Fire Blanket Plans--New Invention!

R. Fence Avoidance. If the path of the blanket's weight rod is blocked by a fence, then a gap needs to be cut in the fence that's around ½" wider than the weight rod itself. This won't let any kids or dogs get in or out, but it will allow the blanket to reach the ground so its protective effect is maximized. Note that there's a need for either special fence trimming or a special set of guide bars to be fastened to the top of the fence in order to assure that the weight rod, which may be swayed by the wind, ends up entering the gap.
S. Multiple Blankets on a Cylinder. If a house is on a hillside, it would be best if the blanket cylinder contains several blankets so that the weight rods could better conform to the landscape contour. Each would require its own cable and two anchor hooks, but one motor—on the end of the fire blanket cylinder—would suffice for the windup. A separate unrolling motor would be needed for each blanket. Note: There's an additional reason to have multiple blankets on one roof, and that is, in a word, chimneys. If a chimney goes down a side of the house that doesn't have the roof sloping towards it (but does have a roof peak), then figures G, H and I show the way to go: You simply have a bigger space between the cylinder ends when they pivot to horizontal to allow for the chimney between the two blankets. But for chimneys on roofs, you have to have your blankets go around them. This means that if the chimney's on the ridge, you not only have a (relatively short, perhaps 3' to 7'?) cylinder on each of the two down-slope sides of the chimney; you also have a ridge cylinder on each side of the chimney, and the blankets in these cylinders can cover both slope directions at once when their cables pull them unrolled. If the chimney is to one side of the ridge, a full ridge cylinder can exist that covers the entire roof and two sides of the house, with the exception of a cutout to avoid the chimney; one additional cylinder can be mounted against the chimney on the down-slope side to make up for the gap in the main blanket. There's nothing strategically or mechanically different about the blanket cylinder and motor-reeled cable technologies just because one has a chimney to circumvent. Finally, the various exhaust vents, pipes, skylights, and other items on the roofs have to be trimmed down, gone over or gone around. If it's fairly short, a weight rod skid ramp would need to be put up-slope and down-slope of the object so that the rod could go over the object both when unreeling and rereeling. If it's higher and/or more intrusive, the blankets will have to go around it as with the chimneys. In going around a 3" vent pipe (assuming it cannot be trimmed and skid-ramped), it makes sense to have the blanket split in half at that point but not to have a 3" gap between the two adjacent blankets. The weight rod would need to have as much as an 18" gap here so that it will avoid the vent, but roof and siding protection alike would be best served if the blanket itself was split but not gapped. (See figure S for a multi-split illustration.) The blanket will be pulled alongside the pipe in such a way that it snuggles up to it; and the rest of the roof and siding will be fully covered. Note that any object that's higher than it functionally needs to be could be trimmed down and/or revamped to make it feasible to accommodate weight rod skid ramps up-slope and down-slope of itself, in order to avoid breaks in blankets or weight rods.

N. Cable Rehooking Pole. Once a fire is out and the blanket is rewound, the cables need to get rehooked on the cable flush-mounting hooks, and some of these may be high up on the side of the house, so not only a pole like that shown in figure N will be needed, but several pole extensions may be needed as well.
O. Molly Bolt Anchor. It will hold down (assisted by the weight of the weight rod) the lowest edge of the fire blanket if the homeowner hooks (see figure F) it in place. Molly bolts are known for their ability to hold things in place so well because of the two legs that open once they're in place. In this particular case, they're like fishhooks in that they're a lot easier to get in than to get out. You can see that if the blanket picks up a strong wind and tries to extract the anchor from the ground, the anchor legs will resist strongly. Also, when winds are strong, a good deal of force will be exerted sideways on the anchor, a fact that will further discourage extraction. Perhaps the legs would be longer and the molly bolt would be bigger and/or sunk deeper than shown, but anchoring technology, whether in footing-with-foundation-bolt form or molly bolt form, is quite capable of keeping the blanket in place.

P. Weight Rod Guide Rod. When the blanket's lower edge's weight rod is sliding over the rain gutter, it would help if three or four guides—evenly spaced over the gutter—were in place to ease the way. Of course, they could easily enough be part of the actual gutter construction.
Q. Long Weight Rod Guide Rod. If you wish to protect a deck from fire, then the weight rod guide rods need to be as long as it takes to give the weight rod the clearance it needs to clear the deck and continue on to the ground's anchors. Of course, the guide rods will need deep grooves on their upper surfaces to guide the cable. The cable has to stay on that rod surface before the fire is perceived and during rerolling. In the figure, wires (not shown) on the guide rods and alongside the outside of the deck rail will be permanent-no cable flush-mounting hooks will be used as it would be too complex and cumbersome.