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Building a home with my own two hands has been a bit of a dream of mine. The government, governments in general but particularly the government in my own count

by vivekd 10y ago

Building a home with my own two hands has been a bit of a dream of mine. The government, governments in general but particularly the government in my own country, have become so overbearing, with a desire to micromanage and control and monitor every little aspect our existence. They want us to get their okay and stamp of approval before going about the ordinary course of our lives. There's something beautiful in ordinary men like Morrison who choose to stand against that.

Kluny 10y ago
Please bear in mind that there's no actual information in this piece. The author clearly decided what the story was going to be before they had any details about it. If you want to build your own house, go ahead and do it - and research people who did it successfully and imitate what they did, instead of giving up before you start based on one thin story about some edge case.
codeddesign 10y ago
I completely understand your point of government intrusion, but there are actually building codes in place for a reason. An example is the San Francisco fire of 1906. Building codes set safety requirements for construction for the general safety of everyone living in or around a building. Whether it's fire codes, plumbing codes, earthquake codes...etc. If there were no building codes, we would he of housing fatalities daily on the news, and LA would look like favela. You can't just construct a building however you wish, no different than you can travel down an expressway as you wish (i.e. walking in the middle of the lane).
- dpc59 10y ago
  I don't think any one in this thread is saying building codes or regulations shouldn't be a thing, it's more that regulations shouldn't be so complicated that they become barriers to entry, and that common sense should be applied alongside the regulations. Who gives a shit if there isn't a sticker on your lumber if the lumber is of good enough quality?
  - delinka 10y ago
    But that sticker is how you can tell that the lumber is of good enough quality. Who sets the standards? Who certifies that the lumber meets the standards? How do you get rcompense if someone lied about the quality of their lumber? That sticker says "this lumber meets quality specs. And if it doesn't, this company is responsible for the resulting catastrophe."
  - Tempest1981 10y ago
    Perhaps a structural engineer could have been hired (at owners expense) to report on the wood quality. It's not uncommon to spend a few hundred dollars during a remodel for load calcs. I.e. it's probably not a huge extra expense for a major project.
- ars 10y ago
  There is a difference between safety and blind obedience to building codes. Building codes are about standardizing things so builder and inspectors barely have to communicate - at a glance they can see they followed x, y, z. But the law should have a place for homeowners who do things safely, just not exactly how a builder would do it. That's why many places require permits for various work (for example electrical work) - unless you do it yourself, in which case you are exempt. And that's the right way to do things. Just like you don't need the health department in your kitchen, but you do in a restaurant.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    But it isn't like the health department in restaurants. Commercial kitchens could harm someone with bad food practices. The same goes for your house. After all, you simply won't life there forever: Either you'll sell the house or die eventually. Anything you do to that house that doesn't meet codes can seriously affect the folks that live there after you. This is why the codes are important.
    - scaryspooky 10y ago
      Where did your responsibility to have a home you want to buy inspected and certified become the governments job of forcing people to build the same cookie cutter structures over and over? Significant portions of England were built well before modern codes. Why can those be legal residences and something built in the same style and method be illegal? Edit: So if you can downvote you've been here long enough to know you should tell me why. Shame.
      - Tempest1981 10y ago
        A fair point. But many things get hidden behind drywall, making them very expensive for a new home buyer to get certified. Sure seems more efficient to inspect once during construction.
- spc476 10y ago
  A funny thing happened when Hurricane Andrew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew) came through South Florida. Homes built in the 1950s (way before "modern building standards") did much better than those build in the 1980s and very early 1990s. While building standards exist to ensure a base minimum of safety and quality, that's it---it's a base and there's no real reason to exceed it (it just adds expense). The older homes were built more conservatively (the Brooklyn Bridge is something like six times the strength it needs; compare to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)) built "just to spec").
  - kalleboo 10y ago
    Something else also happened in the intervening period - we got a lot better at calculating that base minimum of safety and quality. They used to overbuild stuff not because they wanted quality and were happy to pay for a bunch of extra material, but because they weren't sure exactly how much was required so they had massive safety margins. I reject the thesis that removing building codes would RAISE the quality of buildings. I'm sure builders would love to dial down the material used a couple more steps so that it stand up just long enough for the big bad wolf to come along.
pjc50 10y ago
The trouble with this stuff is it starts with sympathetic cases like the secret castle: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044537/Farmer-given-90-days-tear-mock-Tudor-castle-built-without-planning-permission-hid-bales-hay.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044537/Farmer-given... And ends with people burning to death in slums: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thirteen-deaths-across-london-as-more-people-found-living-in-beds-and-sheds-9541239.html http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thirteen-deaths-across... Building regulation is there for a reason, usually a good one, sometimes involving fatalities. Blithely disregarding it in its entirety is a non-starter. It would be nice if the system were easier to work with, but picking a fight with it so you can play the hero is not really to be admired.
- merb 10y ago
  > And ends with people burning to death in slums: Mostly these "cheap" slums were built with regulations, but with a short amount of money. Actually mostly they became slums because the owner does not care and the regulators never look at those since the owners has dozen of houses and it would be problematic to look at it every x years. so the houses getting worse over time and nobody actually keeps them in a good state and than bad things happen. Actually this is a BIG problem in our modern world. some people actually need _cheap_ homes (not everybody makes a six figures a year). And thats why the problem begins, socialized buildings never happen. Mostly they build a chunk of good homes for people with a lot of money and the old ones never get repair/refreshed, but thats the only ones people with fewer money can have.
nojvek 10y ago
How does this work for people who build tiny homes?

by vivekd 10y ago

Kluny 10y ago

Please bear in mind that there's no actual information in this piece. The author clearly decided what the story was going to be before they had any details about it. If you want to build your own house, go ahead and do it - and research people who did it successfully and imitate what they did, instead of giving up before you start based on one thin story about some edge case.

codeddesign 10y ago

I completely understand your point of government intrusion, but there are actually building codes in place for a reason. An example is the San Francisco fire of 1906. Building codes set safety requirements for construction for the general safety of everyone living in or around a building. Whether it's fire codes, plumbing codes, earthquake codes...etc. If there were no building codes, we would he of housing fatalities daily on the news, and LA would look like favela. You can't just construct a building however you wish, no different than you can travel down an expressway as you wish (i.e. walking in the middle of the lane).

dpc59 10y ago
I don't think any one in this thread is saying building codes or regulations shouldn't be a thing, it's more that regulations shouldn't be so complicated that they become barriers to entry, and that common sense should be applied alongside the regulations. Who gives a shit if there isn't a sticker on your lumber if the lumber is of good enough quality?
- delinka 10y ago
  But that sticker is how you can tell that the lumber is of good enough quality. Who sets the standards? Who certifies that the lumber meets the standards? How do you get rcompense if someone lied about the quality of their lumber? That sticker says "this lumber meets quality specs. And if it doesn't, this company is responsible for the resulting catastrophe."
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  Perhaps a structural engineer could have been hired (at owners expense) to report on the wood quality. It's not uncommon to spend a few hundred dollars during a remodel for load calcs. I.e. it's probably not a huge extra expense for a major project.
ars 10y ago
There is a difference between safety and blind obedience to building codes. Building codes are about standardizing things so builder and inspectors barely have to communicate - at a glance they can see they followed x, y, z. But the law should have a place for homeowners who do things safely, just not exactly how a builder would do it. That's why many places require permits for various work (for example electrical work) - unless you do it yourself, in which case you are exempt. And that's the right way to do things. Just like you don't need the health department in your kitchen, but you do in a restaurant.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  But it isn't like the health department in restaurants. Commercial kitchens could harm someone with bad food practices. The same goes for your house. After all, you simply won't life there forever: Either you'll sell the house or die eventually. Anything you do to that house that doesn't meet codes can seriously affect the folks that live there after you. This is why the codes are important.
  - scaryspooky 10y ago
    Where did your responsibility to have a home you want to buy inspected and certified become the governments job of forcing people to build the same cookie cutter structures over and over? Significant portions of England were built well before modern codes. Why can those be legal residences and something built in the same style and method be illegal? Edit: So if you can downvote you've been here long enough to know you should tell me why. Shame.
    - Tempest1981 10y ago
      A fair point. But many things get hidden behind drywall, making them very expensive for a new home buyer to get certified. Sure seems more efficient to inspect once during construction.
spc476 10y ago
A funny thing happened when Hurricane Andrew (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Andrew) came through South Florida. Homes built in the 1950s (way before "modern building standards") did much better than those build in the 1980s and very early 1990s. While building standards exist to ensure a base minimum of safety and quality, that's it---it's a base and there's no real reason to exceed it (it just adds expense). The older homes were built more conservatively (the Brooklyn Bridge is something like six times the strength it needs; compare to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacoma_Narrows_Bridge_(1940)) built "just to spec").
- kalleboo 10y ago
  Something else also happened in the intervening period - we got a lot better at calculating that base minimum of safety and quality. They used to overbuild stuff not because they wanted quality and were happy to pay for a bunch of extra material, but because they weren't sure exactly how much was required so they had massive safety margins. I reject the thesis that removing building codes would RAISE the quality of buildings. I'm sure builders would love to dial down the material used a couple more steps so that it stand up just long enough for the big bad wolf to come along.

pjc50 10y ago

The trouble with this stuff is it starts with sympathetic cases like the secret castle: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044537/Farmer-given-90-days-tear-mock-Tudor-castle-built-without-planning-permission-hid-bales-hay.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044537/Farmer-given... And ends with people burning to death in slums: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thirteen-deaths-across-london-as-more-people-found-living-in-beds-and-sheds-9541239.html http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/thirteen-deaths-across... Building regulation is there for a reason, usually a good one, sometimes involving fatalities. Blithely disregarding it in its entirety is a non-starter. It would be nice if the system were easier to work with, but picking a fight with it so you can play the hero is not really to be admired.

merb 10y ago
> And ends with people burning to death in slums: Mostly these "cheap" slums were built with regulations, but with a short amount of money. Actually mostly they became slums because the owner does not care and the regulators never look at those since the owners has dozen of houses and it would be problematic to look at it every x years. so the houses getting worse over time and nobody actually keeps them in a good state and than bad things happen. Actually this is a BIG problem in our modern world. some people actually need _cheap_ homes (not everybody makes a six figures a year). And thats why the problem begins, socialized buildings never happen. Mostly they build a chunk of good homes for people with a lot of money and the old ones never get repair/refreshed, but thats the only ones people with fewer money can have.

nojvek 10y ago

How does this work for people who build tiny homes?