iN PHOTOS: Burnt wood, rusting steel create unique fire-resistant home in South Okanagan
It has been 20 years since wildfire tore through Okanagan Mountain Park, leaving a bare, fire-ravaged ridge south of the park.
The lack of burnable material on that ridge didn’t stop Paul and Tina Schlotfeldt from building a virtually fire-proof house with a fabulous view of Okanagan Lake.
“It must have been pretty badly burnt at that time and things have recovered, but there are still a lot of dead trees standing there fully burned up,” Paul Schlotfeldt told iNFOnews.ca. “At this point, there is very little fire risk.
READ MORE: Kelowna's Okanagan Mountain Park Wildfire at 20: What's changed?
“Even though the risk is small, you never know with fire what can happen. From our perspective, it’s cheap insurance so, even in the future, it’s fire resistant. We know we have to keep it clear. We don’t want big trees burning up around us. At some point something will burn again, I’m sure of that.”
Schlotfeldt is from South Africa, where wildfires are a big deal so he just considered it wise to build a fire resistant home.
But that’s just part of the reason he chose rusting steel and burnt cedar as primary building materials.
“It’s not just fireproofing the house, it’s an esthetic thing,” Schlotfeldt said. “If you don’t know where it is and you’re just looking in the general direction you go: ‘Holy moly! There’s a house up there.’ It blends in beautifully. It is on a spur so it sticks out like a sore thumb so it needed to merge and blend with the environment.”
It has done that so well that wildlife, from deer and moose to mountain sheep, goats and cougars regularly wander by, some sniffing around the back of the house.
“It’s beautiful just being able to sit there in the house and actually see them,” Schlotfeldt said. “They’re in their natural environment. They’re not disturbed.”
READ MORE: Dozens of Kelowna homes were almost bulldozed during wildfire 20 years ago
Schlotfeldt is an engineering geologist with WSP (formerly Golder Associates) in Kelowna but was working in Squamish when he bought the land in 2018.
It’s about half-way between Naramata and Chute Lake and is the top, 12-acre-lot of a subdivision. It was completed in 2021.
As an engineer, he was able to design the long winding driveway up to the house but called on Halifax and Toronto based Omar Gandhi Architects to design the home.
They dubbed it the Steel Mountain Beetle.
“Over the years of practice, we have developed a language we sort of describe as more architectural creatures, so they always have this characteristic and underlying design concept as some sort of creature or element,” Jeff Shaw, senior associate architect with Omar Gandhi, told iNFOnews.ca. “We think of a house that has adapted to its surroundings much as the creatures and insects we base some of the designs on. They, too have adapted and evolved.
READ MORE: How a deadly slide in Kelowna saved homes in a wildfire a decade later
“The material and construction methods, the way that it’s placed up off of the ground, all of those things were thought about in terms of fire safety and longevity. There is lots of solar shading so there were a lot of cues from the environment that really drives the building shape, whether it be the view, the sun, the fire, the rain, all of those things really drive and help shape the building itself.”
The ground floor has no windows and is clad in corten steel, known in Canada as rusting steel. It rusts in a few months, creating a protective shell that slows down future corrosion.
And it is very fireproof.
“Even if someone tried to torch it with napalm, it wouldn’t burn,” Schlotfeldt said.
That ground floor contains a garage, mechanical room and storage.
Upstairs, using an outdoor steel staircase, it’s a totally different world, although the roof is panelled with rusting steel and there is burnt cedar on the upper floor siding.
While it may seem curious to build with rusty steel, installing burnt word in a fire zone may seem even stranger.
It’s an ancient Japanese technique called Shu Sugi Ban (or Yakisugi).
“While it might seem counterintuitive, the act of charring wood doesn’t make it structurally weaker, but magically has the opposite effect,” according to The Spruce website. “Burning the surface of the wood under controlled conditions fortifies and protects the wood against future damage, making it an excellent preservation technique.”
It makes it more weather-, insect- and fire-resistant.
“The only way fire would get anywhere near it is from the ground,” Schlotfeldt said. “There will be no trees. So a ground-level fire would have to somehow or other set fire to the lower level then maybe it would get to the windows. It’s very unlikely, given the geometry of the house. You would have to have flying trees come in and burn the house down.”
Those windows reach from floor to ceiling around three sides of the 1,600-square-feet of living space offering unbridled views of Okanagan Lake and the surrounding hills and forests.
The house is high and remote without most services like water, sewer, garbage collection or regular internet.
That makes feeling safe from wildfire a bonus but, at a $2 million total cost, it’s not for everyone who wants to firesmart their home.
“Putting corten steel around the outside of the house is not cheap and there are other options,” Schlotfeldt said. “I’m not sure if they’re as fire resistant. I don’t think stucco is fire resistant but it’s probably better than timber or wood cladding.
“Or you could use some material made out of concrete that may be equally fire resistant but, part of the reason we did it too was not just for the sake of fire but, when it rusts, it fits in with the environment.”
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