[RE-wrenches] fire safety vs. fire hysteria -THANKS BILL!

[Antony Tersol]

The fire hysteria is relatively easy to deal with - the facts take
care of untruths.  As William Miller noted, of greater threat here in
California are the rules being presented by various fire departments
and by the California State Fire Marshall's office.

Among the problems that we have seen (references to the
solarphotovoltaicguideline document):

1. The guidelines are being used in place of regulations. Page 6 is
not read - including:
"This guideline is just that, it is a suggested means of writing a
local ordinance and does not have the force of law."
"...the city, county, or city and county must make express findings
for each amendment, addition or deletion of the state building codes."
"Provisions contained in this guideline do not apply unless
specifically adopted by local ordinance by a local enforcing
agency..."

2. Page 10, section 2.2.1 is applied to all buildings, including
single family residential.
"2.2.1 Access
There should be a minimum six foot (6') wide clear perimeter around
the edges of the roof.
Exception: If either axis of the building is 250 feet or less, there
should be a minimum four feet (4') wide clear perimeter around the
edges of the roof."

3. As William noted, the restriction of 3' from the ridge for
residential (page 10, 2.1.2) will eliminate or severely constrain a
very high percentage of projects.  We also estimated on the order of
75-90% of our residential projects.  We need to be up to the ridge on
the south facing roof for several reasons: a. limited roof space, so
that we are extending eave to roof, b. the higher on the roof, the
further from the edge and thus from shade impacts from surrounding
buildings and trees.

I would suggest looking at your own projects, and also a random
selection of pictures on the web of residential projects, and you will
see that many, if not most, are installed as high on the ridge as
possible.

Fire officials have not objected previously when there was access on
the other side of the ridge, but will most likely object if these
guidelines are adopted.

see:

http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/pdf/reports/solarphotovoltaicguideline.pdf

http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/training/pdf/Photovoltaics/pvinstallationguideliines.pdf
Powerpoint presentation.  Of interest: almost every actual PV
installation (including the Marin Fire Station) appears to have PV
modules extending to the ridge.  The one exception has a chimney at
the ridge, but modules on the rest of that installation extend to the
ridge.

http://osfm.fire.ca.gov/training/pdf/photovoltaics/solarphotovoltaicguidelinecover.pdf