Cooper Street Apartments | 20 Cooper St. | Downtown Waltham

[dwash59]

Chris Shannon mentioning that the contractor was also responsible for a fire at Marina Bay in Quincy in June:

https://twitter.com/ChrisShannonL67/status/889120780944109570

Someone at Callahan got the project off their site quickly???

Not listed currently: http://callahan-inc.com/projects/residential-multifamily/

But listed 3 weeks ago (last archive.org capture) https://web.archive.org/web/20170702041318/http://callahan-inc.com/projects/residential-multifamily/

 

[393b40]

Get ready for the calls to ban large scale wood frame construction.

 

[DAVE]

better that than an occupied building.

 

[tysmith95]

Get ready for the calls to ban large scale wood frame construction.

Yay, lets make housing even more unaffordable in the Boston region.

 

[TomOfBoston]

Yay, lets make housing even more unaffordable in the Boston region.

There have been many cases of new, fully occupied wood frame apartment buildings burning to the ground.

Edgewater, NJ:
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/2015/01/edgewater_fire_by_the_numbers_hundreds_responded_1.html
That same complex burned while under construction a few years earlier:
http://www.nj.com/bergen/index.ssf/...plex_destroyed_by_flames_for_second_time.html

There were smaller buildings destroyed in Peabody and Georgetown, MA.

All these buildings had activated sprinklers. What is needed in these large wood frame buildings is mandatory fire walls between every X number of units.

 

[Archibald "Harry" Tuttle]

What is needed in these large wood frame buildings is mandatory fire walls between every X number of units.

Let's not overreact. Building size is already limited per building codes based on their risk and hazard level. Above a certain threshold fire walls are required, and apartment units are always separated by fire-rated assemblies. No, light wood frame construction is not the most fire-resistant. However, modern building codes in the U.S. have a very good track record at preventing loss of life in fires in new construction. We should learn from these types of fires and, if necessary, make appropriate changes to codes. But, taking reactionary measures with huge cost implications is one of the worst things you could do in the midst of a statewide housing shortage.

 

[TomOfBoston]

Let's not overreact. Building size is already limited per building codes based on their risk and hazard level. Above a certain threshold fire walls are required, and apartment units are always separated by fire-rated assemblies. No, light wood frame construction is not the most fire-resistant. However, modern building codes in the U.S. have a very good track record at preventing loss of life in fires in new construction. We should learn from these types of fires and, if necessary, make appropriate changes to codes. But, taking reactionary measures with huge cost implications is one of the worst things you could do in the midst of a statewide housing shortage.

So let's build flimsy buildings that allow residents to escape before the apartment building burns to the ground. and possible takes neighboring buildings with it, as happened in Edgewater, NJ.

 

[WormtownNative]

So let's build flimsy buildings that barely allow residents to escape before the apartment building burns to the ground. and possible takes neighboring buildings with it, as happened in Edgewater, NJ.

FTFY

Seriously though, if all this wood construction was solid wood and not trusses or engineered lumber, it would buy the occupants SIGNIFICANTLY more time to escape. UL did testing back in 2009 (and variations of it are still ongoing) as part of their fire safety research, and found *unprotected* engineered lumber fails at 6 minutes, vs 20 minutes for 2x10's ("legacy construction").

Obviously fully finished buildings are not unprotected, you have sprinklers, drywall. In UL's experiments, adding a non-fire rated generic ½ inch thick gypsum board increased the time to collapse in engineered lumber assemblies to 27 minutes, and legacy construction (2x10's) to 44 minutes.

The unprotected legacy construction (assembly 1) collapsed at approximately 19 minutes as compared to six minutes for the unprotected lightweight construction (assembly 2)
• Adding a non-fire rated, generic ½ inch thick gypsum board increased the time to collapse for legacy construction (assembly 3) to 44 minutes, an
improvement of 25 minutes
• For modern construction (assembly 4), the installation of ½ inch gypsum
wallboard increased the time to collapse to approximately 27 minutes, an
improvement of 21 minutes

Of particular interest is the time to collapse of very familiar traditional construction, dimensional sawn cut lumber protected by a
metal lath / plaster ceiling (assembly 8). This assembly demonstrated the longest time — nearly 80 minutes — to structural collapse.

Full results in this issue of Fire & Security Authority.

 

[WormtownNative]

Yay, lets make housing even more unaffordable in the Boston region.

Forgive me for the opposing opinion, but I would rather people live in a safe building than in one that will go up like matchsticks.

These fires may also help illustrate the need for home fire sprinklers (because new single families also often use the same engineered lumber assemblies) and allow the fire service to get the push they need to win the statehouse over in mandating them.

 

[JeffDowntown]

Forgive me for the opposing opinion, but I would rather people live in a safe building than in one that will go up like matchsticks.

These fires may also help illustrate the need for home fire sprinklers (because new single families also often use the same engineered lumber assemblies) and allow the fire service to get the push they need to win the statehouse over in mandating them.

I am all in favor of making the building code stricter, particularly better passive safety (more firewalls; higher fire rating) in larger buildings. I never like safety that depends on active systems, because active systems fail due to lack of maintenance, which happens all the time.

I have a suspicion that current 5 over 1 practices may get reigned in, though, by the building industry. Particularly construction insurance actuarial assessments must be catching up with the fire trap effect of nearly complete construction before fire suppression systems go active. Construction insurance rates should be rising a lot soon. I mean these recent fires are huge losses of virtually complete buildings!

Note that a big insurance rate jump could then have the industry behind code changes, as they will need the code updates and testing info to get the rates back down.

 

[WormtownNative]

I am all in favor of making the building code stricter, particularly better passive safety (more firewalls; higher fire rating) in larger buildings. I never like safety that depends on active systems, because active systems fail due to lack of maintenance, which happens all the time.

I have a suspicion that current 5 over 1 practices may get reigned in, though, by the building industry. Particularly construction insurance actuarial assessments must be catching up with the fire trap effect of nearly complete construction before fire suppression systems go active. Construction insurance rates should be rising a lot soon. I mean these recent fires are huge losses of virtually complete buildings!

Note that a big insurance rate jump could then have the industry behind code changes, as they will need the code updates and testing info to get the rates back down.

Eh, home sprinklers aren't nearly as complex as commercial systems - they use the domestic water supply for one.

Getting back on topic though, I agree with you that the only way things will change in the construction industry in regards to fire protection will be through insurance.

 

[BostonDrew]

There's an aerial video of what the site looked like before the fire as of the beginning of June: http://www.nbcboston.com/on-air/as-...partment-Complex-Prior-to-Fire-436124503.html

I had no idea how big this project was! And there really looks to be very little left standing from what I can see in the news coverage post fire.

 

[TomOfBoston]

There's an aerial video of what the site looked like before the fire as of the beginning of June: http://www.nbcboston.com/on-air/as-...partment-Complex-Prior-to-Fire-436124503.html

I had no idea how big this project was! And there really looks to be very little left standing from what I can see in the news coverage post fire.

So it was one large building, not 5 separate buildings as the news coverage stated. Again, there were no firewalls to segment this sprawling building?

Was the garage built for the complex or did it already exist? No wonder it was scorched, the building was right adjacent to it.

 

[cca]

(blinks and nods)

cca

 

[Beton Brut]

I find it hilarious that the concrete parking structure is still standing but all elements meant for human habitation look like the contents of a dive bar ashtray.

 

[WormtownNative]

I find it hilarious that the concrete parking structure is still standing but all elements meant for human habitation look like the contents of a dive bar ashtray.

Probably has something to do with the fact that concrete is inflammable, unlike wood.

That said, the contents of the garage were burning - I believe a couple of the aerial images showed a couple cars on the roof.

 

[JumboBuc]

Probably has something to do with the fact that concrete is inflammable, unlike wood.

That said, the contents of the garage were burning - I believe a couple of the aerial images showed a couple cars on the roof.

"Inflammable" means "flammable". They're the same thing.

 

[CSTH]

Construction insurance rates should be rising a lot soon. I mean these recent fires are huge losses of virtually complete buildings!

Note that a big insurance rate jump could then have the industry behind code changes, as they will need the code updates and testing info to get the rates back down.

This seems right. The insurers will quickly price in the actual cost of the risk, and the codes will follow.

Also - and this is pure speculation just for fun - I wonder if there are 'temporary' active measures and monitoring that could be implemented during the construction phase to mitigate the risk of these kinds of losses. Things like thermal detection hard-wired to to a dispatcher, or very agressive materials management (like an FTE whose only job is to walk around and clean up risks), or even temporary external sprinkler installations - like what they do at lumber yards, big irrigation style sprinklers that could be mounted on the ground outside the building footprint (or on cheap & light metal towers) during the construction phase and triggered by remote thermal detectors etc --- anyway seems like there might be room for some process and system innovation here given the value at risk...

...naturally you'd need several such systems / processes complementing eachother and linked to the phase of construction (e.g. pre / post enclosure..)...but the bottom line is that it seems to me that there are likely other scenarios beyond 'status quo' and 'ban this method'....

 

[bigpicture7]

^ Interesting ideas: many of which are highly similar to what's put in place when a large aircraft is in for maintenance - especially if it is to remain partially fueled.

The set of rules creates a culture of vigilance: constantly cleaning up, scanning for and removing FOD, checking chemicals back into inventory-controlled chemical cabinets...even tools are often inventoried and checked in/out...
(and not to mention the foam deluge fire suppression systems overhead).

 

[CSTH]

Also - just going to leave this here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N-eH4GbbJg

Note that this NOT FROM THE WALTHAM FIRE - its a few years old and in Houston