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What is it in the building codes that you think should be dispensed with? I follow them to a moderate degree, and my impression is that (1) the major costs are

What is it in the building codes that you think should be dispensed with? I follow them to a moderate degree, and my impression is that (1) the major costs are labor (which I find appropriate) (2) most the requirements that have been added in, say, that last 3-4 decades are welcome and positive.

xnx 3y ago
I'm not an expert in this area, but some municipalities have restrictions on cheaper construction techniques (e.g. requiring copper piping instead of PEX for plumbing, EMT conduit instead of Romex for wiring). This is often due to union influence instead of any safety reason.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  Given that you are required to be a licensed electrician to work in more or less any municipality that has a building code, unions requiring <harder, more expensive thing> instead of <easier, cheaper thing> seems less important. Most of the times I've dug in and researched these "unions are holding us back" claims, they tend to generally evaporate. Also, given the way shrinkflation and related phenomena work, do you actually believe that if a municipality went from banning PEX to allowing it, the prices of new homes in its boundaries would go down?
barelysapient 3y ago
I would welcome a honest review from a qualified third party. Picking one example out of thin air, I'd say AFCI breakers are overkill and add a fair amount of cost. For HVAC, requiring a fused disconnect within 6ft of the unit is overkill when the panel with an appropriate shutoff is already located in an accessible area. The code requirements make things safer in probably 90% of the situations. But they also increase the cost substantially. With the affordability crisis in housing, I think we should look for places where a small reduction in safety can yield big savings on cost.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  IMO, the best way to make housing cheaper is to make it smaller. Your examples are fair, but as you note, they bring a LOT of safety with them even so.
  - barelysapient 3y ago
    I think a _LOT_ of safety is overstated. I'd be curious for an assessment of code-preventable fatalities of home occupants from, say, the 1960s until today. I'd be shocked if the cumulative building codes since then to today could be shown to save even a single year of, say, 2022 of automobile fatalities (about 43,000 people).
    - barelysapient 3y ago
      Replying to myself, I know, but then how about we work out how many fatalities are occurred due to housing affordability? Code costs need to consider that too; since increasing costs means less people get houses to live in. And homeless people have a dramatically shorter life expectancy than housed people.
- WkndTriathlete 3y ago
  > Picking one example out of thin air, I'd say AFCI breakers are overkill You need a better example. An AFCI breaker saved my house from burning down and quite possibly the four lives (mine included) within it.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
    AFCI or GFCI? The latter are unquestionably valuable. The former is a bit harder to argue for?
drewcoo 3y ago
I live in one of my city's ever-expanding historic preservation areas. I can't actually fix the front of my old house without permission. Or remove the nonsense purely-decorative dormer because the city historian will only trust photographs and not evidence of moderns construction materials. The owner in the 80s needed a permit from the historic preservation board to add the dormer. It's the same historic preservation board I need permission from to remove the dormer. Ironically, the history board doesn't have any of its own records before the early oughts, so they don't believe they issued a permit. (I talked with the old owner back in ~1992 about the odd dormer and heard a lot about permits back then.) I would love to have that particular board of busybodies disbanded.

xnx 3y ago

I'm not an expert in this area, but some municipalities have restrictions on cheaper construction techniques (e.g. requiring copper piping instead of PEX for plumbing, EMT conduit instead of Romex for wiring). This is often due to union influence instead of any safety reason.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
Given that you are required to be a licensed electrician to work in more or less any municipality that has a building code, unions requiring <harder, more expensive thing> instead of <easier, cheaper thing> seems less important. Most of the times I've dug in and researched these "unions are holding us back" claims, they tend to generally evaporate. Also, given the way shrinkflation and related phenomena work, do you actually believe that if a municipality went from banning PEX to allowing it, the prices of new homes in its boundaries would go down?

barelysapient 3y ago

I would welcome a honest review from a qualified third party. Picking one example out of thin air, I'd say AFCI breakers are overkill and add a fair amount of cost. For HVAC, requiring a fused disconnect within 6ft of the unit is overkill when the panel with an appropriate shutoff is already located in an accessible area. The code requirements make things safer in probably 90% of the situations. But they also increase the cost substantially. With the affordability crisis in housing, I think we should look for places where a small reduction in safety can yield big savings on cost.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
IMO, the best way to make housing cheaper is to make it smaller. Your examples are fair, but as you note, they bring a LOT of safety with them even so.
- barelysapient 3y ago
  I think a _LOT_ of safety is overstated. I'd be curious for an assessment of code-preventable fatalities of home occupants from, say, the 1960s until today. I'd be shocked if the cumulative building codes since then to today could be shown to save even a single year of, say, 2022 of automobile fatalities (about 43,000 people).
  - barelysapient 3y ago
    Replying to myself, I know, but then how about we work out how many fatalities are occurred due to housing affordability? Code costs need to consider that too; since increasing costs means less people get houses to live in. And homeless people have a dramatically shorter life expectancy than housed people.
WkndTriathlete 3y ago
> Picking one example out of thin air, I'd say AFCI breakers are overkill You need a better example. An AFCI breaker saved my house from burning down and quite possibly the four lives (mine included) within it.
- PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
  AFCI or GFCI? The latter are unquestionably valuable. The former is a bit harder to argue for?

drewcoo 3y ago

I live in one of my city's ever-expanding historic preservation areas. I can't actually fix the front of my old house without permission. Or remove the nonsense purely-decorative dormer because the city historian will only trust photographs and not evidence of moderns construction materials. The owner in the 80s needed a permit from the historic preservation board to add the dormer. It's the same historic preservation board I need permission from to remove the dormer. Ironically, the history board doesn't have any of its own records before the early oughts, so they don't believe they issued a permit. (I talked with the old owner back in ~1992 about the odd dormer and heard a lot about permits back then.) I would love to have that particular board of busybodies disbanded.