CEDAR SHAKES -- THEIR DAY IS DONE 

A year ago I wrote about the danger of using cedar shakes as roof shingles, especially in a non-rain forest area. Flak rained down after the column appeared -- mainly from B.C. cedar shake manufacturers and the trade association representing them. The polite ones said I had been unfair.

Recently I spent a few days in Santa Barbara, California checking out cedar shake-roofed homes. Members of the cedar shake association should have been with me. In La Goleta, a mainly residential area with a population of 74,000, I looked at what had been 517 homes (plus 64 other structures), with an average replacement value of US $700,000 according to Nick Andrade, Chief Building Inspector for Santa Barbara County. ALL BURNED DOWN IN FOUR HOURS ON JUNE 28, 1990 !

Fortunately, only one death was reported. The County Sheriff office is following the suspected arson theory. The rapid spread of the fire was accelerated by a local phenomenon known as a "sundowner", when a hot wind flows down from the mountains and towards the sea during late summer afternoons.

In what has to be a speed record for bureaucratic action, an emergency meeting of the County Council was held within 12 days and Section 10-83 of Ordinance #3869 was passed that basically prohibits wood roofing materials in all new or replacement construction in the area.

While the slower-moving insurance companies here have not yet put any such restrictions in current policies, the trend is obvious. On some surviving undamaged homes owners were removing wooden shakes and replacing them with red clay tiles. The day after the fire the county building department issued the first replacement building permit. Now, about 10 to 15 rebuilding permits are being issued daily.

The loss to the county has also been considerable, more than $1 million from property tax rolls for at least one year.

Los Angeles City Council saw the problem early and banned cedar shakes some months ago from all new homes. Other municipalities in California are now taking similar action.

When single-family homes were built in decades past, the Pacific Northwest had different conditions. Homes were built with lots of open space between. Chances of a fire raging through one house and igniting a home a kilometre away was rare. As we all know, here in British Columbia you couldn't ignite a roof with a blow torch because of the rain, but in tinder-dry, sun-drenched California, with up to 120 degree Farenheit heat anything burns. Retardents that last for a decade in a rain forest evaporate much more quickly in sunny California and wooden shakes become kindling. Shake manufacturers and distributors are lucky that no one in the U.S. has started a "class action" lawsuit for sale and distribution of cedar shakes.

As both physical environments, natural or man-made change, products, services and viewpoints are altered, we are all affected, whether next door or hundreds or thousands of kilometres away.

More information: Nick Andrade, Chief Building Inspector, Santa Barbara County, CA. Phone: 805/681-4200.

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