just
Speaker 1: going to desertify our landscape like we did in the drought.
Speaker 1: I'm going to cut all my trees down, I'm going
Speaker 1: to just clear it all out because I don't want
Speaker 1: anything fallen on my house. Well, that's a qualified no
Speaker 1: on my part. I'll tell you why. Number One, Clearly,
Speaker 1: I do not want palm trees, eucalyptus trees, and pine
Speaker 1: trees sitting right next to your house and hanging over
Speaker 1: your home because these trees, by definition, by the way,
Speaker 1: non native to this area. Most of those trees full
Speaker 1: of resins, highly flammable trees. If you've ever seen a
Speaker 1: palm tree go up in a fire, it is nothing
Speaker 1: but an ember hydrant, Okay, just blowing embers everywhere in
Speaker 1: extreme So I don't want them right next to your house,
Speaker 1: and I don't want them hanging over your roof. But
Speaker 1: what about out on the perimeter of your property. So
Speaker 1: here's the problem that I've heard commented on by several
Speaker 1: fire experts and fire officials. Number One, the more, and
Speaker 1: you've heard me talk about this on landscaping shows, the
Speaker 1: more we remove green coverage from our cities, the hotter
Speaker 1: our cities get, the drier they become, okay, and the
Speaker 1: more fire prone they become. The second thing, just in
Speaker 1: all practicality, is this clear out all the trees and
Speaker 1: shrubs from your property. And you know what you've just created.
Speaker 1: You've created a bowling alley for fire. Just you might
Speaker 1: as well just invite everything in anything, because there's nothing
Speaker 1: to stop anything. So I'll ask you this, would you
Speaker 1: rather have your house being flooded with embers or a
Speaker 1: tree that's sixty seventy feet away from your house catching
Speaker 1: them as they come in, the fact of the matter
Speaker 1: is that you don't. Now, we can argue about this
Speaker 1: all day long, but I'm just saying that there are
Speaker 1: just as many good arguments for keeping and I think
Speaker 1: more for keeping the trees around your home than eliminating them.
Speaker 1: So just don't automatically buy into that stuff. But if
Speaker 1: you've got trees, highly flammable trees hanging over your roofline
Speaker 1: where they could literally just fall upon your house and
Speaker 1: deliver all sorts of flammable materials on your house, then yeah,
Speaker 1: let's get serious about that. Otherwise, don't just clear your
Speaker 1: yard out. Okay, we're only making the problem worse in
Speaker 1: the in the long run. Okay, when we return before
Speaker 1: some closing thoughts for you today, I'm going to run
Speaker 1: down a ten point checklist for a sane fire hardened
Speaker 1: home based on everything that we've talked about today. Now
Speaker 1: that you understand the essential structure of your home and
Speaker 1: how it reacts, I'm going to go down my list.
Speaker 1: You're going to hear it all from me. We'll do
Speaker 1: that right after.
Speaker 4: You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from
Speaker 4: KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Tina wanted me to make you aware that I was
Speaker 1: on Fox eleven News earlier this week. The video of
Speaker 1: that is up on our social media right now. What
Speaker 1: is it on dabe, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok which has
Speaker 1: had a reprieve from the moment, so you can go
Speaker 1: check that out at Home with Dean on those and
Speaker 1: what else? Did you want to remind me of what
Speaker 1: else is going on up there?
Speaker 2: Nothing? Something? Just that? Was it? Just that?
Speaker 4: Catch this show again if they missed anything on.
Speaker 1: The oh the podcast? Yeah, yeah again, if you've yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've forgotten any details or missed any details of
Speaker 1: what we've been talking about today. Of course, about an
Speaker 1: hour after we go off the air. Uh. This program
Speaker 1: in all of our episodes are translated into podcast form
Speaker 1: and live there in perpetuity wherever your favorite podcasts are found.
Speaker 2: All right, let's finish up.
Speaker 1: Uh. We have been talking about the sane rational ways
Speaker 1: of fire hardening your home, approaching it in ways that
Speaker 1: I that I want you to be encouraged you can
Speaker 1: actually do. Okay, So I told you at the end
Speaker 1: here I was going to leave you with a ten
Speaker 1: point checklist for a sane fire hardened home.
Speaker 2: Is this a.
Speaker 1: Guarantee that your home will not be damaged or destroyed
Speaker 1: in a fire?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: No reasonable honest person is with any kind of home
Speaker 1: building or firefighting experience, is going to tell you that.
Speaker 1: Zero zero people who are being honest with you are
Speaker 1: going to tell you that. But does this give you
Speaker 1: a fighting chance? Absolutely? No question. And as I've been
Speaker 1: saying throughout the program, are these measures your best bet
Speaker 1: of actually being able to obtain fire insurance from this
Speaker 1: point forward?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes.
Speaker 1: So this is the doorway that you're going to need
Speaker 1: to walk through no matter where you are in southern California.
Speaker 1: If you want to ensure your house against fire, then
Speaker 1: these are the things that you should seriously consider. So
Speaker 1: here the ten point checklist for a sane fire hardened home.
Speaker 1: Number one ember resistant vents. What is your resource for this?
Speaker 1: I want you to go to brand guard Vents dot
Speaker 1: com brand br a n D brand Guard like Guard
Speaker 1: gu ar d Vents dot com brand guard vents dot
Speaker 1: com for an ember resistant event.
Speaker 2: And I didn't.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna say real quickly, I didn't talk today
Speaker 1: about the OP. The other alternative, the far more expensive
Speaker 1: alternative to getting fire resistant events, and that is if
Speaker 1: you are doing a new construction build or a major remodel,
Speaker 1: then you need to have a conversation with your designer,
Speaker 1: your architect, or your builder about building the house with
Speaker 1: a ventless conditioned attic space where the attic is a
Speaker 1: part of the conditioned air in the home. Why is
Speaker 1: that because in those conditions there are no events, zero
Speaker 1: events in the house, nothing, no open doorways leading into
Speaker 1: the attic space because technically it's part of the interior
Speaker 1: of the house. So that's another discussion. I actually did
Speaker 1: this as an episode last year. You can find in
Speaker 1: last year's episodes. The New Attic I believe is the
Speaker 1: name of that show. You should go and check it out.
Speaker 1: Number two Class A fire rated sighting. Sighting is a
Speaker 1: technical term that I'm using uh in the code. Sighting
Speaker 1: means whatever is attached to the outside of your walls
Speaker 1: of your house. Stucco is technically sighting, citing what you
Speaker 1: think of as sighting as sighting siding siding the outside
Speaker 1: of your house. Class A fire rated materials or codings
Speaker 1: on top of vulnerable materials. Number three Class A fire
Speaker 1: rated roofing. That's a given. It's a given. Uh, make
Speaker 1: sure your roof is in good shape. Make sure it
Speaker 1: doesn't need replacement, make sure there aren't holes, so on
Speaker 1: and so forth. Number four Class A fire rated doors.
Speaker 1: This is also a given if your house is built
Speaker 1: to code, because exterior doors have by code fall into
Speaker 1: those categories Class A. Number five Class A fire rated windows,
Speaker 1: which we just discussed, or Class A fire rated window
Speaker 1: films attached two standard windows and your resource for that,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to send you to three M dot com.
Speaker 1: Go there first, find the film films, the finest films.
Speaker 1: Don't go for some off brand films claiming this or that.
Speaker 1: The three end films have been they've been ul tested
Speaker 1: and verified. Go there first, and then find installers who
Speaker 1: are capable of installing those films for you. Number six
Speaker 1: in two messent exterior codings for roof overhangs and eves
Speaker 1: and so on. Here is a source firefree dot Com
Speaker 1: fire free dot com for those code the best of
Speaker 1: those codings. Number seven Class A fire rated decking materials
Speaker 1: or fire retardant deck codings. I talk all the time
Speaker 1: about fire resistant decking materials. Let's just talk about what
Speaker 1: you've got, uh and putting a coding on it. Find
Speaker 1: that at r d R Technologies dot Com. R d
Speaker 1: R Technologies dot Com Number eight fire retardant coding for
Speaker 1: ex exposed deck structures. Also RDR Technologies dot Com number
Speaker 1: nine Clear your defensible space, Get flammable things away from
Speaker 1: your home.
Speaker 2: That's what that means, okay.
Speaker 1: And number ten Interior sprinkler fire suppression systems by licensed
Speaker 1: Cowfire approved Fire Marshal approved contractors. Interior fire sprinklers. Okay,
Speaker 1: not the ones on the roof, not the claims of
Speaker 1: you know, the ones out in the yard. Interior fire sprinklers.
Speaker 1: They are code for all new construction and major remodels
Speaker 1: in California now and they can be retrofit into your
Speaker 1: home at not an unbelievably high cost. Take a look
Speaker 1: at them, Get serious about them, because if fire does
Speaker 1: penetrate into the interior of your home, those interior fire
Speaker 1: sprinklers do an excellent job of suppressing if there's water
Speaker 1: in this if there's water in the system. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the ten point checklist for a sane fire hardened home.
Speaker 1: I hope you can appreciate this approach.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 1: Our approach is very simple, two phases. When the fire
Speaker 1: is near, what are we doing? That's ember resistance? And
Speaker 1: when the flames are here, what are we looking at.
Speaker 1: We're looking at Class A fire rated surfaces. The outside walls,
Speaker 1: the roof usually are handled. The eve overhangs those are vulnerable.
Speaker 1: The windows, those are vulnerable. If you were to follow
Speaker 1: through and button up these ten points on this checklist,
Speaker 1: then you know what you would be, as fire hardened
Speaker 1: as any home could rationally be expected to be, and
Speaker 1: you've got a really good chance of doing well in
Speaker 1: the next fire event. Let me also say, very quickly,
Speaker 1: it was pointed out to me, I want to make
Speaker 1: a delineation about vegetation in your yard. Dead vegetation needs
Speaker 1: to go, period. Okay, live vegetation, good, live and green, good,
Speaker 1: dead and dry gone.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right.
Speaker 1: I'm actually shocked that we made it through all of
Speaker 1: that and we've got just a couple of minutes left,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to get myself sort of set up
Speaker 1: here because we're going to make a little video of
Speaker 1: this as well, which I didn't do ahead of time
Speaker 1: on the break Tina to do this. So let me
Speaker 1: raise this up and turn on the thing, do the
Speaker 1: whole thing.
Speaker 2: Here we go. I have sorry about that. I've got
Speaker 2: a closing thought for you today.
Speaker 1: We like to make it available on social media after
Speaker 1: the fact, so takes me a half second to.
Speaker 2: Get it set up here. So let me do it.
Speaker 1: And are we going? I think we are. We're gonna
Speaker 1: give it our best shot.
Speaker 2: All right. I ran a card. This is not me.
Speaker 1: This is not my thing today. This is something that
Speaker 1: the team actually pointed out to me.
Speaker 2: This morning.
Speaker 1: Gosh, dang it, hang on, you know, it's fine. It's fine.
Speaker 1: It's live radio. It's what we do, okay. A beautiful
Speaker 1: Instagram post from former Disney imagineer Joe Rhad who last
Speaker 1: week this last week saw his old home burning. While
Speaker 1: watching it on the news, he wrote this, and I
Speaker 1: love this. He said, this was our first house from
Speaker 1: night a bit after starting at Disney Imagineering. That big
Speaker 1: window there is our bedroom and I was just writing
Speaker 1: about this house in an essay about the origins of
Speaker 1: the Adventures Club at Walt Disney World. This is where
Speaker 1: it started in this house. The Quirky Immersive Theater Club
Speaker 1: is gone, of course, and now so is its birthplace.
Speaker 1: So what are we to do? Well, he writes, we
Speaker 1: don't just live at the tail end of history. We
Speaker 1: live within history. Right now people are looking back at
Speaker 1: all that has been lost a lot. But in the
Speaker 1: future people will look back at all that was done
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of this disaster. This point in time
Speaker 1: will be subsumed in other points to come, just as
Speaker 1: creative work is subsumed into later newer works of art.
Speaker 1: San Francisco was destroyed in an earthquake, and yet San
Speaker 1: Francisco is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Tokyo, Berlin,
Speaker 1: Mexico City, Chicago, Rome, Deli, all built back from the
Speaker 1: ashes of some other version of themselves that is gone.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Critics can say what they will about Los Angeles, but
Speaker 1: it is a creative city, dynamic, diverse, open minded, always changing.
Speaker 1: This is the city that invented the modern city and
Speaker 1: in everything from the Internet. Yes, at UCLA's Arpinnet to
Speaker 1: Barbie and hip hop, to electric guitars, to the modern
Speaker 1: film industry, to the Mars Rover and the Space shuttle.
Speaker 1: This is a city full of people who move here
Speaker 1: from somewhere else so they can invent themselves, and they
Speaker 1: are not going to do nothing as time moves forward.
Speaker 1: As a creative person, one cannot help but think that
Speaker 1: everything is always raw material. Creation is intimately tied to
Speaker 1: the destruction of the status quo. Nothing has ever finished
Speaker 1: as long as there is imagination in the world, and
Speaker 1: what lies before us now is not nothing. It is
Speaker 1: the raw material for what the people of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: are going to do next. No one should minimize the
Speaker 1: suffering that has been created. It is profound. Our children
Speaker 1: lost the entire world they grew up in. Dozens of
Speaker 1: friends lost everything. We all mourn for what we have lost,
Speaker 1: and we understand that it will never return in the
Speaker 1: form that it once had. But it is not the end.
Speaker 1: It is the middle. It is always the middle, and
Speaker 1: then it all burnt down. Is never the end of
Speaker 1: a story. It is typically the end of just act one.
Speaker 1: And to that I say true, Joe, very very true,
Speaker 1: and thank you. And with that I'm going to send
Speaker 1: you forward into the middle of your story, the middle,
Speaker 1: and use it and get out there and get yourself busy,
Speaker 1: build yourself.
Speaker 2: A beautiful life. We'll see you're right back here next week.
Speaker 1: This has been Home with Dean Sharp, the House Whisper.
Speaker 1: Tune into the live broadcast on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: every Saturday morning from six to eight Pacific time, and
Speaker 1: every Sunday morning from nine to noon Pacific time, or
Speaker 1: anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.