November 9, 2024 • 23 mins
Learn essential wildfire preparedness tips for Southern California homeowners as Dean shares advice on fireproofing your property, including strategies for emberproofing, proper venting, and fire-safe landscaping. Get practical insights on safeguarding your home and preparing for fire season before it’s too late.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
KF I AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app
Cam I AM six forty live streaming in h tod
everywhere on the iHeart Radio app. Hey, welcome to home where.
Every week we help you better understand that place where
(00:23):
you live. I am Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer, custom
home builder, custom home designer. Most importantly, today, your guide
to transforming your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. I'll
tell you what I want to do this morning. I
want to talk about just protecting your house, whether it
be ordinary or extraordinary. I want you to have the
(00:45):
chance of transforming your ordinary house into something extraordinary during
wildfire season here in southern California. So we're gonna we
had some other plans for this morning, but I want
to take a little time this morning and talk about
fire hardening your home. Once again, we've done this earlier
in the year. We try to help you through that
(01:08):
as much as we can. But then, of course everybody's
ears and eyes sort of open up when we have
something happening, like what is happening right now the Mountain
fire out in Ventura County and a lot of homes
lost to this fire already. Now hopefully, hopefully the wind
event that really drove it at the beginning has calmed
(01:30):
itself and will remain calm. But and right now, CalFire
reports fourteen percent containment of the Mountain Fire, twenty thousand
plus acres burned and a few hundred homes taken. But
if that changes, then well we know things can change
(01:52):
very very quickly. So we're going to talk wildfire hardening
of your home today, appropriate for anybody who lives up
against open space or within two or three miles of
open space. And of course we're going to take some
calls as we do. And when it comes to calls,
always here on the program, you get to set the agenda.
(02:13):
I'm gonna talk. I'm going to hand out the best
wildfire advice I can give you this morning. You can
call me about anything that's going on with your home,
anything that's got you scratching your head wondering what do
I do next, whether it's wildfire related or not. You
set the agenda and don't be shy, because that's the
way it always is with calls. Regardless of what I've
(02:35):
set for the agenda today, you set the agenda when
it comes to your call, so it can be construction,
diy inside, outside, landscape, hardscape, decor design, whatever the case
may be. Give me a call. The number to reach
me eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three
(02:56):
the numeral two ask Dean eight three to three to
ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. We are
live and ready to roll. Give me a call and
we'll put our heads together, we'll figure and if we
do this all right, we're gonna bring some light into
your morning and we're gonna make you feel glad that
you were here. I promise you, the team is here
(03:17):
for you. Sam is on the board. Good morning Sam,
Good morning Dean. How you doing today? I am well.
I am doing well. And there is our live studio audience.
More on live studio audience because then just a bit
we'll talk about that on the other side of the break.
But I'm gonna give you yet another opportunity to win
some tickets to our House Whisper Holiday Home show, What's
(03:42):
going to be happening on November twenty fourth, Sunday the
twenty fourth at the KFI Studios in Burbank, And you
can be a part of it. More on that. In
just a bit, Producer Lindsey is standing by taking Oh
she's taking calls right now. Look at that. She's busy
on the phone. That number again, eight three three to
(04:02):
ask Dean eight three three two ask dean. Eileen Gonzalez
is at the news desk. Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
How's it going? Uh, I'm going. I'm doing pretty good.
It was. It was a tiring week. I won't uh,
I'm not going to pull any punches. It was a busy, busy,
kind of crazy, wacky week. How about you? Busy, always busy,
(04:25):
same same, Yeah, Well, weekends. It continues on the weekends,
doesn't it It does? Why is that? Well, it's because
we're lucky enough to have these jobs. I do consider
us lucky, don't They don't they know that they could
just the world can just press pause and just just
let us relax a little on the weekends. But no, no,
(04:46):
all right, Eileen, glad that you're here as always. Uh.
Sitting across the table from me, my better half, clearly,
my design partner, the co owner, the co found owner
of House Whisper, and just so happens, my best friend
on planet Earth. Tina is here. Welcome home. How you
(05:08):
doing good? Yeah? That was a loaded good. Yeah. Oh,
there's been a lot going on. Yeah, that's true. There's
been a lot going on. All right, So how about this,
how about we get to it. Yeah, okay, we're going
to hand it some wildfire advice. When all right, on
the other side of the news break, I want to
talk to you about winning some seats at the House
(05:30):
Whisper Holiday home show. We'll talk about that and wildfires
and your calls get fine sharp the House Whisper at
your service. Ah, well, here we are a Saturday morning
live here November ninth, twenty twenty four. We have the
Mountain Fire burning here in southern California, twenty thousand acres
(05:55):
and fourteen percent contained currently. Thankfully, the wind of that
really really drove. It has subsided, and I haven't seen
any indications that there's anticipation of another one coming soon.
But so let's keep our fingers crossed on that. But
(06:15):
a lot of homes lost, a lot of evacuations, a
lot of people affected, and a good amount of acreage
burned from the Mountain fire. And so we are tabling
our previously planned discussion this morning, so that we can
just spend some time talking to you about fire hardening
homes and what you can do. I'm approaching it a
(06:38):
little bit differently because the fire is present right now
then I normally would where we take an extra amount
of time on all of the prep I just basically
want to divide my advice this morning up into two categories. One,
if you have some time, however much time that is,
(06:59):
meaning that you're not being threatened by a wildfire currently.
And two, if you don't have much time when you
find yourself in the situation of facing potential evacuation and
the like, I just want you to hear the full,
well rounded advice that you know what your options are.
(07:19):
So number one, like I've said before many many times
on the programs, if you have some time, you need
to take a look at the orientation of your home
in regards to the open space where wildfires can happen.
And of course, none of this advice is you know,
excludes your home whether or not you're anywhere near a
(07:43):
wildfire open space area, because you know structure fires can happen,
and none of this hurts even if you are embedded
miles and miles into an urban or suburban environment without
a lot of open space. But here in southern California,
there is open space all round us. And it's rare,
actually that you are more than just a handful of
(08:05):
miles away from an open space area. And of course
we've expressed the concern before that we now know embers
flying from those wildfires can travel four miles two to
three miles in good conditions, or I should say in
bad conditions. In the right conditions, I should say, for
an ember to stay lit can fly a long, long distance.
(08:31):
And this is why when you hear about wildfires starting
up and threatening neighborhoods and stuff, that quite often the
first house that begins burning is not even on the
fire line. It's before the fire line actually reaches the
edges of residential properties, because attics are sucking those embers
(08:53):
into their attic open space. And I get asked this
question all the time, why is it dep that houses
are designed for addicts to draw embers into them, And
it's a really, really valid question. It's a question that
I have been asking myself of the building community for
(09:15):
a long long time, and it's one that just an
fyi that I addressed an entire program around earlier this year,
it's been what I don't know, a couple three months
or so. Please go onto the podcast and look for
(09:35):
a New Attic. It's a show on the new Attic.
And I'm not sure if that's exactly the name. Maybe
Tina can look that up and find it for us.
But it's the idea of a conditioned attic space, meaning
that we're including the attic space in the air conditioned
and heated air of the house, and a lot of
(09:57):
benefits to that. Not only is it nice in the
attic because of that, but it's also, I make the argument,
more energy efficient, and when that happens, then we don't
need and we don't use at events at all, zero
at events coming into your attic, which means that you
(10:17):
don't have to worry about embers crawling into your attic
during a wildfire. One of the benefits of that is
the fact that it really fire hardens a home. I
believe that we're going to see in the next decade,
because there already is a trend moving towards conditioned attic spaces,
certainly among our clientele and others. I think in the
(10:41):
next decade you're going to see it become a mainstream
concept right here in southern California, conditioned attic spaces. So
you can go and look that up and I discuss
it in greater details. So find the episode on the
podcast and Tina will have that title force just bit.
But of course, the whole idea here is that the
(11:05):
eighty percent of homes that are ignited as a result
of wildfire activity are not not homes that are on
the fire line, homes that are being literally threatened by
the flames themselves. Oh. There, it is the New Attic
in June, so you'll find it dated June sixteenth. June sixteenth. Yeah,
(11:31):
the New Attic is the show that we did that
on to find out about conditioned attic spaces. So if
you have some time, we need to talk about emberproofing
your existing attic. Okay, assuming that we're not completely remodeling
the attic to become a conditioned space, we need to
(11:52):
talk about emberproofing it. We'll talk about emberproof vents and
what that means. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
on demand from KFI AM six forty PFI AM forty Live,
bringing an HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You have
found home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper. I hope
(12:14):
you do feel like your home here on Saturday mornings
when we are live with you talking about your home
and everything that makes it special. Trans transforming, transforming, Yeah,
transforming ordinary houses into an extraordinary home. That's what we're
all about this morning. We're talking about wildfires and fire
(12:36):
hardening your home. So I've divided my advice up into
two categories. One, if you have some time because you're
not being threatened by a wildfire currently. Two if you
don't have much time, and what you do in those situations.
If you've got time, ember proofing the vents in your attic.
And I already did a big lead up to this,
(12:59):
so the point is those vents that you find, smaller
vents around the eaves of your attic down the eaves
of the roofline. Quite often they are small two inch
holes with mesh over them. There's a number of different
ways that attics can be vented over the years, and
(13:19):
so that's not necessarily the configuration you're gonna find on
your home. But the idea is this, a well vented
attic has low vents for drawing in cooler air and
higher vents up near the ridgeline in order to let
hot air in the attic out. You may have a
gabled roof in which there are large gable vents. A
(13:40):
gable is the big triangle on the side of your
house where the roof comes to an abrupt end, and
you may have a gable vent there. You may have
one on each side, whatever the case may be, where
the vents are in order to fire harden them. If
you live within realistically i would say four miles of
(14:02):
a wildfire zone of an open space zone, then it
would be very very wise, very very wise for you
to invest in some emberproofing materials. Now, whether you just
replace the vents or there are companies that will give
you materials that you can place on the back side
of the vents that you already have in order to emberproof.
(14:24):
And basically what that means is that these materials are
designed to trap the embers as they try and get through.
As they're being sucked in. It's the convection process in
your attic that actually draws them in. It's not like
embers are hunting your house, but your house is very
quietly vacuuming air around it on any given day as
(14:48):
heat rises in the attic. So that's the idea. Brands
that I've recommended before that are still out there doing
a stellar job Vulcan Vents, Brand Guard, vent Embers, out vents,
all cal fire approved, all fantastic materials, different effects, and
so you need to shop it around and find out
(15:11):
which one works best for your situation. Also, if you
have some time, in other words, you're not being threatened currently,
and you've got an older home and you've never changed
out your windows and doors, then consider fire rated windows
and doors, at least the side of the house that
faces the wildlife urban interface the fire zone. Fire Rated
(15:34):
windows and doors simply means that those windows and doors
that face the open space will be switched out to
tempered glass. Now, if you have a sliding glass door
and it's not you know, I mean it's younger than
let's say twenty years old, you have a tempered glass
door there. That's the nature of sliding glass doors for
(15:55):
a long long time. That's been the case, so that
wouldn't need to shift. But the windows are annealed regular
standard glass windows unless your home was built under current
fire codes. And a lot of older homes aren't even
a lot of older homes that already switched out their
windows don't necessarily have tempered glass windows facing the side
(16:19):
of threat for the house for fire. So you know,
obviously this is money. Okay, So we're just talking about
whether or not this is a good investment for you
long term. And this is not something you do in
an emergency, Okay, this is if we've got some time.
And in addition to this, cleaning up your trees, getting
your trees pruned this time of year is a wise
(16:42):
thing to do for the life of the tree. We've
had entire programs. If you want to look back again
in the podcast, find the episodes about when to prune
a tree. Fall is the optimal time to do this.
Cleaning up and cleaning out trees in the fall is
an excellent way of fire hardening your property and then
(17:04):
clearing your defensible zone for those of you who are
pushed up against the open space. A defensible zone is
usually required by the HOA or your local city or
the state. And you know, and I always see eye
rolls on the parts of phoe owners who are like,
I gotta go out there, and I got it pay
to have this thing. Listen. I don't know if you've
(17:26):
ever asked this question before, but I'm gonna ask it
and get you thinking about it. A wall of wildfire
flames can be twenty feet tall on a still day, okay,
when winds are blowing it and exasperating it. Thirty to
forty foot tall walls of flame okay, coming down the
(17:49):
hillside or up the hillside towards your neighborhood, all right,
that wall of flame can pump out well over well
over one thousand degrees of heat. Okay. So here's a question.
Not a lot of people know the answer to how
far away from that wall of flame does a firefighter
need to stand to effectively defend your home from it?
(18:09):
When it's forty feet tall and fifteen hundred degrees Well,
the answer, generally speaking, is three to four times. The
height of the flames is the distance that you need
to stand away from it in order to even begin
to effectively fight it. So let's just be moderate and
say that we've got twenty five foot flames coming up
(18:32):
the hillside. Okay, three to four times. That means one
hundred feet away is the ideal, or I should say,
minimum distance that firefighters want to be away from that
flame in order to defend your home and your neighborhood.
That is what the defensible zone is about. Okay, It's
(18:55):
not just about not having materials that can burn all
the way up to your home. It's about giving room
for the fire department to come in and save your home.
So clear the defensible zone. That should go without saying,
I think all right, when we come back, well, we're
(19:17):
gonna flip over to the other side of that conversation
and talk about what do you do when you find
out that you might be right in the path, you
might be facing evacuation. What if some of these things
that you could have done ahead of time weren't done
ahead of time? What do you do? Then? I've got
some solid advice for you, So go knowwhere your home
(19:39):
with Dean Sharp the house whisper can't pie Dean Sharp
the house whisper, Welcome home. We're talking about wildfire hardening
of your home today, just handing out some advice, pertinent
advice because of the Mountain fire and the fact that
you know it always throws everybody's eyes open to the
fact that oh yeah, oh yeah, it's fire season time,
(20:02):
and every time we have a severe wind event, man,
it comes and it comes fast and hard and heavy,
as the Mountain fire did, destroying several hundred homes, earning
twenty thousand acres. Currently fourteen percent contained according to cal Fire,
and hopefully that's going to grow, assuming that wind events
(20:23):
don't reoccur, you know, creating more problems with the fire.
So we are talking about fire hardening your home, and
I'm dividing it into two sections of advice. The first
which I've already covered if you've got some time, things
like changing out your windows and doors to fire rated
temper glass windows and doors, and ember proofing the events
(20:46):
for your attic, which you know, I know, I sound
like a broken record on for those of you who
have been listening to the show for years and years,
It's true. It's just so necessary. Cleaning up your trees
and clearing the defensible zone. Now we want to turn
to what if you don't have much time, What if
you get caught, you know, with your pants down as
(21:07):
it were, in a fire zone and it's it's happening.
I want to give you that advice, And so I'm
first bit of advice here we're running a little late
on time because I ran a little long on a
couple other segments. So I will start this and then
we'll pick up the other side, and then we are
taking calls. By the way, eight three three two. Ask
(21:28):
dean A three to three the numeral two, ask dean.
If you're on the phone lines, hang tight. I'm coming
to you, I promise. But the very first thing that
you can do if you don't have much time is
number one. Get stuff away from your house before you
have to leave, before you potentially have to evacuate. Move
the junk away from the walls of your house, anything,
(21:52):
anything that could burn, anything that could ignite. Get it
clear away from the house. I don't know how more
so to put that. It is simply really really smart
in terms of just you know, as a designer, I
would tell you just do that permanently and never move
it back. All right, but move stuff away from the house. Secondly,
(22:14):
let's say we haven't ember proofed your vents and you
are potentially inside the two or three mile radius of
a wildfire, whether you've been told to evacuate or not.
If you have your concerns and rightly so, tape them up.
Tape up your vents. I don't care what you expected.
To tape up your vents. Put cardboard over them. I know,
(22:41):
cardboard burns. I'm not talking about the fire line reaching
your house. We're simply talking about protecting your attic from
sucking those vents in duct tape, cardboard, whatever you can find.
Tape up as many of the vents on your attic.
Believe me, your attic is not going to suffer for
a few days or a few hours of having the
vents closed off, especially this time of year, So tape
(23:03):
them up. I don't want vents, I mean, I don't
want embers getting into your attic, so safely. Okay, don't
do any heroic stuff on extension ladders if you're on
a two story house, But if at all possible, just
seal those vents up, even temporarily, so you don't have
that worry. And then, finally, I want to recommend again
(23:24):
a product. I'm going to do this on the other
side of the break Firejel, I wish every one of
you listening to me right now had fire gel sitting
in your garage. Some of you are like, what is Firejel,
What does it do? We'll talk about that right after
Eileen Gonzalez gives us the news. You're listening to Home
(23:46):
with Dean Sharp The House Whisper on KFI. You're listening
to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM
six forty
KF I AM six forty. You're listening to Dean Sharp,
the House Whisper on demand on the iHeart Radio app
Cam I AM six forty live streaming in h tod
everywhere on the iHeart Radio app. Hey, welcome to home where.
Every week we help you better understand that place where
(00:23):
you live. I am Dean Sharp, the house Whisperer, custom
home builder, custom home designer. Most importantly, today, your guide
to transforming your ordinary house into an extraordinary home. I'll
tell you what I want to do this morning. I
want to talk about just protecting your house, whether it
be ordinary or extraordinary. I want you to have the
(00:45):
chance of transforming your ordinary house into something extraordinary during
wildfire season here in southern California. So we're gonna we
had some other plans for this morning, but I want
to take a little time this morning and talk about
fire hardening your home. Once again, we've done this earlier
in the year. We try to help you through that
(01:08):
as much as we can. But then, of course everybody's
ears and eyes sort of open up when we have
something happening, like what is happening right now the Mountain
fire out in Ventura County and a lot of homes
lost to this fire already. Now hopefully, hopefully the wind
event that really drove it at the beginning has calmed
(01:30):
itself and will remain calm. But and right now, CalFire
reports fourteen percent containment of the Mountain Fire, twenty thousand
plus acres burned and a few hundred homes taken. But
if that changes, then well we know things can change
(01:52):
very very quickly. So we're going to talk wildfire hardening
of your home today, appropriate for anybody who lives up
against open space or within two or three miles of
open space. And of course we're going to take some
calls as we do. And when it comes to calls,
always here on the program, you get to set the agenda.
(02:13):
I'm gonna talk. I'm going to hand out the best
wildfire advice I can give you this morning. You can
call me about anything that's going on with your home,
anything that's got you scratching your head wondering what do
I do next, whether it's wildfire related or not. You
set the agenda and don't be shy, because that's the
way it always is with calls. Regardless of what I've
(02:35):
set for the agenda today, you set the agenda when
it comes to your call, so it can be construction,
diy inside, outside, landscape, hardscape, decor design, whatever the case
may be. Give me a call. The number to reach
me eight three three two. Ask Dean eight three three
(02:56):
the numeral two ask Dean eight three to three to
ask Dean. The phone lines are open now. We are
live and ready to roll. Give me a call and
we'll put our heads together, we'll figure and if we
do this all right, we're gonna bring some light into
your morning and we're gonna make you feel glad that
you were here. I promise you, the team is here
(03:17):
for you. Sam is on the board. Good morning Sam,
Good morning Dean. How you doing today? I am well.
I am doing well. And there is our live studio audience.
More on live studio audience because then just a bit
we'll talk about that on the other side of the break.
But I'm gonna give you yet another opportunity to win
some tickets to our House Whisper Holiday Home show, What's
(03:42):
going to be happening on November twenty fourth, Sunday the
twenty fourth at the KFI Studios in Burbank, And you
can be a part of it. More on that. In
just a bit, Producer Lindsey is standing by taking Oh
she's taking calls right now. Look at that. She's busy
on the phone. That number again, eight three three to
(04:02):
ask Dean eight three three two ask dean. Eileen Gonzalez
is at the news desk. Good morning, Eileen, Good morning Dean.
How's it going? Uh, I'm going. I'm doing pretty good.
It was. It was a tiring week. I won't uh,
I'm not going to pull any punches. It was a busy, busy,
kind of crazy, wacky week. How about you? Busy, always busy,
(04:25):
same same, Yeah, Well, weekends. It continues on the weekends,
doesn't it It does? Why is that? Well, it's because
we're lucky enough to have these jobs. I do consider
us lucky, don't They don't they know that they could
just the world can just press pause and just just
let us relax a little on the weekends. But no, no,
(04:46):
all right, Eileen, glad that you're here as always. Uh.
Sitting across the table from me, my better half, clearly,
my design partner, the co owner, the co found owner
of House Whisper, and just so happens, my best friend
on planet Earth. Tina is here. Welcome home. How you
(05:08):
doing good? Yeah? That was a loaded good. Yeah. Oh,
there's been a lot going on. Yeah, that's true. There's
been a lot going on. All right, So how about this,
how about we get to it. Yeah, okay, we're going
to hand it some wildfire advice. When all right, on
the other side of the news break, I want to
talk to you about winning some seats at the House
(05:30):
Whisper Holiday home show. We'll talk about that and wildfires
and your calls get fine sharp the House Whisper at
your service. Ah, well, here we are a Saturday morning
live here November ninth, twenty twenty four. We have the
Mountain Fire burning here in southern California, twenty thousand acres
(05:55):
and fourteen percent contained currently. Thankfully, the wind of that
really really drove. It has subsided, and I haven't seen
any indications that there's anticipation of another one coming soon.
But so let's keep our fingers crossed on that. But
(06:15):
a lot of homes lost, a lot of evacuations, a
lot of people affected, and a good amount of acreage
burned from the Mountain fire. And so we are tabling
our previously planned discussion this morning, so that we can
just spend some time talking to you about fire hardening
homes and what you can do. I'm approaching it a
(06:38):
little bit differently because the fire is present right now
then I normally would where we take an extra amount
of time on all of the prep I just basically
want to divide my advice this morning up into two categories. One,
if you have some time, however much time that is,
(06:59):
meaning that you're not being threatened by a wildfire currently.
And two, if you don't have much time when you
find yourself in the situation of facing potential evacuation and
the like, I just want you to hear the full,
well rounded advice that you know what your options are.
(07:19):
So number one, like I've said before many many times
on the programs, if you have some time, you need
to take a look at the orientation of your home
in regards to the open space where wildfires can happen.
And of course, none of this advice is you know,
excludes your home whether or not you're anywhere near a
(07:43):
wildfire open space area, because you know structure fires can happen,
and none of this hurts even if you are embedded
miles and miles into an urban or suburban environment without
a lot of open space. But here in southern California,
there is open space all round us. And it's rare,
actually that you are more than just a handful of
(08:05):
miles away from an open space area. And of course
we've expressed the concern before that we now know embers
flying from those wildfires can travel four miles two to
three miles in good conditions, or I should say in
bad conditions. In the right conditions, I should say, for
an ember to stay lit can fly a long, long distance.
(08:31):
And this is why when you hear about wildfires starting
up and threatening neighborhoods and stuff, that quite often the
first house that begins burning is not even on the
fire line. It's before the fire line actually reaches the
edges of residential properties, because attics are sucking those embers
(08:53):
into their attic open space. And I get asked this
question all the time, why is it dep that houses
are designed for addicts to draw embers into them, And
it's a really, really valid question. It's a question that
I have been asking myself of the building community for
(09:15):
a long long time, and it's one that just an
fyi that I addressed an entire program around earlier this year,
it's been what I don't know, a couple three months
or so. Please go onto the podcast and look for
(09:35):
a New Attic. It's a show on the new Attic.
And I'm not sure if that's exactly the name. Maybe
Tina can look that up and find it for us.
But it's the idea of a conditioned attic space, meaning
that we're including the attic space in the air conditioned
and heated air of the house, and a lot of
(09:57):
benefits to that. Not only is it nice in the
attic because of that, but it's also, I make the argument,
more energy efficient, and when that happens, then we don't
need and we don't use at events at all, zero
at events coming into your attic, which means that you
(10:17):
don't have to worry about embers crawling into your attic
during a wildfire. One of the benefits of that is
the fact that it really fire hardens a home. I
believe that we're going to see in the next decade,
because there already is a trend moving towards conditioned attic spaces,
certainly among our clientele and others. I think in the
(10:41):
next decade you're going to see it become a mainstream
concept right here in southern California, conditioned attic spaces. So
you can go and look that up and I discuss
it in greater details. So find the episode on the
podcast and Tina will have that title force just bit.
But of course, the whole idea here is that the
(11:05):
eighty percent of homes that are ignited as a result
of wildfire activity are not not homes that are on
the fire line, homes that are being literally threatened by
the flames themselves. Oh. There, it is the New Attic
in June, so you'll find it dated June sixteenth. June sixteenth. Yeah,
(11:31):
the New Attic is the show that we did that
on to find out about conditioned attic spaces. So if
you have some time, we need to talk about emberproofing
your existing attic. Okay, assuming that we're not completely remodeling
the attic to become a conditioned space, we need to
(11:52):
talk about emberproofing it. We'll talk about emberproof vents and
what that means. You're listening to Home with Dean Sharp
on demand from KFI AM six forty PFI AM forty Live,
bringing an HD everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You have
found home with Dean Sharp the house Whisper. I hope
(12:14):
you do feel like your home here on Saturday mornings
when we are live with you talking about your home
and everything that makes it special. Trans transforming, transforming, Yeah,
transforming ordinary houses into an extraordinary home. That's what we're
all about this morning. We're talking about wildfires and fire
(12:36):
hardening your home. So I've divided my advice up into
two categories. One, if you have some time because you're
not being threatened by a wildfire currently. Two if you
don't have much time, and what you do in those situations.
If you've got time, ember proofing the vents in your attic.
And I already did a big lead up to this,
(12:59):
so the point is those vents that you find, smaller
vents around the eaves of your attic down the eaves
of the roofline. Quite often they are small two inch
holes with mesh over them. There's a number of different
ways that attics can be vented over the years, and
(13:19):
so that's not necessarily the configuration you're gonna find on
your home. But the idea is this, a well vented
attic has low vents for drawing in cooler air and
higher vents up near the ridgeline in order to let
hot air in the attic out. You may have a
gabled roof in which there are large gable vents. A
(13:40):
gable is the big triangle on the side of your
house where the roof comes to an abrupt end, and
you may have a gable vent there. You may have
one on each side, whatever the case may be, where
the vents are in order to fire harden them. If
you live within realistically i would say four miles of
(14:02):
a wildfire zone of an open space zone, then it
would be very very wise, very very wise for you
to invest in some emberproofing materials. Now, whether you just
replace the vents or there are companies that will give
you materials that you can place on the back side
of the vents that you already have in order to emberproof.
(14:24):
And basically what that means is that these materials are
designed to trap the embers as they try and get through.
As they're being sucked in. It's the convection process in
your attic that actually draws them in. It's not like
embers are hunting your house, but your house is very
quietly vacuuming air around it on any given day as
(14:48):
heat rises in the attic. So that's the idea. Brands
that I've recommended before that are still out there doing
a stellar job Vulcan Vents, Brand Guard, vent Embers, out vents,
all cal fire approved, all fantastic materials, different effects, and
so you need to shop it around and find out
(15:11):
which one works best for your situation. Also, if you
have some time, in other words, you're not being threatened currently,
and you've got an older home and you've never changed
out your windows and doors, then consider fire rated windows
and doors, at least the side of the house that
faces the wildlife urban interface the fire zone. Fire Rated
(15:34):
windows and doors simply means that those windows and doors
that face the open space will be switched out to
tempered glass. Now, if you have a sliding glass door
and it's not you know, I mean it's younger than
let's say twenty years old, you have a tempered glass
door there. That's the nature of sliding glass doors for
(15:55):
a long long time. That's been the case, so that
wouldn't need to shift. But the windows are annealed regular
standard glass windows unless your home was built under current
fire codes. And a lot of older homes aren't even
a lot of older homes that already switched out their
windows don't necessarily have tempered glass windows facing the side
(16:19):
of threat for the house for fire. So you know,
obviously this is money. Okay, So we're just talking about
whether or not this is a good investment for you
long term. And this is not something you do in
an emergency, Okay, this is if we've got some time.
And in addition to this, cleaning up your trees, getting
your trees pruned this time of year is a wise
(16:42):
thing to do for the life of the tree. We've
had entire programs. If you want to look back again
in the podcast, find the episodes about when to prune
a tree. Fall is the optimal time to do this.
Cleaning up and cleaning out trees in the fall is
an excellent way of fire hardening your property and then
(17:04):
clearing your defensible zone for those of you who are
pushed up against the open space. A defensible zone is
usually required by the HOA or your local city or
the state. And you know, and I always see eye
rolls on the parts of phoe owners who are like,
I gotta go out there, and I got it pay
to have this thing. Listen. I don't know if you've
(17:26):
ever asked this question before, but I'm gonna ask it
and get you thinking about it. A wall of wildfire
flames can be twenty feet tall on a still day, okay,
when winds are blowing it and exasperating it. Thirty to
forty foot tall walls of flame okay, coming down the
(17:49):
hillside or up the hillside towards your neighborhood, all right,
that wall of flame can pump out well over well
over one thousand degrees of heat. Okay. So here's a question.
Not a lot of people know the answer to how
far away from that wall of flame does a firefighter
need to stand to effectively defend your home from it?
(18:09):
When it's forty feet tall and fifteen hundred degrees Well,
the answer, generally speaking, is three to four times. The
height of the flames is the distance that you need
to stand away from it in order to even begin
to effectively fight it. So let's just be moderate and
say that we've got twenty five foot flames coming up
(18:32):
the hillside. Okay, three to four times. That means one
hundred feet away is the ideal, or I should say,
minimum distance that firefighters want to be away from that
flame in order to defend your home and your neighborhood.
That is what the defensible zone is about. Okay, It's
(18:55):
not just about not having materials that can burn all
the way up to your home. It's about giving room
for the fire department to come in and save your home.
So clear the defensible zone. That should go without saying,
I think all right, when we come back, well, we're
(19:17):
gonna flip over to the other side of that conversation
and talk about what do you do when you find
out that you might be right in the path, you
might be facing evacuation. What if some of these things
that you could have done ahead of time weren't done
ahead of time? What do you do? Then? I've got
some solid advice for you, So go knowwhere your home
(19:39):
with Dean Sharp the house whisper can't pie Dean Sharp
the house whisper, Welcome home. We're talking about wildfire hardening
of your home today, just handing out some advice, pertinent
advice because of the Mountain fire and the fact that
you know it always throws everybody's eyes open to the
fact that oh yeah, oh yeah, it's fire season time,
(20:02):
and every time we have a severe wind event, man,
it comes and it comes fast and hard and heavy,
as the Mountain fire did, destroying several hundred homes, earning
twenty thousand acres. Currently fourteen percent contained according to cal Fire,
and hopefully that's going to grow, assuming that wind events
(20:23):
don't reoccur, you know, creating more problems with the fire.
So we are talking about fire hardening your home, and
I'm dividing it into two sections of advice. The first
which I've already covered if you've got some time, things
like changing out your windows and doors to fire rated
temper glass windows and doors, and ember proofing the events
(20:46):
for your attic, which you know, I know, I sound
like a broken record on for those of you who
have been listening to the show for years and years,
It's true. It's just so necessary. Cleaning up your trees
and clearing the defensible zone. Now we want to turn
to what if you don't have much time, What if
you get caught, you know, with your pants down as
(21:07):
it were, in a fire zone and it's it's happening.
I want to give you that advice, And so I'm
first bit of advice here we're running a little late
on time because I ran a little long on a
couple other segments. So I will start this and then
we'll pick up the other side, and then we are
taking calls. By the way, eight three three two. Ask
(21:28):
dean A three to three the numeral two, ask dean.
If you're on the phone lines, hang tight. I'm coming
to you, I promise. But the very first thing that
you can do if you don't have much time is
number one. Get stuff away from your house before you
have to leave, before you potentially have to evacuate. Move
the junk away from the walls of your house, anything,
(21:52):
anything that could burn, anything that could ignite. Get it
clear away from the house. I don't know how more
so to put that. It is simply really really smart
in terms of just you know, as a designer, I
would tell you just do that permanently and never move
it back. All right, but move stuff away from the house. Secondly,
(22:14):
let's say we haven't ember proofed your vents and you
are potentially inside the two or three mile radius of
a wildfire, whether you've been told to evacuate or not.
If you have your concerns and rightly so, tape them up.
Tape up your vents. I don't care what you expected.
To tape up your vents. Put cardboard over them. I know,
(22:41):
cardboard burns. I'm not talking about the fire line reaching
your house. We're simply talking about protecting your attic from
sucking those vents in duct tape, cardboard, whatever you can find.
Tape up as many of the vents on your attic.
Believe me, your attic is not going to suffer for
a few days or a few hours of having the
vents closed off, especially this time of year, So tape
(23:03):
them up. I don't want vents, I mean, I don't
want embers getting into your attic, so safely. Okay, don't
do any heroic stuff on extension ladders if you're on
a two story house, But if at all possible, just
seal those vents up, even temporarily, so you don't have
that worry. And then, finally, I want to recommend again
(23:24):
a product. I'm going to do this on the other
side of the break Firejel, I wish every one of
you listening to me right now had fire gel sitting
in your garage. Some of you are like, what is Firejel,
What does it do? We'll talk about that right after
Eileen Gonzalez gives us the news. You're listening to Home
(23:46):
with Dean Sharp The House Whisper on KFI. You're listening
to Home with Dean Sharp on demand from KFI AM
six forty
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