5 ms·

There are practical issues with #7, to standardize on a set of building codes across the entire US would make all construction needlessly more expensive for any

There are practical issues with #7, to standardize on a set of building codes across the entire US would make all construction needlessly more expensive for anything but offshore pre-fab modules. If you have to do California earthquake slab treatment in Missouri, that's not economical. If you need to support all the drainage, roof, and siding rules of the Northwest in Arizona, you're probably unable to efficiently handle all the plaster and cooling efficiency rules in place down there. I'm sure there's a large core subset of rules that would allow prefabicratiom of framing, for instance, but as a guy who JUST finished building a house, I can tell you that it isn't the framing that gets you. Permits and land are by far the single biggest line item expenses.

VLM 10y ago
I suspect they said the same thing about cars in the old days, and mass production kind of papers over those little differences. Besides no one mass produces foundation slabs which would vary on frost depth, they mass produce kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms. Also for sheer cost of truck shipment reasons most houses would be manufactured near where they stand, perhaps across a state line maybe two small ones at most, sure. I would agree with the "its mostly a money grab by the system" as being accurate. $25K of wear and tear on that planning commission rubber stamp, uh huh. Cable company can connect service for free in a couple hours of labor but the electric company is required for an occupancy permit, and they know it, and they think they can squeeze $10K out for new service installation, uh huh.
- manyxcxi 10y ago
  Mass production definitely papers over the inefficiencies, but I wonder if it would be needlessly burdensome to try and make building products and rules that are everything for everyone. We've already seen huge debacles with things like LP siding that would last decades in the southwest that started breaking down and growing mushrooms in the Northwest after like two years. The difference with cars is that save for some small tweaks, you're not dealing with completely different driving environments for decades or centuries on end. California has their own emissions standards, which they manage to meet (or cheat). But largely fuel efficiency is fuel efficency. Safety is safety. A seatbelt works the same whether it's rainy or sunny. Houses should be designed to emphasize the local environment needs. I don't want a flat roofed stucco house in Portland. That would be a freaking nightmare. I'm sure there's a set of federal regulations that could be applied to new construction, plumbing and electrical codes could probably mostly apply. General safety and minimum wind shear requirements. But the vast majority of the codes we had to deal with were regional and dealt with water runoff, moisture build up prevention, soil erosion, and a list of other things that I could see as being entirely not applicable to other areas of my state, let alone the rest of the country.
  - VLM 10y ago
    I have an interesting analogy that's even better than automobiles. Clothing. Mass produced clothing. Kids pajamas federally required to be fireproof, no problemo. Almost everyone in the entire country wears mass produced clothing. Yet there's incredible variation in style. I don't have to wear a skirt, but my wife can if she wants. I can wear a sweater on a cold day while people on Florida beaches are nude or close to. Yet its all successfully mass produced. I was going to use industrially produced food as an analogy although maybe that's not seen as a winner. But its not out of business, which is something, I guess.
    - manyxcxi 10y ago
      I think the premise is sound, but also basically where we are today. With the clothing analogy you buy the individual items (or not) and put together the outfit of your choosing. As it stands I can pick one of a dizzying array of products that adhere to all kinds of regulation across many jurisdictions. However, where it begins to be problematic is if we (returning back to clothing) say ALL belts must be 4" wide and made of genuine leather. Well, now that coat you wear that has a belt around the waist that is purely decorative is completely out of regulation and can't be used. Even though you and I both know it's just fine. Or the swimsuit that ties around the side gets classified as a belt because of some inane interpretation. You'll get that times a thousand for every single room in the house. Like the argument I had to have with the plumbing inspector about my ridiculously expensive dishwasher not needing a breather valve because it had mitigating features built in. Showed him the spec sheet that called it out and pulled up customer support with him there. In the end? The rules say breather valve, put one in. No common sense or room for interpretation. The intent is to keep dirty water from back flowing into your dishwasher. But now years later you have minions that don't understand the intent, they just know what the regs say.
yourapostasy 10y ago
With #7 I envisioned (half-baked idea, I haven't thought through the implications, just an annoyance that I can fortunately ignore for the moment) an effort to produce a national building code affording us a one-time opportunity to restructure the code's presentation from specifying "how" to "why" as the lead-in, and the "how" as an example reference. I envisioned the building code instantiated as live data feeds of various metrics like earthquake data from the USGS, historical weather, flooding data from FEMA+US Army Corps of Engineers+USGS, soil surveys from USDA, etc., and for a building type and precise location you specify (commercial or residential, single-story/multi-story/highrise, etc.), only relevant code is extracted and received either electronically or in hardcopy, with a data package representing all relevant code. Building plans are drawn up including metadata references to relevant code section(s) from the beginning. This part still requires human judgement and negotiation of which section(s) are applicable, but perhaps an online marketplace of pre-configured plan modules with pre-certified section(s) tagged to the module's components can help mitigate that complexity. Merchants would certify products they sell are compliant with the "why" of specific section(s) through a number of insured certification authorities, who become (perhaps limited) jointly liable for their issued certifications against gross negligence (to avoid rubber-stamping behavior). Products are shipped with a cryptographically-signed RFID stamp ensuring authenticity and enabling remote building inspection. Can't avoid all "how's", like for example spot-checking to see that bare copper isn't laid exposed to house insulation because someone stripped off too much wire insulation and couldn't be bothered to re-run or fix the mistake. But with all the data we collect today, there has to be a better way to permit, construct and inspect buildings. Then we open up the housing market to vendors with better mousetraps to solve the "why's" expressed in the building code, adding enormous dynamism to the economy.

VLM 10y ago

I suspect they said the same thing about cars in the old days, and mass production kind of papers over those little differences. Besides no one mass produces foundation slabs which would vary on frost depth, they mass produce kitchens and living rooms and bedrooms. Also for sheer cost of truck shipment reasons most houses would be manufactured near where they stand, perhaps across a state line maybe two small ones at most, sure. I would agree with the "its mostly a money grab by the system" as being accurate. $25K of wear and tear on that planning commission rubber stamp, uh huh. Cable company can connect service for free in a couple hours of labor but the electric company is required for an occupancy permit, and they know it, and they think they can squeeze $10K out for new service installation, uh huh.

manyxcxi 10y ago
Mass production definitely papers over the inefficiencies, but I wonder if it would be needlessly burdensome to try and make building products and rules that are everything for everyone. We've already seen huge debacles with things like LP siding that would last decades in the southwest that started breaking down and growing mushrooms in the Northwest after like two years. The difference with cars is that save for some small tweaks, you're not dealing with completely different driving environments for decades or centuries on end. California has their own emissions standards, which they manage to meet (or cheat). But largely fuel efficiency is fuel efficency. Safety is safety. A seatbelt works the same whether it's rainy or sunny. Houses should be designed to emphasize the local environment needs. I don't want a flat roofed stucco house in Portland. That would be a freaking nightmare. I'm sure there's a set of federal regulations that could be applied to new construction, plumbing and electrical codes could probably mostly apply. General safety and minimum wind shear requirements. But the vast majority of the codes we had to deal with were regional and dealt with water runoff, moisture build up prevention, soil erosion, and a list of other things that I could see as being entirely not applicable to other areas of my state, let alone the rest of the country.
- VLM 10y ago
  I have an interesting analogy that's even better than automobiles. Clothing. Mass produced clothing. Kids pajamas federally required to be fireproof, no problemo. Almost everyone in the entire country wears mass produced clothing. Yet there's incredible variation in style. I don't have to wear a skirt, but my wife can if she wants. I can wear a sweater on a cold day while people on Florida beaches are nude or close to. Yet its all successfully mass produced. I was going to use industrially produced food as an analogy although maybe that's not seen as a winner. But its not out of business, which is something, I guess.
  - manyxcxi 10y ago
    I think the premise is sound, but also basically where we are today. With the clothing analogy you buy the individual items (or not) and put together the outfit of your choosing. As it stands I can pick one of a dizzying array of products that adhere to all kinds of regulation across many jurisdictions. However, where it begins to be problematic is if we (returning back to clothing) say ALL belts must be 4" wide and made of genuine leather. Well, now that coat you wear that has a belt around the waist that is purely decorative is completely out of regulation and can't be used. Even though you and I both know it's just fine. Or the swimsuit that ties around the side gets classified as a belt because of some inane interpretation. You'll get that times a thousand for every single room in the house. Like the argument I had to have with the plumbing inspector about my ridiculously expensive dishwasher not needing a breather valve because it had mitigating features built in. Showed him the spec sheet that called it out and pulled up customer support with him there. In the end? The rules say breather valve, put one in. No common sense or room for interpretation. The intent is to keep dirty water from back flowing into your dishwasher. But now years later you have minions that don't understand the intent, they just know what the regs say.

yourapostasy 10y ago

With #7 I envisioned (half-baked idea, I haven't thought through the implications, just an annoyance that I can fortunately ignore for the moment) an effort to produce a national building code affording us a one-time opportunity to restructure the code's presentation from specifying "how" to "why" as the lead-in, and the "how" as an example reference. I envisioned the building code instantiated as live data feeds of various metrics like earthquake data from the USGS, historical weather, flooding data from FEMA+US Army Corps of Engineers+USGS, soil surveys from USDA, etc., and for a building type and precise location you specify (commercial or residential, single-story/multi-story/highrise, etc.), only relevant code is extracted and received either electronically or in hardcopy, with a data package representing all relevant code. Building plans are drawn up including metadata references to relevant code section(s) from the beginning. This part still requires human judgement and negotiation of which section(s) are applicable, but perhaps an online marketplace of pre-configured plan modules with pre-certified section(s) tagged to the module's components can help mitigate that complexity. Merchants would certify products they sell are compliant with the "why" of specific section(s) through a number of insured certification authorities, who become (perhaps limited) jointly liable for their issued certifications against gross negligence (to avoid rubber-stamping behavior). Products are shipped with a cryptographically-signed RFID stamp ensuring authenticity and enabling remote building inspection. Can't avoid all "how's", like for example spot-checking to see that bare copper isn't laid exposed to house insulation because someone stripped off too much wire insulation and couldn't be bothered to re-run or fix the mistake. But with all the data we collect today, there has to be a better way to permit, construct and inspect buildings. Then we open up the housing market to vendors with better mousetraps to solve the "why's" expressed in the building code, adding enormous dynamism to the economy.