Hi lucky,
As brief as I can with basic explanations.
Property is 30 Ac. 15 clear. 15 bush. 6 developed as English and Japanese gardens.
When I started there were no Standards for Bunkers. They were basically seen by authorities as a ‘last resort’.
I designed a bunker into the system as a ‘First resort’ – meaning that we have already made the decision to stay with the property and fight – not leave. And, that in the event that we feel threatened – the bunker is where we retreat to. (If we come out of the bunker and nothing is left but ash --------- that’s fine.
The bunker is a concrete room inside a hill accessed by a concrete tunnel with 2 hour rated doors at each end – both open inwards. There is an escape hatch in the roof of the room – which leads up through a hatchway to the outside – it should never be necessary to use it. Air intake and air exhaust are open until there is a fire – then they are closed when we are inside and it is sealed (pretty well sealed). The air inside can support 2 people for many hours and a large group of people for well long enough to survive thermal risk.
The fighting system consists of 3 million litres of storage when full – and, in a bad season – that would be about 2 million usable.
There is a 75mm ring main which surrounds the house and buildings. The ring can be split into 2 if ever a section is damaged. Off this ring come 2 separate satellite mains – either or both can be separated from the main ring. Satellites are used in remoter parts of the garden - one satellite can be reversed to provide water from a small dam.
There are 6 pumping stations – No. 1 which is used all the time for gardening – and No. 1 is the highest station – and although head is good – it has electric boost and a long range petrol fire pump.
The electricity is run from the mains in the house – and if the mains power goes down – the house can be switched over to it’s own generation within about 30 seconds.
All water mains in the fire and gardening system (completely separate from the house water system) – have metal risers – which supply apx. 200 taps – each riser can deliver about 90 (ninety) litres a minute. Some risers have 2 taps, some 4 taps each.
Under normal running conditions – the electric boost can run full whack – 2 risers – which gives enough to run 2 large knocker sprinklers each riser.
If I wish to bring on more sprinklers or risers – I then turn to other stations and bring on more fire pumps – the critical one’s have long range tanks – the non critical – normal tanks.
The system has 4 fire hoses for the house – one at each corner. Garage has one. One near No. 1 station and each station has it’s own hose as well.
The house is sprinkled – main fed off the ring with a gal main running under the floor and the sprinklers are split into back of house and front of house – front of house has sprinklers on the underneath of the verandah and on the floor. Back of house is under roof only.
The under roof sprinklers stick out like little cannons (for the outside) and each barrel has an MP rotator head on it. Depending on location – depends on degree covered etc.
MP rotators were chosen using the theory that they not only wet the walls (inward pointing ones) – but, the outward pointing ones (on the little barrels) – give a circular spray that goes above the roof line – and the theory is (and, it works) that as the wind drives towards the house – the spray is taken over the roof.
The ones at floor level just do a circle and wet the floor and the ground a little way out from the deck.
60 seconds running sees the entire floor and walls wet (dripping) ----------- and, the MP’s are very cheap on water.
During retreat – if it ever came to that – I would just leave the sprinklers running and drink grog in the bunker -------------- if the system failed ----------- I would just drink more grog and ring the insurance company.
I don’t expect to ever retreat – but, would take no risk.
If we do have to fight – I can wet large amounts of ground very fast – then, just go on watch and attack embers – with any nearby hose.
I would now expect to be able to do that without even turning on a fire pump as the house power is now self contained (only did that about a year ago). I can put the house on it’s own power by just walking to the end of the deck.
The system also has 2 fire hydrants – one right outside the house – for the brigade to hook on to and one at the back of the garage – ditto.
The hydrants can be used to fight – but, I built them so that if the brigade did arrive – that they wouldn’t have to bugger off to fill up -------------- I can fill them up very very fast.
We have had some contractors who came to fill up from my hydrants rather than filling up at dams in the area because they can fill quicker at my hydrants than otherwise.
I did everything possible to make sure that if the brigade came ------- they stayed
That’s as much as I can think of atm
Pinto
