I've personally seen some really silly things done because code required it and the code was applied blindly without any allowance for human judgment.

It's related to cargo culting. People who do not understand anything of the domain or substance end up making decisions. By default, we are in a constant slide toward the dark ages. We need renewal and self questioning to prevent that.

In the long run, it's probably cheaper for almost everyone since most houses are built with the same materials and techniques. If you want to deviate, you have to get it signed off. 99% of people benefit from the increase in the review speed and the building dept not paying for everyone to be a certified eng.

As a side note, most building departments have engineers on staff, but not every plan needs to be reviewed by the engineer. If you use a stock plan, stock materials, you are good to go and the jr guys can review your plan. These are templates that can be downloaded you can send a drawing of a square to the inspector, and slap some copy pasta on the corner of the print that says, 'Walls are build with 2x4 stud with a 2 grade stamp at 16" intervals and 5/8" 1 hour burn rating sheetrock, fire blocking at 4' with a 6" concrete foundation wall with standard #4 rebar at 16" spacing. . . .' and it will get approved.

This sounds like a case of the house builder being out of his depth and the building inspector being out of his depth. How did the guy get moved in before they had inspected/denied the structural framing? At that point, he could have had an eng come and sign off on it. But after he sheet-rocked and covered everything up, there's not much anyone can do.

Let's just read the first two sentences of the original story:

> It was the fifth house that Craig Morrison built with his own hands, and the last. He had built things with his own hands for 70 years, often using lumber he produced at his own small sawmill. Now he would build a modest, single-storey house

Looks like he knew how to prepare lumber and build a house.

So, sure, he was out of his depth when it came to the regulations of houses today. But it's very understandable that the regulations were a surprise and didn't make sense to him. Because the house and the wood was fine, pretty good even...

No. There is a difference between experience and wisdom. He could have built 5 unsafe and dangerous houses, and been building stuff wrong for 70 years.

(This happened to my parents, good old tiling person who had " been doing it 20 years", when he had been doing it wrong for 20 years, and the installation catastrophically failed due to fairly basic and obviously wrong choices).

So just because he built 5 houses, doesn't mean he knows how to do it or create anything safe. (it may be he does, of course, just that the fact that he's built houses before does not tell you that one way or the other)

But according to the story, an independent expert inspected his house and concluded that it exceeded the building code standards. So while in theory he could have been building unsafe houses, the evidence in this case is that he wasn't.

That's true, but I wasn't talking about the inspector, I was responding to DannyBee's comment that he could have been building unsafe houses. We here in this thread all know about the evidence that it was sound, so we don't have the excuse the inspector had (for whatever it's worth) for not knowing the actual structural soundness of the building.

> If the house builder reached out to building engineer to have his house plans and materials approved before the inspection, there would have been no problem in the first place.

Agreed. Whether that excuses the inspector (or the government that employs him), though, depends on the rules in that particular jurisdiction. Some places require stamped plans, or at least stamped plans for anything not using standard materials, others don't. If the rules just say the building has to be structurally sound, then it should be the inspector's job to determine if it is using all reasonable evidence, not just looking for stamps. But that also means the government needs to fund and train inspectors to be able to do that.

1. You have evidence he built one house correctly :) That tells you literally nothing about the previous performance of his houses.

2. This happened after the city had already red flagged a bunch of stuff. Again, he could have fixed it all and then hired his inspector to say it was great. I've even seen this happen with some of the flippers around here :)

Now, do i believe he probably knows how to build houses? Yes. But the original comment is that "looks like he knew how to take lumber and build a house", and the story as we have it doesn't provide this data.

It basically provides "he knew how to take lumber, do something, have the city complain about it, maybe fix it all or maybe it was already good, hire an inspector, inspector says it is now all good".

That isn't quite the same as proving "guy knew how to build houses", it's closer to "guy maybe knows how to build houses, or knows how to fix mistakes once they are pointed out".

Only if you believe that his performance on the one house has no correlation whatever with his performance on other houses. That seems highly implausible to me.

> he could have fixed it all

Fixed what? The problem wasn't that the house was actually built wrong. The problem was that the inspector wasn't competent enough to make an actual engineering judgment, so all he could look for was some particular label on the lumber instead of assessing its actual structural strength. An independent inspector, who did have the competence to make an actual engineering judgment, said the house was fine (in fact he said it exceeded the building code standards).

This is a strange thing that we are starting to see in the Western world. Everyone is specializing and becoming an expert as their field gets more complex. This is what capitalism demands. Yet, we assume anyone can walk off the streets and be a functional expert. Construction is hard, science is hard, economics is hard, foreign policy is hard, computer science is hard. I think the complaint is that, anymore, if you're not an expert, you're not good enough. Building a house and getting it permitted is a complex thing because we are unwilling to build structures that put lives in danger, and someone has to take the liability for confirming a building is adequate, if you want to go out on a limb and reinvent the wheel, in any field, you should be an expert.

I'll stand by my words here and say I think he was out of his depth. As was the inspector that probably could have defused the situation and come to a amicable solution.

Out of his depth in legal knowledge. At some point people decided everybody must study Law to even step outside of home. Things didn't use to be this way, how exactly did it change? And, well, it is certainly a bad thing today, but do we want to revert as it was at some time on the past, or reform in some unprecedented way?

And yes, it's kinda crazy. I am entitled into stamping a house around here, even though I have no idea how to decide if a construction is safe or not. Yet, I do know people with perfectly good history of creating good construction that isn't.

If government was prestigious and well paid, competent people would flock there in addition to business. As it is, you have to be /very/ dedicated to go into government, and most people are not.

Same for degrees/qualifications/credentials. It seems amazing that they are such a big deal. But when you're faced with assessing a professional in a field in which you're a layman, you see how crucial their role.

The town I live in has slum lords that are linked with the powers that be (friends, etc) that get away with appalling conditions unless someone points it out.

The city also is cracking down on AirBnB/Short term rentals due to a "lack of housing", yet we have a university that has added 6000 people in the last 20 years and about 1000 beds (including converting doubles into triples). The 2-300 short term rentals aren't the problem. The process to add an ADU (we looked into it), fees were 30+% of the budget.

I'm rambling, but process has replaced safety and holds up actually adding housing stock.

Compare this to individual developers using their own syntax and coding styles across a massive codebase, some of it is inevitably adding in technical debt for the future.

In the UK for instance, health safety regulation mandates that all doors shut automatically in an apartment block. As a result doors spend their time slamming in modern flats. You'd better have good sound insulation. How can you check that unless you pay someone to make noise in every flat around yours to test it?

The first is safety, and thus the liability to others. If your house is a fire hazard and you have nearby neighbors, then some compulsory standards can be imposed.

For rural areas, this justification of public welfare is often moot. In such a case, I'd much rather see inspection performed to arrive at a rating or assessment, rather than condemning a property. The top grade would be all but required for homeowners insurance, and would resemble the current code. You could have a more nebulous middle rating where no obvious dangers are present, but non-standard methods make it difficult to assess. Finally, there could a rating for buildings that are clearly a danger that may have some consequences. For instance, all occupants would have to be notified of the status, and perhaps children and animals could be forbidden to live in such structures. Or perhaps these structures could be condemned as before, but limited to extreme cases.

Basically, it would be good to have a middle ground for adults willing to take on the risk.

I recently had some work done by an electrician. It was permitted and inspected. The inspector merely looked to see that it had been done by a licensed electrician. I inspected and found several problems, which he ended up fixing (he wanted to be paid, after all). I know several people in the trades who say this is very common.

Building code doesn't accomplish half of what it's supposed to, but somehow manages to cost a lot more than it's supposed to.

A true craftsman would always do the job perfectly, but subcontractors are often unsupervised, inexperienced, and rushing from job to job.

As a result of my remodeling misadventures, I've had to learn stuff like electrical. I bought every remodeling book. Filled with conflicting advice.

I barely know enough to know what questions to ask. Further, I don't want to know enough to form my own opinion. Instead, I have the building codes.

Installing a sink? Do it like this. Boom, done. It's been a fantastic resource.

The curse of any effective regulation is that the day after it cures the evil it was meant to, people start questioning things. Vaccines, pasterization, not spitting in public, rabies shots for pets ... all were/are life or death rules that many now disregard because they have forgotten history.

It seems to me like it should really be a federal regulation, with tiers of strictness by population density or something. Then instead of having different codes for every municipality, you have one standardized set that enforces the major benefits where the stakes are highest, and yet allows more freedom on the edges. But yea, history didn't go that way.

If you don't have that, obviously the building can be neither sold nor insured.

I agree it should be optional to just live in an uninsured and unsellable shed if you want. The buyer or insurance company can make the inspection, should they want to.

That said, possible problems include: should you be allowed to raise kids in a house that might collapse (while you can't legally drive those same kids in your car without seat belts, for comparison)?

Should a publicly funded fire department put out the recurring fires in your house due to your homebuilt fireplace and diy electric wiring?

There are also accessibility standards - I'm not allowed to build a house that isn't accessible (e.g I can't only have bathrooms accessible by stairs, and one ground floor bathroom door must fit a wheelchair etc). The reason being that the prices on houses that are accessible might otherwise be higher because of limited supply.

I'm seeing a lot of that sentiment, and my libertarian nature does agree with it; however, houses are often directly connected to a shared electrical, water and sewage systems -- improper design of a structure can have serious effects on these systems and thus on the neighborhood as a whole.

So, to allow that ideology, you'd also have to prevent these homes from being connected to these services.

And of course... So many other things... Your shoddily constructed deck can blow into my house during a windstorm, for example.

You say:

> I agree it should be optional to just live in an uninsured and unsellable shed if you want. The buyer or insurance company can make the inspection, should they want to.

But then go on to say:

> Should a publicly funded fire department put out the recurring fires in your house due to your homebuilt fireplace and diy electric wiring?

You can't have your cake and eat it too: allow reckless behavior, disregard neighbors' lives and property, and have a reasonable life and property loss prevention policy?

The purpose of your publicly funded fire department is to extinguish fires before they spread to nearby properties and cause even more loss.

The efficiency at which your city/town/village/county/etc's fire department performs this, is something everyone's insurance company pays very, very close attention to when building the elements and costs of policies that'll serve your neighborhood.

Your choices (albeit simplifying it a bit), are:

a) staff up on building inspectors and fire inspectors and spend on office space

-or-

b) staff up on fire fighters and spend on real estate acquiring parcels of land, building firehouses upon said parcels, acquiring more fire-fighting apparatus, and contribute additional funds to the state's firefighting training academy and your fire fighter's pensions and life insurance policies

To me, this (inspections vs. emergency response) is the very definition of proactive vs. reactive.

Sucks to buy a home and get drenched when the first heavy rain comes -- and find out the work was done with no permit.

No, children shouldn't be allowed to live in unsafe structures, I can't believe this is even a question.

Certainly, people whom are more affluent could purchase additional safeguards (ie automatic external defibrillators, whole-house water-filtration) while those whom are elderly/poor will likely need assistance meeting minimum standards.

Also, clipboard auditing (timber stickers) shouldn't be a substitute for inspection common-sense.

My understanding is that substantial improvements in this regard can be achieved for 10% or less additional cost. And the resulting livability and healthiness (stress reduction) of the the dwelling is greatly improved.

Having had more than my share of crap neighbors. Please.

Are you serious? That is an insane cost increase.

If you're willing to pay an extra $200-300/mo (at NYC or SF rents), you can already spend that much more money and find an apartment with thicker walls. Why do you feel the need to foist this (trivial) concern on other people? I'm sure most people in the world would happily take a ~10% reduction in rent in exchange for slightly noisier neighbors.

Personally, I've been careful when searching for places, and I've still ended up screwed. Noise is one of the biggest complaints I've heard over the years from friends and colleagues.

People worry over "sprawl" in this country incessantly. Yet one of the simplest solutions is to make shared living spaces (apartments, condos) more comfortable.

Stress greatly, negatively impacts productivity. And unwelcome, persistent noise is one of the greatest sources in day-to-day life.

So, engineer it out.

People who don't mind noise can live in the crackerbox housing stock that became more prevalent post World War II, that still persists.

Noise is finally being designated the pollutant that it is. Building codes can and should address this, especially when remediation is available and -- my understanding -- not that expensive. Require it, and economies of scale will bring the cost down further.

In the U.S., individuals such as myself, plenty productive but requiring a quiet environment, are left to suss out individual circumstances. I've had enough, and I want to make life easier for the next person like me. So, I will continue to advocate for noise ordinances (that actually get enforced), improved building codes, and the like.

All the noisy people who want to live on the cheap while making my life miserable? Well, after 5 decades of persistently trying to be the nice guy and politely gain their cooperation: Screw them.

They can pay the cost to physically limit their noise, given that they are unwilling to cooperate in terms of polite behavior.

Seriously, just travel. I think its the easiest way to appreciate what human beings end up with without controls or even the threat of control/speedy justice.

do note that this in no way is meant to relieve your angst, just contextualize it and make it easier to bear.

It's the same thing that Uber was doing with the self-driving car permit, if you actually pay attention to the details. Neither are less safe, it's just that both didn't kiss the ring of the bureaucracy and the civil servants didn't like it.

But the alternative of rules that are open to interpretation is worse. If there must be rules, let them be clear and concrete.

This guy didn't want others to play by one set of rules while he played by another (advantageous) set.

Then you generally couple regulatory arbitrage with money spent on lawyers and lobbying to monitor the existing loopholes, in order to make sure they don't disappear.

What Uber/Lyft are doing is more equivalent to poker: a combination of betting (a large enough war chest to pay lawyers and fines) and bluffing (using marketing campaigns to garner public interest and shame/scare the establishment).

When the stakes get too high (e.g. ride sharing laws in Austin, TX), they fold.

Not one of the the groups you mentioned makes a habit of breaking the law. They look for opportunities to get around the excessive weight of our insanely litigious and complicated regulatory environment.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. They are helping humanity escape the productivity sink of pointless regulations, set insanely far along the diminishing returns curve.

Think about how many billions of dollars of productive output are wasted every year so some idiot pencil-pushers can make sure the correct stickers are present on building materials.

This is ridiculous. Uber's self-driving cars have run red lights on at least one occasion[1]. Their technology is quite far behind that of Google and others.

Furthermore, the permit in question is both very easy and cheap to attain. We aren't talking about years of bureaucratic process.

The most likely reason Uber has refused to attain permits is because doing so would require disclosing accidents.

[1]http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/14/13960836/uber-self-drivin...

If true, then the permits are worthless.

> The most likely reason Uber has refused to attain permits is because doing so would require disclosing accidents.

Don't accidents (self-driving or otherwise) already need to be reported to the police in California? They sure do in my jurisdiction.

They're pursuing self-driving tech in a shifty way - paying a driver to perform backup (in a way that Google has shown can't be done) and otherwise letting an unfinished AI have full-control of the vehicle at road speeds. When the cars make a mistake (run a red) they blame the driver so they can claim a flawless self-driving record.

If they said they were self-driving, and got the permit, they'd be required to log activations so we'd know who was supposed to be in control at the time.

The law is clear.

If you have a human at the wheel, it is lane assist, and automated cruise control.

If you don't like it, then change the law.

The problem is that they've put drivers in the car as backup; they're not supposed to drive or it ruins the experiment. So they won't be ready to take over when needed. One already missed their cue and the car ran a red light...

And I am sick of people who don't understand the law trying to stop this perfectly legal technology from entering the market.

Read the law, and get educated please.

There are 10s of thousands of self driving Teslas on the road right now, in the hands of customers. You can buy one! You don't have to get a permit for them.

http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/vehicle-code/veh-sect-38750.html

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/12/19/hazards-of-autop...

But if you stand at that particular intersection for an hour, I'm pretty sure it's the one on 3rd street by the MOMA, you'll probably see half a dozen people blow by that light. It's entirely reasonable to think that a human driver would drive through, but it seems rather standard for software to detect the redlight. But you are free to believe what you want.

The law on this was clear. If you have a human at the wheel, you can have whatever technology you want doing "lane assist" and automated cruise control.

If Tesla is legal, than so is Uber.

Tesla's cars that you can buy right now have lane assist and nobody owns any permits.

If there is a human at the wheel, no permit required.

https://consumerist.com/2016/12/22/uber-packs-up-its-self-dr...

It is unsurprising to me that a politician cares about politics and doesn't give a shit about the law.

And as soon as this stuff went to court the politician would have lost, because the law is very clear on this.

But it would have delayed things for a year or 2. And Uber was perfectly able to just move to Arizona.

But it is no matter. Eventually this stuff will go to court and the politician who doesn't care about the law will lose.

Looking through your comment history, it looks like you have a very strong attachment to Uber! Strong to the point that you have to create alternate definitions of commonly-held terms in response to criticism of the company. Any reason?

Yes, but importantly the legislature overrides the permit office. The permit office has the right to decide in some situations, but in others situations their decisions can be objectively correct or incorrect.

Every year, a hundred thousand people in the world die in car related incidents.

Every last one of these deaths are preventable. And every year that politicians delay this technology, is 100 thousand more people dead that could have been saved.

They delay it even when it clearly doesn't break the law. The laws on lane assist and cruise control are clear. This stuff is already deployed to tens of thousands of Tesla cars, that are on the road right now.

I do not work for Uber, if that is what you are insinuating (although I have received recruiting emails, as I am a SF web developer. I don't really like their intense work environment.).

I "merely" care a lot about the 100 thousand people that politicians, ignorant of the law, are killing every year.

And the law doesn't apply to situations where a human is at the wheel, so the extra rules and regulations shouldn't.

The argument is disingenuous on its face.

Plus, based on the actual law written, Uber's implementation wasn't covered under the permit. Uber has hundreds of lawyers, I'm pretty sure they know what they are doing. Why should they get a permit that they don't need to?

Reminds me of what I had to do with my car when I moved to California due to "emissions" regulations. CA emissions meant that even if performing as it did 30 years ago as a new car, it would not have been legal, since they keep raising standards year after year to the point where the car, as built, was illegal. After doing significant repair work (myself), it exceeded California's strict requirements. By the numbers it blew clean as a whistle, better than stock. But I used [cue the scary music] after-market parts (!) that did not bear the great stamp of California, and therefore failed emissions anyway as "tampered". Ended up having to sell it to someone out of state because California wouldn't budge on the stamps and bureaucracy.

I feel for this guy. Regulations and codes should serve some identifiable overall good. It shouldn't be simply about compliance and getting the right stamps on the right papers.

That is the building code. It is all about stickers and stamps. Why is a tree that grew on my land that I cut myself not acceptable? It has nothing to do with the wood obviously, it has to do with creating make work jobs for bureaucrats to "inspect" and stamp lumber.

They were done due to failures, not because government was bored.

This is simply false. Seriously. I'd love to see where this history came from? Do you have any real source, or is this typical "lobbyists did it" bluster.

Here is the history of stamping in the US: There were failures and complaints in ~1920's from mills/etc starting to sell substandard lumber due to the depression. Code enforcers wanted a sane way to ensure the houses being built weren't being built with substandard lumber. Folks asked Dept of Commerce to come up with voluntary standards for grading and inspection. NIST (well, what is now NIST) created a set of simple voluntary grading standards. They've revised it a few times.

Literally the only thing the grading agencies do is grade. They don't actually care about the end result. They don't make more or less money one way or the other.

The grading standards are also pretty simple. It's not like it's rocket science.

Note that most mills stamp their own lumber. You just have to have someone trained to do it. In wisconsin, for example, it takes 1 day to be certified.

One of the 7 grading agencies randomly inspect, and if they find enough errors, they'll hold you up.

As for the amount of waste, most waste i've seen is from 1. later-bent studs due to wood movement. This is not structurally unsound (just nobody feels like re-straightening them), so the stamp still is doing it's job of saying it's sound. 2. damage during transit.

Your other question was "evidence stamped lumber is superior in any way".

okay. that's easy. Two grading methods include machine stress rating and non-destructive evaluation. See http://www.southernpine.com/grade-methods/ for example.

I will strongly assert that lumber machine tested and evaluated for actual strength and stamped as such is superior to random lumber that is untested and unknown.

Visually graded lumber is usually graded based on things like knot size and slope of grain, both of which have a significant structural effect on lumber (structural strength decreases as grain deviation increases).

Assuming grading is being done properly (and again, there's a lot of checks going on), yes, the lumber is structurally better.

But maybe you don't believe the physics, and think that things like slope of grain don't impact the structural properties? If so, i guess i can't solve that problem for you. It's pretty well studied:

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/390291... has a bibliography

Also note the table showing that wood with significant slope of grain will support half or less of what wood without significant slope of grain would.

See also http://www.conradfp.com/pdf/ch4-Mechanical-Properties-of-Woo... and "Failure Analysis of Wood and Wood-Based Products" https://www.accessengineeringlibrary.com/browse/failure-anal...

Of course, he's made a lot of promises...

But the same could be achieved with voluntary certification. The only advantage with building codes is that they protect idiots from themselves.

I've only got residential experience in two states, but from what I'm aware of, there are certainly cheaper routes you can go. Especially with high quality prefab options becoming more common.

From scratch though, towns typically expect a professional architect to sign off on a design, and a licensed electrician to do the wiring, and a licensed plumber to do the plumbing, and on and on. I'm officially none of those things, even though I got myself through college working construction, and I know how to use CAD packages for statics analysis, my degree is in electrical engineering, water flows down hill, and on and on. The DIY option is for all intents and purposes off the table, is what I was lamenting.

https://reason.com/blog/2010/06/24/plumbers-unions-vs-waterl...

"Oh my god, this building collapsed during an earthquake and killed a family! Alert the national press!"

Versus

"The expected per-capita cost of this new electrical wiring legislation over the next 50 years is $12/person/year, which according to our consumption models means that the average person will spend $2.50 fewer a year on health insurance, which will result in a 0.00003% higher annual medical casualty rate. Now, moving onto expected effects on nutrition..."

Even though the regulatory costs kill a lot more people, it's not as immediate or violent, so most people don't care.

It's often easy to suggest the number of regulations are unnecessary, but most came from some sort of logic or reason... In many cases in response to a tragedy that occurred before.

If they are on the floor they could easily be moved or be a tripping Hazard.

[1] http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/06/22/155596305/episo...

Thinking of fires, for example - these used to be a major hazard, but their now more or less a solved problem, and a lot has changed since the fire codes were written. Like, people don't smoke nearly as much any more, clothing and furniture is far less hazardous, and electrical appliances are lower power and safer now. These days, the only time people actually die in fires is when they are doing something hazardous and illegal anyway.

Or, more to the point, as noted above, they're paid in blood. Each time enough people die in previously unforeseen ways, we come up with solutions in aggregate. Chesterton's Fence is apt here.

We're exactly talking about fire codes. But fair, let's talk about lumber stamps. How much weight can a random hunk of wood support? Under what conditions? Do you know? Probably not, different ways wood can be treated can dramatically affect how it behaves. How it's cared for (drying, etc) can also do the same. Both of those definitely contribute to flammability. Or just "Where did the wood come from? Is it from an area likely to have borer beetles, compromising any treatment?"

I mean, sure, if you pick through codes, there's probably cruft in there. I'm not foolhardy enough to say that everything is 100% based on modern understanding of materials science. But it's quite the reach to go from there to "Nah, let's get rid of them, they're in our way! Common sense will do just fine!"

For most stick construction you can clearly see a 2x4 or 2x6 will or won't support the load given the checking and knot size. Code, though, requires a grade stamp.

No we're not. That poster pointed out how fire codes helped, but that most codes do not. We're talking about building codes.

>But fair, let's talk about lumber stamps. How much weight can a random hunk of wood support? Under what conditions? Do you know?

None of those things have anything at all to do with stamps. That's the point. If the code specified lumber by strength it would be fine. But it specifies lumber by "you have to buy it from an approved member of the lumber cartel" and makes absolutely no mention of strength.

>Probably not, different ways wood can be treated

Building lumber is not treated. If you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, why throw out random nonsense?

> But it's quite the reach to go from there to "Nah, let's get rid of them, they're in our way! Common sense will do just fine!"

Nobody suggested that. Responding to silly strawman arguments is not constructive.

So...not really sure what you're saying...the codes that made that illegal have served their purpose?

Seems like an oxymoron, the reason there are fewer deadly fires is at least in part because things that are hazardous are illegal.

These are all only thanks to the regulation you despise. Remove the regulation and manufacturers will cheap out and things will get more hazardous and wasteful (see: China)