Condo fire wall

[Larry Heitzenrater]

Inspected a middle condo on the 2nd floor (2 story building with 3 units on each floor). Built in 2007.
There are two roof vents above the unit that straddle the fire wall at each side and appear to enter across into the attic areas of the adjoining units (I had no access to the other units).
Am I correct in my thinking that this is a breach in the fire walls due the the openings through the roof vents?
Thanks, Larry

[Jerry Peck]

Inspected a middle condo

If they are condos and not townhouses, then there is but one structure and no need for a firewall there.

That said ... if that was designed to have a firewall there, then if needs a firewall there, and, yes, that certainly violates the firewall.

I inspected some condos which were constructed like townhouses, but were condos, and, yes, there were firewalls between each condo, and yes, it was designed that way.

The design professional designed these same types of units to be constructed as townhouses, and the developer constructed these same types of units as townhouses.

This one particular property was zoned multi-family / commercial and they could not get it rezoned to allow townhouses (there was a quirk in the wording of the zoning in that city), so they constructed the same townhouse structures as condo and they were, legally speaking, condos, even though each one was separated from each other one by a firewall. Yes, those units were constructed to the building code, not the residential code, which required sprinklers, so they were all sprinklered. That was basically the only difference with the townhouse units - no sprinklers.

[Larry Heitzenrater]

Hi Jerry:

I don't know if this was designed to have a firewall but someone made an effort at the rest of the walls to seal it as one.
Since this was recently built, 2007, I will stop by the building department tomorrow to see what they say. For now I am going to report it as a breach in the firewall.

Thanks,
Larry