I've just purchased a house in Brooklyn, NY and was told by my engineer that we could not legally put in a wood deck attached to the house because you are not allowed to use flammable materials on the outside of the house. Any recommendations on what one might use instead?
Steel and concrete come to mind. Many porches have been built that way.
You may want to check out the new composite materials. This is from the Trex web page.
Do building inspectors approve Trex decking and railing? Trex products have been approved for use in residential and commercial installations throughout North America. Trex decking has received a listing with ICBO (Report ICBO ES ER-5747) and the National Evaluation Service (Report NER-508) which covers BOCA and SBCCI. Trex has also been evaluated for use in Canada by the Canadian Construction Materials Centre. Please see Evaluation report 13125-R
Hop on Sunrise Highway, find a few marinas with metal docks, and ask where they got the materials locally. You might find some dock construction companies who've already addressed needs like yours. At the very least, you'll find a nice seafood lunch. :-)
The only drawbacks I can see with metal dock material are noise (when it rains), and the flooring getting hot to the touch. Both could could be remedied by rolling out some outdoor carpet at appropriate times.
What about all those wood windows, wood doors and tar and shingle roofs and wood fences, what does your Atty say about that
Page and paragraph please. I would like to read that in the building code
Just a small correction- wood is combustable, not flammable. I think I would question an engineer who said otherwise.
In NYC you may not use wood on rooftops because it's combustable. Detached homes? No problem.
Wow......... There must be a lot of drunks using bar-b-que grills in your town .
You can always get a welder to build a deck out of diamond plate and I-beams. They can build it in their shop and set it on your lawn with a piece of heavy equipment.
Then what the f*** do you use to build the roof? Steel girders? The laws these days are rediculous......
Typically, in NYC flat-roofs are part & parcel to 6 family homes, usually attached. The rooftops are generally fire-resistant (from the top down) but adding a wood deck defeats this characteristic.
Nothing rediculious about it. Fire codes are always more stringent when so many people live so close.
I sure am glad I dont live in a place like that. It sounds like those pet cages that stack on top of each other. Not my kind of life....
One question about that. When I have seen firefighters putting out a burning home, the first thing they do is "vent" the fire, which means chopping a hole in the roof. How do they do it if the roof is concrete or steel?
The house is a two family and the deck is attached in the backyard, not a roof deck. I looked through the building code myself, and the only thing I could find talks about roof decks having to be made of non fire treated wood. What is fire treated wood?
Pick up the phone and call a lumber yard! :-)
Gasoline powered circular saws with appropriate blade; ax; chainsaw on thin metal decking, maybe with carbide-tipped teeth.
Locally, concrete roofs are getting more popular, to meet wind load codes.
Jeff
i have never heard of such a thing.........
yeah, but when you're kinda hungry in an empty house at 10:44PM (like,er, now), HE can go out and find 4 good restaurants to eat something at. Or he could cross a street and triple that number. Not me. Streets roll up at 9.
Maybe I'll have some toast :(
There are several really good lumber yards (none of them lowes or Home Depot) in brooklyn that can aid you.
A friend has wood deck otop a concrete frame that was there that he's had no problems with.
That said, I'm far from brooklyn and having to some deck repair. It was recommended I check out some of the wood alternatives for the decking; higher than wood cost, close to no maintainance.
As I scrape a half assed latex "deck paint" job off the good porch to prep it for a proper cabot treatment, I'm disliking wood.
There may be a misunderstanding. I googled up this:
That said, Chicago has a zillion 3-story townhouses with back porches. Retrofit construction has increasingly been toward concrete decks and metal railings.
And for your interest:
A steel condom ????
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.