Thursday, April 17, 2008

Scary stuff

Thought this was interesting. It is about composite beams used in about every new home these days. http://www.yououghttoknowthis.com/index.php?q=oliversCorner&s=10&f=2

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy crap!! I wondered about those things the first time I saw them.

matt said...

I'm thinking that one fix is to put an I-beam under your first floor joists. Another would be to put drywall on your basement ceiling. The burn-through time would be lengthened quite a bit and it would be a fairly cheap band-aid. In your second floor you'd already have drywall on the bottom of the joists.

The critical articles didn't mention if the danger were first floor but I would assume they were. Also it doesn't say if the main problem is with fires starting in the basement or if they were on any of the floors.

As a side issue, the US slapped a huge tariff on Canadian softwoods during the housing boom. To make up for the increased cost I would bet that glue lams and particle board joists came about to use 'waste' product.

I can see though where those particle board joists would twist like a video tape on a dash board when they got hot enough.