Garage Screen Porch Pool Fire!

[palmettoinspect]

Got a real mess here! I just wanted to collect some ideas of what all is wrong and any tips are appreciated.

This home has a three car garage underneath. Half of the second garage bay has a fire rated drywall ceiling. The other half and almost all of the third bay are under a wood framed open air screen porch and they do not have any fire rated building material on the ceiling. Also, there's a small pool elevated to the level of the screen porch next to the third garage bay that is inside the screen porch. [:-crazy]

Obviously there needs to be a fire separation at the ceilings and walls, but there is also the concern of water from the pool through the open air screen porch into the garage.

There has been an attempt to manage the water by installing metal roofing sheets and small site made gutters and drains, but its not working. The metal is rusting out and leaking.

The good news is the new owners a planning on installing a new pool and have plans of getting rid of the old one, but I'm not sure of the exact location of the new pool.

I don't know anything about pools and safety codes. Any help here is appreciated. Are there any other safety concerns beside the water from the pool into the garage areas and fire separation?

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[Jim Baird]

...you could say that the separation is not needed for the screened porch interface because the porch is not habitable space.

The pool makes the whole third bay a top heavy structure to my eye. Makes me wonder if this was really designed or was built at the direction of an eccentric owner. A painter I knew once built a deck out of untreated spf lumber at the owner's direction just because the wood was left over from the house build. Painter protested loudly but went ahead because he was being paid.

[kurt]

Yeah, what Baird said...

The fire separation stuff sounds relatively easy. The pool, the weird gutters and sheet metal stuff just isn't right. The pool doesn't seem to have been thought through adequately; it gives the impression of someone just winging it.

I'd report the fire separation stuff as best I could, and I'd be reporting the pool as problematic at best. Lacking engineering and shop drawings for the poor, which I'm sure don't exist, there's no way anyone can forecast how it's going to work, other than badly.

[palmettoinspect]

Thanks you for your comments Kurt and Jim.

Here's a few pictures of just how well the joists are supported around this pool. It's a mess. The current owners have the cars in the garage covered with plastic to keep the slat water pool water off them!

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[kurt]

OK, I'd be essentially condemning everything related to the pool. It's a cobble job.

[palmettoinspect]

You mean the rafter ties don't work as joist hangers?

What about steel posts under the deck with a little salt air? The parallel strand lumber beams are pressure treated though!

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[Marc]

Thanks you for your comments Kurt and Jim.

Here's a few pictures of just how well the joists are supported around this pool. It's a mess. The current owners have the cars in the garage covered with plastic to keep the slat water pool water off them!

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If I'm not mistaken, the studs supporting the bottom of the pool are closer than the ones on either side. That meshes with the principle that water pressure increases in linear fashion with depth. Someone, perhaps an engineer, may have done some math, or maybe the manufacturer furnished specs on it. In any case, like Kurt, if I didn't see any paperwork on it, I'd call it.

Marc