Fire
Building Fireproof Homes
Fire-resistant materials and construction technique worked into the structure itself, rather than added to the outside of it.
Resistance built into the structure, not onto it
Protect your home from fire hazards with our advanced fireproof building solutions. We incorporate fire-resistant materials and construction techniques to enhance your home's resilience against flames, ensuring safety and peace of mind for you and your family. The difference between a house treated for fire and a house built for it is where the resistance lives. In a Composite Blocking System build, the core material of every structural member is expanded polystyrene, sprayed with a proprietary coating blended from sand, glass fibre and other additives. Walls, roof and floor are the same system, so there is no layered junction between them that has to be detailed, sealed and then relied upon. Zenith states the resulting shell meets or exceeds the testing protocols and load requirements of the ICC-ES, and describes it as fire-resistant, termite-proof, water-resistant, mildew-proof, rust-proof and mold-proof, engineered to withstand category 5 winds of 240 mph and not to crack during an earthquake. Those are the company's own published figures for the system.
The nine things that make a house fire proof
Fire-resistant materials. Defensible space. Fire-resistant insulation. Fire-proof roofing and gutters. Fire-resistant decks and patios. A fire-resistant foundation. Proper firebreaks and firewalls. Ember-resistant ventilation. A backup water supply. A house is only as resistant as the weakest of those nine, which is why the shell is never presented here as the whole answer on its own.
The method traces to the 1980s Dome Home industry and took three years of work with the building department to permit.
Fire
Why roofing alone is not the job
Fire-proof roofing and gutters appear on Zenith's list once, as one item among nine. That placement is deliberate and it is worth reading closely, because a roof specified to resist embers above a wall assembly that is not will still lose the building. Ember-resistant ventilation sits on the same list for the same reason: most structures lost in a wildfire are not touched by the fire front at all, they are entered by embers through an opening. Zenith is not a roofing contractor and this page is not a roofing page. The roof is one member of a shell that is built as one piece.