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Utah passed a balcony solar bill; I think they're the only ones so far. Oregon tried in the short session last year, but it got shut down by fire marshall type

by davidw 4mo ago

Utah passed a balcony solar bill; I think they're the only ones so far. Oregon tried in the short session last year, but it got shut down by fire marshall type people, sadly.

harmmonica 4mo ago
Interesting on Utah. Re Oregon, was the fire Marshall acting in good faith in that scenario? Recently reading about fire-truck size in the US I start wondering what the motivation is for some views about things around fire safety (amongst a million other things). Maybe good faith is too cynical. Maybe just hard-to-change attitudes.
- davidw 4mo ago
  Hah - I was going to mention all the other types of things the fire people seem to be blocking, but decided to stay focused. But yeah, it seemed like 'aversion to change'. "Firefighters might trip over solar panels on balconies" or something kind of far-fetched sounding.
  - harmmonica 4mo ago
    This is funny. You might notice that I write insanely-long comments because these types of things pop into my head every time on HN (better get ahead of it because people will pick apart my quick comment if I don't cover as many bases as possible in the original comment!). Your method is better! I have to learn how to be more "focused" and let folks just do their thing and then reply succinctly like you did here.
    - davidw 4mo ago
      Good plan.
- daedrdev 4mo ago
  Firefighters are infamous for creating elevator regulations that require being able to rotate a stretcher, which lead to less elevators duet to the immense costs, which is both completely unnecessary and defeats the entire purpose of the regulations for safety since now they have to drag injured people down stairs
  - davidw 4mo ago
    They are also dragging their feet on 'single stair' reform, despite single stair being perfectly safe with adequate construction techniques https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2025/02/small-single-stairway-apartment-buildings-have-strong-safety-record https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2025/02...
    - daedrdev 4mo ago
      Its especially egregious because 2 stair builds are easily and often designed with more distance between stairs and rooms than single stair builds are.
cardiffspaceman 4mo ago
I saw that Virginia and Maine have a little bit of momentum towards balcony solar. This is the video I saw that in: https://youtu.be/2RqhK2w8rrA https://youtu.be/2RqhK2w8rrA

by davidw 4mo ago

Utah passed a balcony solar bill; I think they're the only ones so far. Oregon tried in the short session last year, but it got shut down by fire marshall type people, sadly.

harmmonica 4mo ago

Interesting on Utah. Re Oregon, was the fire Marshall acting in good faith in that scenario? Recently reading about fire-truck size in the US I start wondering what the motivation is for some views about things around fire safety (amongst a million other things). Maybe good faith is too cynical. Maybe just hard-to-change attitudes.

davidw 4mo ago
Hah - I was going to mention all the other types of things the fire people seem to be blocking, but decided to stay focused. But yeah, it seemed like 'aversion to change'. "Firefighters might trip over solar panels on balconies" or something kind of far-fetched sounding.
- harmmonica 4mo ago
  This is funny. You might notice that I write insanely-long comments because these types of things pop into my head every time on HN (better get ahead of it because people will pick apart my quick comment if I don't cover as many bases as possible in the original comment!). Your method is better! I have to learn how to be more "focused" and let folks just do their thing and then reply succinctly like you did here.
  - davidw 4mo ago
    Good plan.
daedrdev 4mo ago
Firefighters are infamous for creating elevator regulations that require being able to rotate a stretcher, which lead to less elevators duet to the immense costs, which is both completely unnecessary and defeats the entire purpose of the regulations for safety since now they have to drag injured people down stairs
- davidw 4mo ago
  They are also dragging their feet on 'single stair' reform, despite single stair being perfectly safe with adequate construction techniques https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2025/02/small-single-stairway-apartment-buildings-have-strong-safety-record https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2025/02...
  - daedrdev 4mo ago
    Its especially egregious because 2 stair builds are easily and often designed with more distance between stairs and rooms than single stair builds are.

cardiffspaceman 4mo ago

I saw that Virginia and Maine have a little bit of momentum towards balcony solar. This is the video I saw that in: https://youtu.be/2RqhK2w8rrA https://youtu.be/2RqhK2w8rrA