Soffits

Cedar soffit install has been progressing nicely with scaffolding moving about the house one side at a time.

We had some serious delays in getting a coating approved for the soffits which held up proceedings somewhat. To recap: our home is the last house on the street located in a Wildfire Interface area, and as such were required to submit a Wildfire DPA (see May 26, 2023 post).

The hazard report says that we can only use combustible materials (i.e. wood, aluminum, vinyl) on max 20% surface area of the building exterior, or up to 30% if ALL wood surfaces are treated with a Class A fire-rated, CSA approved retardant finish.

Cue weeks (months?) of back and forth between our PM, District wildfire consultants, the coating manufacturer, and the fire retardant application factory re: cedar soffits. The issue at hand was whether the fire-rated coating could be applied in a factory facility. Wildfire consultants, not satisfied with available pre-coated products, were asking our team to hand apply a coating to in-place or on-the-ground soffits with video evidence of the coating in-process – clearly not a scalable, cost or time effective solution, and resulting in a less consistent finish.

Finally, in mid-May, we got the green light for a fire retardant product that passed muster for factory application. With decades of wildfire risk management experience in BC to draw from, it is hard to understand why the process here in North Van isn’t smoother.

The soffits eventually arrived on site, the quality exceeded expectations, and installation has been going beautifully. Thanks team!

#netzero #netzerohome #greenbuilding #sustainability #cedar #soffits #permitting #wildfire #climateresilience