Roof Over

Lieutenant Rhett Fleitz from Roanoke Fire send in these pictures of something he found while traveling in his first due area. These roof overs are very common, and as you could imagine, cause some areas of concern.

As you can tell in the photo above the structure appears to be one of the common low-dollar motels.

The photo above shows an fire wall that extends through the existing roof structure. As you can see, the new roof decreases the distance that the fire-wall originally extended above the roof line, therefore decreasing its effectiveness of preventing fire from extending over it.

Also notice the nice job in how they tied the new roof assembly into the existing roof. It appears to be a single 2x4 on either side.

Above is a photo of the end of the roof over.

A close-up shows the detail of the conventional (ridge beam) style construction used for the roof over. It also shows the amount of void space that is created by these alterations. It may not look like it in the pictures, but that's probably 12" of void in-between the two roofs. Besides the void space, which could create an area for the combustible fire gases to accumulate, what else could happen?

Vertical ventilation would be a serious challenge. You could make the cut on the roof with ease, but punching through into the structure would be quite a challenge. Another issue could be, once you vented, you could get a fair amount of smoke to come from the vent hole. This cut would only vent the concealed space, not the structure!

The inside team cold pull ceiling to check for fire over their head, see the bottom of what they thought was the roof, and see no fire... However, fire could still be present over their head in the concealed space.

Of course the existing roof was in immaculate condition prior to the renovations.

Thanks again to Lieutenant Rhett Fleitz and the brothers form Roanoke Virigina!