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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 16, 2018 - 04:46pm PT
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Its tough for politicians pandering for campaign funding from voters and special interests alike. But of course its also so easy for us voters to blame the politicians.
At the heart of it all, we get the government we elect. The market will out, eventually.
Hopefully the highest risk counties will lead the way with building codes.
Sure, there are a lot of reasons we are in the fix we are in and our politics leave a lot to be desired.
Better building codes can surely help.
I'm not sure I follow your comment about the market. Politicians look keen to keep the market forces out because home owners don't want to face up to the actual cost of where they live.
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TLP
climber
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Aug 16, 2018 - 04:55pm PT
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August, your point is excellent but focusing on the wrong peril (fire), which is so unpredictable. In fact, the majority of the lost homes in these attention-getting fires result from a basically urban fire spread - house to house, sometimes even leaving green vegetation nearby or even in between the destroyed houses. Look at aerials of the Waldo Fire, Coffey Park, etc, etc, and you will see. The number of lost houses that are actually in the WUI, where the jacked up insurance rates would be applied, is relatively small. It's a certainty the insurance industry would not price accordingly. They'll hammer the smaller number of policy holders hard, because they can.
The other issue is, once there's a fire, the fire risk to remaining or rebuilt structures is greatly reduced by the minimal fuel load for 5, 10, 20 years. Will those rates go way back down as they should? Not likely.
How about this principle starts and gets all the kinks worked out with an extremely predictable hazard, flooding. In contrast to fires, locations that have flooded once are nearly certain to flood again, just a matter of how soon. Our floodplain maps aren't that good, and don't account for development and its impervious cover, but they're still WAY more accurate than fire risk mapping. Yet all taxpayers, not just other policyholders, are subsidizing ill advised coastal and floodplain development. We know the numbers, we know the risk with very high degree of accuracy and return interval, but here we are, still, insurance rates for sure-to-flood development are still priced at a tiny fraction of what they should be. Fix that one first, then let's talk about fire insurance, tornado, whatever. Until that, just stuff the idea in the waste bin, it doesn't deserve to go anywhere.
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Aug 16, 2018 - 10:04pm PT
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I don't see why other insurance payers should subsidize someone living in a high risk area.
I didn't know that they were. Why would insurance rates in fire-prone areas be subsidized? And by whom? Is there some nanny-state law mandating this? I would think the insurance companies would charge the appropriate rate for the actual risk. Otherwise, they would not be in business for very long.
I believe that Cal-Fire already charges a fee to CA homeowners who live in high risk areas. Probably not enough to cover their costs, though.
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TLP
climber
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Aug 16, 2018 - 10:05pm PT
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The powers that be (damn tree huggers and loggers both) have made it nearly impossible to effectively manage hazardous fuels in national foreats.
Sorry, that's complete horse manure. Neither "group" has posed any significant impediment to genuine fuels management projects, which have been carried out on a large scale in national forests and elsewhere. The problem is that the scale needs to be even 100X or 10000X more than has been done to date, and that's really expensive.
Sales of large-caliber timber masquerading as management of hazardous fuels, that's another matter. But those projects do exactly zero for fuels management or fire risk reduction.
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Aug 16, 2018 - 10:45pm PT
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Timber sales need to be paid not in cash but in supervised thinning work.
I believe they do that in certain areas of northern Arizona.
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cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
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Aug 17, 2018 - 11:01am PT
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precast concrete = possible deathtrap in an earthquake...
fire, flood, or earthquake = pick one and live with it in california!
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2018 - 12:12pm PT
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August, your point is excellent but focusing on the wrong peril (fire), which is so unpredictable. In fact, the majority of the lost homes in these attention-getting fires result from a basically urban fire spread - house to house, sometimes even leaving green vegetation nearby or even in between the destroyed houses. Look at aerials of the Waldo Fire, Coffey Park, etc, etc, and you will see. The number of lost houses that are actually in the WUI, where the jacked up insurance rates would be applied, is relatively small. It's a certainty the insurance industry would not price accordingly. They'll hammer the smaller number of policy holders hard, because they can.
In the absence of state laws that prevent it, why wouldn't the insurance companies take urban fire spread into account. I would think that houses in a place like Redding, that is surrounded by forests, would have a higher fire risk than a place like Davis, surrounded by farmland.
The actuaries are pretty good at crunching the numbers. I don't think setting insurance companies free are going to save us, but if people in the urban center of small towns surrounded by forest/shrub start seeing their fire rates go up, maybe the community would start taking fire prevention for the entire community more seriously. Including things like clearing forest next to the town and more serious building codes.
And in addition to more serious building codes for new structures, CA should think through what would be cost effective as far as requiring retro-fitting of existing structures.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2018 - 12:17pm PT
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Insurance companies will bone you raw given the chance don’t give them the chance.
I don't have any great love of the insurance industry. Documenting what you have is certainly a good idea.
But, again, one of the main points for why I started this thread:
The insurance industry is probably better placed to calculate the future costs of disasters made worse by climate change, than anybody else. (They are interested in selling policies, not identity politics, and they have a really, really big financial stake in getting the numbers correct)
Unless the insurance industry is prevented from doing that by legislatures that don't want voters to have to face up to reality.
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Aug 17, 2018 - 12:54pm PT
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precast concrete = possible deathtrap in an earthquake...
Not even close. Precast structures are designed by licensed civil/structural engineers to seismic code. This is one of the reasons why it is so expensive.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Aug 17, 2018 - 12:58pm PT
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Wait until one of these rain bombs hits a 80,000 acre fire scar.
Welcome to the new normal.
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cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
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Aug 17, 2018 - 01:20pm PT
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Not even close. Precast structures are designed by licensed civil/structural engineers to seismic code. This is one of the reasons why it is so expensive
Sounds affordable for single family homes!
Also... they don't always work under seismic loading, even when new and built to code. I'm trying to now imagine how that would work with thousands (millions?) of homes where half of them are DIY, unpermitted, etc...
Are there cheap, precast kit homes that meet seismic code? Does that exist? Or is this a "business opportunity"?
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Brandon-
climber
The Granite State.
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Aug 17, 2018 - 02:57pm PT
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Really? Nobody is familiar with ICF’s?
Super strong, easily adaptable (as I said earlier) not cost probihitive. No, it’s not precast, but it’s concrete that’s quite thick and obviously there’s rebar helping join everything. My neighbor built one and it looks like a traditional New England home but it performs like a LEED platinum certified home. We don’t have the fire or earthquake danger here thankfully, but this building style is good to go in both of those climates. Worth a look.
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cleo
Social climber
wherever you go, there you are
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Aug 17, 2018 - 04:22pm PT
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so reinforced concrete is being sold as precast or building block forms, for residential homes?
I'm genuinely curious - if it is a) affordable b) easy to construct (easy for existing contractors to adapt to), and c) seismically safe, it could be a good solution for new homes out near the big burn.
home construction is already expensive enough in california, so... affordability might be the biggest obstacle.
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cragnshag
Social climber
san joser
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Aug 17, 2018 - 07:42pm PT
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I work in precast, but live in a wood house. It's just economics. I'd rather live in a concrete house, but I can't afford it. Timber construction is just so much cheaper and easier.
Many companies have tried to market modular precast homes, but they are simply more expensive, so it has never taken off as a common building material for single family homes. Architectural precast is a good solution for large construction projects (high rise towers, hospitals, etc.) due to repetition, almost no maintenance, aesthetics, and longevity.
One of these days, I'd like to design and build a precast home, but probably not until the kids are on their own and I have time and money to spare.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2018 - 08:44pm PT
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I'm genuinely curious - if it is a) affordable b) easy to construct (easy for existing contractors to adapt to), and c) seismically safe, it could be a good solution for new homes out near the big burn.
This country is stuck on only building stick houses because that is what contractors building [relatively] cheap houses do.
Not all countries do that. Germany doesn't build residential housing using wood.
There would be upfront cost, but if CA made changes to the building code that resulted in a significant number of non-wood houses being built, costs would drop, a lot.
Once upon a time, wind turbines and solar panels were un-economic (without subsidies).
It is all about economy of scales.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 17, 2018 - 08:48pm PT
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Wait until one of these rain bombs hits a 80,000 acre fire scar.
Welcome to the new normal.
Yea, but you better enjoy the new normal why you can.
In 10~15 years, our current "normal" will be the good old days and people will be moaning about the "new normal".
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rincon
climber
Coarsegold
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Aug 17, 2018 - 08:59pm PT
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Craziest video I have seen of the Carr fire tornado and waterspout.
That's the Colorado river.
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August West
Trad climber
Where the wind blows strange
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 22, 2018 - 11:31pm PT
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Buried inside of the commentary about the bill concerning PG&E liability for fire, I saw that a bill was also signed regarding home owner's fire insurance in high risk areas.
I tried to find a good summary of what it does and doesn't do, but no success.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Sep 23, 2018 - 05:27am PT
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Attempts to repeal the law of supply and demand will probably continue as long as people have governments. They usually work about as well as attempts to repeal the law of gravity. Sad to say, California is not unique in its contribution of data on this issue.
John
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