3 ms·

I mean, there's still more people who die in fires in the US than in the EU, thanks mostly thanks to space heaters on 120v/15A circuits and absolutely zero retr

I mean, there's still more people who die in fires in the US than in the EU, thanks mostly thanks to space heaters on 120v/15A circuits and absolutely zero retrofit requirements on anything (what do you mean I can have K&T and a Federal Pacific Panel that does not trip on overcurrent in my house with no GFCI/AFCI protection but every single new circuit I add needs to have those?). The US/Canada have gone too far into "new housing stock needs to be perfect" and not enough into "existing housing stock needs to be retrofitted", because not pissing off landlords and boomer homeowners is a main policy goal.

googlryas 4y ago
A cursory search says 3k Americans die in house fires, and 5k Europeans die in house fires per year, so probably EU had more fire deaths per capita. But it's hard to tell because EU doesn't have a FEMA equivalent collecting data on residential fire deaths. https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/residential-fires/ https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/residential-fires/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statistics/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statist...
- henrikschroder 4y ago
  Hang on, this article is explicitly about mid-rise buildings and the fire safety of one vs two stairwells in those, so you can't drag up statistics that show combined data for all housing types. I'm assuming a large chunk of those fire deaths are people dying because they accidentally burned down their single-family single-story building. That's completely irrelevant in this case so you have to separate that out.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    This sub thread got into the angle of general forced retrofit of new code requirements, and claimed a general loss of life from fires being higher in the US making introduction of facts about fire deaths overall relevant IMO.
happyopossum 4y ago
> I mean, there's still more people who die in fires in the US than in the EU False - and it's not even close. Europe has almost a full order of magnitude more death from residential fires than the US - house fires caused 2,620 deaths over 5 years in the US [0] vs ~5000/yr in Europe [1]. [0] https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/house-fire-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/house-fire-stati... [1] https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statistics/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statist...
- comte7092 4y ago
  >house fires caused 2,620 deaths over 5 years in the US Your source says that was 2,620 per year further down in the article: >House fires cause an average of 2,620 civilian deaths each year. Given that the EU has a significantly higher population than the US (~500 million, the EU data may or may not have included the UK, vs ~330 million) the per capita statistics end up fairly close.
sokoloff 4y ago
The decision to not require retrofitting of existing, undisturbed construction means that new code can evolve more quickly to adopt new technologies or safer methods. If every 15A and 20A residential outlet had to have AFCI protection as of some specified date, I can tell you that date would be sometime still in the future from now. Requiring it only for new construction or new circuits means it could be phased in starting in 1999.
- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  "Now for new construction and retrofit everyone in 10-15 years" would make much more sense. Especially for things like GFCI/AFCI protection which is much more useful in old circuits than new.

googlryas 4y ago

A cursory search says 3k Americans die in house fires, and 5k Europeans die in house fires per year, so probably EU had more fire deaths per capita. But it's hard to tell because EU doesn't have a FEMA equivalent collecting data on residential fire deaths. https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/residential-fires/ https://www.usfa.fema.gov/statistics/residential-fires/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statistics/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statist...

henrikschroder 4y ago
Hang on, this article is explicitly about mid-rise buildings and the fire safety of one vs two stairwells in those, so you can't drag up statistics that show combined data for all housing types. I'm assuming a large chunk of those fire deaths are people dying because they accidentally burned down their single-family single-story building. That's completely irrelevant in this case so you have to separate that out.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  This sub thread got into the angle of general forced retrofit of new code requirements, and claimed a general loss of life from fires being higher in the US making introduction of facts about fire deaths overall relevant IMO.

happyopossum 4y ago

> I mean, there's still more people who die in fires in the US than in the EU False - and it's not even close. Europe has almost a full order of magnitude more death from residential fires than the US - house fires caused 2,620 deaths over 5 years in the US [0] vs ~5000/yr in Europe [1]. [0] https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/house-fire-statistics/ https://www.thezebra.com/resources/research/house-fire-stati... [1] https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statistics/ https://www.europeanfiresafetyalliance.org/our-focus/statist...

comte7092 4y ago
>house fires caused 2,620 deaths over 5 years in the US Your source says that was 2,620 per year further down in the article: >House fires cause an average of 2,620 civilian deaths each year. Given that the EU has a significantly higher population than the US (~500 million, the EU data may or may not have included the UK, vs ~330 million) the per capita statistics end up fairly close.

sokoloff 4y ago

The decision to not require retrofitting of existing, undisturbed construction means that new code can evolve more quickly to adopt new technologies or safer methods. If every 15A and 20A residential outlet had to have AFCI protection as of some specified date, I can tell you that date would be sometime still in the future from now. Requiring it only for new construction or new circuits means it could be phased in starting in 1999.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago
"Now for new construction and retrofit everyone in 10-15 years" would make much more sense. Especially for things like GFCI/AFCI protection which is much more useful in old circuits than new.