3 ms·

On the one hand, yeah, it's annoying. On the other hand though, if a piece of advice is wrong, it's wrong. It's not really a great idea to just ignore the build

On the one hand, yeah, it's annoying. On the other hand though, if a piece of advice is wrong, it's wrong. It's not really a great idea to just ignore the building code when it doesn't suit you. There's a real problem in some parts of the internet where people with a superficial understanding of the problem space offer advice as if they were experts, and it needs to be pushed back against when those people offer bad advice.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago
Yeah, but bad advice is easy to tear down without resorting to the "hurr, durr, check your local code, my code requires X." The people that just worship the code without understanding why the code says what it says are what I'm complaining about. A lot of building code is there to facilitate consistency and ease of inspection and in those cases the "wrong" way of doing things is perfectly fine at small scale but it would be impractical/expensive to do that at a larger scale.
- function_seven 7y ago
  Any time someone from Phoenix posts their new deck, there will always be someone chiding the shallow footings. ("Frost will destroy that in 3 years, hurr, durr.") When a new home addition in Los Angeles is featured, you get the Brick Mafia laughing about how we use wood frame construction ("You yankees use cheap stuff"). Never mind that earthquakes favor the bendy sticks over the brittle blocks. Huge swaths of code are tied to local weather and common disaster scenarios. Florida really likes their hurricane ties, California loves their Simpson ties, in New England you need to dig down 4 feet to install a birdbath! Other large discrepancies just come from different attitudes toward methods. Like mechanical vents for plumbing (where the vent goes to an interior check valve instead of up through the roof). Some places allow it, others prohibit it. I don't know why exactly, or who is "right". But the point is: if The Code is someone's only objection to a construction technique, then I don't think it's a valid objection. They need to say why the technique or omission is wrong or dangerous.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

Yeah, but bad advice is easy to tear down without resorting to the "hurr, durr, check your local code, my code requires X." The people that just worship the code without understanding why the code says what it says are what I'm complaining about. A lot of building code is there to facilitate consistency and ease of inspection and in those cases the "wrong" way of doing things is perfectly fine at small scale but it would be impractical/expensive to do that at a larger scale.

function_seven 7y ago
Any time someone from Phoenix posts their new deck, there will always be someone chiding the shallow footings. ("Frost will destroy that in 3 years, hurr, durr.") When a new home addition in Los Angeles is featured, you get the Brick Mafia laughing about how we use wood frame construction ("You yankees use cheap stuff"). Never mind that earthquakes favor the bendy sticks over the brittle blocks. Huge swaths of code are tied to local weather and common disaster scenarios. Florida really likes their hurricane ties, California loves their Simpson ties, in New England you need to dig down 4 feet to install a birdbath! Other large discrepancies just come from different attitudes toward methods. Like mechanical vents for plumbing (where the vent goes to an interior check valve instead of up through the roof). Some places allow it, others prohibit it. I don't know why exactly, or who is "right". But the point is: if The Code is someone's only objection to a construction technique, then I don't think it's a valid objection. They need to say why the technique or omission is wrong or dangerous.