Measure Severity of Building potential with BAL Assessment WA
Posted by EvolveDesign on September 25th, 2017
A Bushfire Attack Level is an assessment to determine the potential exposure; a building can face from fire attack, direct flame contact and radiant heat during a bushfire. The BAL assessment WA determines the construction as well as building requirements in order to minimize the potential damage from bush fires to the property. A standard BAL report includes an onsite property inspection reviewing the slope, surroundings, building location, neighboring vegetation as well as distance to any classified vegetation.
However, there are six BAL categories that range from low to extreme risk. As the risk of bushfire impacting your property increases, so do the construction requirement of your home. Before issuing any planning or building permits, it is mandatory to have BAL assessment WA for all new homes.
Before deciding to build your home, the first and the foremost thing you need to consider is BAL of your property. The assessment can be done either by an engineer or a fire assessor while purchasing the property. However, the BAL assessment cost varies from property to property. Hence, before finalizing, it becomes essential to understand the estimate cost. The assessment of Bushfire Attack Level is completely based on the combination of factors related to bushfire risk. These include basically the type of vegetation, Fire Danger Index, home proximity as well as the slope of the site.
The Fire danger Index measures the probability of a bushfire starting, the speed of its spread etc. The vegetation is classified into seven types: Forest, shrub land, wood land, grassland or rainforest. The distance of the vegetation is the measurement taken from the edge of the vegetation to the close external wall.
Once you know the BAL rating as well as BAL assessment cost, you can easily start planning, designing as well as building your dream home. However, it is very essential that you make sure that throughout the complete process your designer, architect as well as builder are aware of the complete requirements associated with BAL ratings.
As soon as the BAL is calculated, the building construction requirement can be calculated from the relevant section of Australian standards in order to ensure that the building is resistant to bushfire. Each category of the BAL attack adds costs to your building costs. Hence, it becomes mandatory to hire a professional in order to prepare the report that totally determines the effective method of assessment.
