# New Cities - New Codes



## conarb

A few years ago I posted a Y Combinator address about Silicon Valley disrupting society as we know it, much of that has come to pass like Uber making taxis obsolete.

As we know codes are obsolete and do little but drive costs up, here is a proposal that calls for all new codes in a maximum of a 100 page book:



			
				Bloomberg said:
			
		

> "We want to build cities," wrote Y Combinator partner Adora Cheung and President Sam Altman in an announcement slated for release Monday. YC Research, Y Combinator’s nonprofit arm, plans to solicit proposals for research into new construction methods, power sources, driverless cars, even notions of zoning and property rights. Among other things, the project aims to develop ways to reduce housing expenses by 90 percent and to develop a city code of laws simple enough to fit on 100 pages of text. Eventually the plan is to actually produce a prototype city. "We’re not trying to build a utopia for techies," says Cheung, the project’s director and the former CEO of failed housecleaning startup Homejoy. "This is a city for humans."¹



BTW, Sam Altman was an invitee to this year's Bilderberg conference in Dresden, these people do determine the flow of money in the world.  In this same vein the Dallas Fed did a survey to determine what was wrong with the economy, they came up with #1 the Fed itself, #2 Regulation, and #3 Obamacare.



			
				Zero Hedge said:
			
		

> Response #2: "the Government and Regulation"
> 
> We are experiencing major demand instability in the U.S. Continued management focus on upcoming regulatory changes is keeping us from pursuing new markets (especially internationally) and delaying making long-term investments. Major human resources policy updates and changes have resulted in eliminating positions (in the future as people are promoted or leave the company they will not be replaced) and considering moving all salary people who do not travel to hourly. Although we need more people, we are increasing the requirements for the open positions to reflect higher cost thresholds and most likely will delay hiring decisions for most positions until the impacts of the changes are fully understood.²




¹ http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ley-s-latest-startup-offering-is-a-whole-city

² http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-...responses-explain-everything-wrong-us-economy


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## steveray

" Among other things, the project aims to develop ways to reduce housing expenses by 90 percent"....

     No problem! Bring back slavery....We are already near feudalism, where the financial "lords" already own everything and you make payments on the home you do not "own" and maybe vehicles and probably that credit card debt. Then you give your monthly stipend to their mandated buddies the insurance companies whose services you don't even use.

     If you want to take that big a bite out of housing costs, the only way will be at the end of a whip...Labor will be the only ones to suffer as is the way our society is heading...Let's trust the 1%ers to make all of our decisions for us, it has been working so well so far..Rant over...

And don't take the "slavery" word to be racist, it is not intended as such.


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## mtlogcabin

It is not all building code related
http://www.nahb.org/en/news-and-publications/press-releases/2016/06/b




*                                                      Builders Call for End to Regulatory Overreach During National Homeownership Month *

June 01, 2016

As the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) celebrates National Homeownership Month in June, builders continue to demand affordable housing for all Americans, calling for sensible reforms to burdensome regulations that increase the cost of housing.

“The aggressive over-regulation of the housing industry is putting the American Dream of safe and affordable housing at risk,” said NAHB Chairman Ed Brady, a home builder and developer from Bloomington, Ill.  

In May, NAHB released a study, _Government Regulation in the Price of a New Home_, which showed that on average, government regulations account for 24.3% of the final price of a new single-family home. In fact, the regulatory costs for an average single-family home went from $65,224 in 2011 to $84,671 in 2016 – a 29.8% increase in five years.

“Regulators at all levels of government – local, state and federal – must understand that their actions have real consequences,” said NAHB Chief Executive Officer Jerry Howard. “The cost of regulation in the price of a new home is rising more than twice as fast as the average American’s ability to pay for it. That is simply not sustainable.”

NAHB has been fighting back against costly regulations that fail to meet their intended goals, including the Department of Labor’s new overtime rule that was implemented without considering its impact on small businesses, consumers, workers and the economy.

The 100% increase to the salary threshold for overtime eligibility will hit the home building industry particularly hard and harm housing affordability. It will reduce job-advancement opportunities and the hours of full-time construction supervisors, leading to construction delays, increased costs and less affordable housing options for consumers.

“Common sense reforms to the regulatory approval process would open the doors of homeownership to more Americans across the country,” Brady said.

During National Homeownership Month in June, and throughout the year, NAHB and its 700 state and local affiliates work hard to make affordable housing a reality and a priority to our nation’s leadership.

“Homeownership remains a core American value to consumers across the country,” Brady said. “In addition to building stronger communities, homeownership provides a solid foundation for family and personal achievement. It is critical that we keep this dream within reach, and not price out buyers with needless overregulation.”


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## fatboy

"In fact, the regulatory costs for an average single-family home went from $65,224 in 2011 to $84,671 in 2016 – a 29.8% increase in five years."

Maybe on one of the coasts, sure the he!! not here.


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## conarb

It's not just the cost of permit fees but the total costs of regulatory fees plus the costs that the regulatory fees create.  For instance buildable land costs a fortune to buy to even build, that's due to pressure from activist groups like environmentalists and NIMBYers,  a couple of years ago we were driving to the tunnel in the Oakland Hills and my wife said: "You say you can't find and land to build on, just look at all those hills, why don't you buy some fo that land and build houses there?"  I explained that it was all owned by the utility district or the park district. A couple of weeks ago we were in Palo Alto, we drove by a house we rented for $70 a month in 1956, I told her that Zillow now shows that house at over $3 million dollars, she pointed to the hills to the west covered with trees and the hills to the east barren covered with hay and asked: "Why can't you buy some of those hills and build houses there, certainly they aren't all owned by park and utility districts?" I had to answer that even if some of it was privately owned I'd be well over 100 years old before I ever got a permit to build a single house there, in the meantime I would have to spend millions of dollars fighting lawsuits from the Sierra Club and other assorted environmental groups, this is all regulation.

To bring it closer to the codes themselves, we have environmental impact reports we have to provide for most of what we try to do, minimum for those reports is $100,000, maybe the government agencies should have to provide economic impact reports showing the cost impacts fo their regulations.  Looking back to the 50s and 60s I tore down old homes around Lake Merritt in Oakland and build large apartment buildings, the better ones had a Class A garage, three stories of wood framing and a penthouse on top, I averaged $6 a square foot construction costs and there was no earthquake bracing other than 1x4 let-in bracing, these buildings were build with all union labor which meant health and pension benefits were paid on all workmen, they have been standing there for 50 to 60 years with no damage from multiple earthquakes, I even built some one and two-story garden apartments in the San Leandro area with no bracing, the engineer created the bracing with sheetrock nailing patterns.  The last home I built cost $1,000 a foot, I had to use a full red iron frame to meet structural requirements, sure we are building much safer buildings today but is this much safety necessary?  There should be a cost benefit analysis made, are saving a few lives worth the cost?  The biggest problem the world has today is overpopulation, the world population is soaring in places like Africa and the Middle East and we are so consumed with safety that we are willing to spend a fortune to get it, much like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to make a building wheelchair assessable, at some point we have to ask the question: "Is it worth it?"  I've never heard of any of those buildings having had a fire and there were no sprinklers installed, by this time hundreds of thousands of people have cycled through those buildings with no earthquake or fire losses, I've seen tenants in wheelchairs but there were no accessibility provisions, if those buildings had been built to earthquake, fire, and accessibility standards of today would it have been worth it? Number one I would never have been able to tear down the old houses and build those buildings in the first place.

And another thing, what about that 100 page code book?


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## fatboy

I repeat, on the coasts........

As far as 100 page code book?

Sure, and we will leave the foxes guarding the henhouse, should work out just fine.

What can go wrong?

Look at ICE's pictures, and that's with about 14" thick of code books.


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## steveray

The president of one of my local homebuilders association came to me with a deck permit, he's a nice guy, beam failed by 300%.....

     While I do agree we could get by with a lot less regulation, I believe people's homes need to stay affordable but also need to last and be protected (by proper codes and enforcement) as an investment, and CA if you believe the majority of builders think or act like you, you are sadly mistaken.


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## conarb

Steve said:
			
		

> and CA if you believe the majority of builders think or act like you, you are sadly mistaken.



I know they don't, why do you think I did arbitration and industry expert reports for the California License Board, and testified in construction defects litigation, as a matter of fact the attorneys I know never call building inspectors in litigation, becasue as one told me inspectors seldom deal with the real problems in defective construction.  Look at the Berkeley balcony collapse, architect designed to code, builder built to code, but the deck failed.  

Silicon Valley see's their function as disruption of inefficient industries, we've seen them destroy several industries and they are going after construction to design cheaper better building techniques to make housing more affordable and serve a real need.

Regulation is under attack everywhere in the world today, look at Brexit and the fallout from Great Britain leaving the EU, here in the Bay Area I'd love to leave One Bay Area and get rid of all social engineering codes, in a free country it's none of the government's business how much water a man uses or how much fuel he uses.


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## Mark K

It is difficult having a discussion regarding  what we can improve when individuals go off on ill informed rants. 

My sense is that a house that cost $1,000 per square foot was not designed to be economical to construct.  Rather I suspect that the cost was driven by the owners desires and ego.

If you want to use  as much water and polluting fuel as you want then go to where there are  few to no other people around.  When there are a lot of people in an area we must consider the reality that your rights are limited when they inhibit the exercise of my rights and vise versa.

Do we want to go back to the 50's?.


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## conarb

Fatboy is from Colorado and says these high costs and regulations are confined to the coasts, I was reading a blog from an international investor who searched the world for the ideal place to build and live, he was located in Vail Colorado, he chose Argentina because they have thrown out their socialistic government and there is a lot of hope for a free country. 



			
				International Man said:
			
		

> For instance, if we tried to build La Estancia in the United States in, say, Colorado, where I'm somewhat familiar with the political situation, after five years we would still be arguing with the county commissioners about how much welfare housing we were going to have to put in and a dozen other things we’d have to resolve before getting the permits needed to even break ground. But in roughly that same time period, we've built all the primary infrastructure at La Estancia. There are 50 completed houses and another 15 are under construction. Most of the lots have been sold. The property has zero debt against it. It's been amazingly easy and, based on the net result of what’s been accomplished, efficient.¹



Like it or not, Brexit had happened and other countries are considering leaving the EU, regulation there has become worse than the U.S., it that's possible, one of their classic complaints is regulating the shape of bananas that can be sold. Y Combinator is going to be spending a lot of money in pursuit of the goal of building cities in the U.S. for 90% less with a 100 page code book. 

¹ http://www.internationalman.com/articles/finding-freedom-in-an-unfree-world-a-reality-check


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## mtlogcabin

Conarb
It is all about where you choose to live and work

We have entry level homes being built that start at $85.00 a sq ft where building codes are enforced. The same house built by the same contractor will sell for the same price out in the county where there are no permits, inspections or impact fees.

The contractor markets the home for what it will sell for not what it cost to build plus a profit margin


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## conarb

Mountain Man said:
			
		

> The same house built by the same contractor will sell for the same price out in the county where there are no permits, inspections or impact fees.



That's interesting, you have areas of your state without permits, inspections, and impact fees?  I remember here in the 50s if someone owned over 5 acres there were no permit requirements, I don't know when or why that ended but I agree we built to the same standards as we did with permits.  



			
				Mountain Man said:
			
		

> The contractor markets the home for what it will sell for not what it cost to build plus a profit margin



Here where I build and in Houston Texas where a friend builds high-end homes they are all cost plus, nobody knows what changes and extras are going to come up so the flat price adversarial relationship is ended and the architect, builder, and owner are on the same side trying to balance quality with price. 

It will be interesting to see what Y Combinator comes up with and where they are going to be able to build low cost with their new 100 page code book, maybe no AHJ will allow it but with the shortage of affordable housing there is going to be a lot of pressure to allow it. 



			
				Mark said:
			
		

> If you want to use as much water and polluting fuel as you want then go to where there are few to no other people around. When there are a lot of people in an area we must consider the reality that your rights are limited when they inhibit the exercise of my rights and vise versa.



The problem is overpopulation, get rid of a lot of people and there will be plenty to go around, life was a lot better when there were fewer people, when I was a kid in the late 30s my dad built a new home near a two lane road that connected the towns, that two lane road is now a 10 lane freeway that is jammed constantly, maybe ship them up to Montana where they can build without permits and fees?   



> Do we want to go back to the 50's?.



I know we old people always feel this way but I can assure you life was a lot better in the 50s, nobody locked their doors for one thing, in Europe they are making the same allegations against Brexit, going back to the 50s.


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## mtlogcabin

conarb said:


> maybe ship them up to Montana where they can build without permits and fees?



Please Please Please do not do that



conarb said:


> but with the shortage of affordable housing


There is no such thing as "affordable housing"
The proper term should be entry level housing. That would be the $85.00 a sq ft that can be built around here that the medium income earner can afford. Now do you want the 900 sq ft or the 2900 sq ft model with attached garage. Big difference in what may be affordable and what is not.

Realtor fees are another of my pet peeves that never seem to be factored in when crying affordable housing
Fees on the raw land, fees on the lot sold to the contractor and then fees when the house is sold all paid to the same realtor who has an exclusive on the land and subdivision project. Depending on the realtor fees and the markup at each sale the total fees can average 10 to 15%  of the cost of the home. Now everyone needs to make a living and be paid for their services, just don't blame it all on regulations


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## conarb

My best friend, a construction defects attorney, retired and decided to get out of the country because of taxes, he went to Panama and Costa Rica but in the end picked Nevada, then he boasted that he was going to get a new home built up there for $700,000 land and all, pretty soon is was unhappy with proposed designs, he said his wife wanted a kitchen just like they had here, I pointed out that the kitchen alone cost $300,000, he said that was crazy California prices, soon he dumped the builder's architect and hired a Reno architect, he was happy, then bids came in at $1.7 million not including lot or any fees, he said fees were nothing in Nevada that he would just pay them himself, I told him better have the builder check and pay him additional for the fees, I can't believe that Nevada right over the hill from California doesn't see how much money the various agencies can make on fees, we'll see what happens now. 

Mountain Man you better be nice to me or I'll send a few busloads of our finest citizens up for you, you'll love the diversity.


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## tmurray

I just dropped our building bylaw from 30 pages to 10. It does everything that we need it to and even adds a couple things for unique scenarios we've run across.


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## cda

tmurray said:


> I just dropped our building bylaw from 30 pages to 10. It does everything that we need it to and even adds a couple things for unique scenarios we've run across.




Share??


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## JBI

"There should be a cost benefit analysis made, are saving a few lives worth the cost?"
Only 'worth' it if you or a loved one are among the victims of shoddy construction I suppose...


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## mark handler

JBI said:


> "There should be a cost benefit analysis made, are saving a few lives worth the cost?"
> Only 'worth' it if you or a loved one are among the victims of shoddy construction I suppose...


And when does it cross that threshold? just after your child dies?


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## tmurray

Cost to society cannot exceed 3 million dollars per life saved here.

It sounds cold, but when you have an objective based code, you need to set that metric.


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## mark handler

tmurray said:


> Cost to society cannot exceed 3 million dollars per life saved here.
> 
> It sounds cold, but when you have an objective based code, you need to set that metric.


So your child/grandchild is only worth 3 million?


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## conarb

JBI said:


> "There should be a cost benefit analysis made, are saving a few lives worth the cost?"
> Only 'worth' it if you or a loved one are among the victims of shoddy construction I suppose...



To begin with those who have known me here back from our old Bulletin Board days know I was an advocate of strong codes, otherwise I wouldn't be here.  In the old UBC the Preface stated it was "To promote the health and safety and increase the tax base", that has changed in the I Codes "To promote the health safety and common good."  That seemingly innocuous code language change has opened the door to the political codes today, AHJs can no-longer enforce codes to, in city-speak, keep out the high cost citizens and attract the low cost citizens, in it's place we have codes that are the agenda of political parties like the Green Party and the Democratic Party.

As citizens we all have differing risk tolerances, public servants on the whole tend to be risk adverse or they wouldn't be going to work 8 to 5 for regular salaries, benefits and pensions. I've engaged in some very dangerous activities like flying, aerobatic flying, driving race cars, walking plates and beams high in the air, that's what makes life worth while to me, our city is a ghost town, the city is forcing businesses to earthquake retrofit every building in town, buildings are torn up and the Bank of America and even Starbucks have left.  When all is done I'm sure it will be safer but some of those older buildings have been here since the gold rush and survived many earthquakes in tact, obviously when all is done rents will have to increase substantially changing the character of the town, this may end up being for the good, and it may not.  Our former Governator famously stated that we were a bunch of "girly men", Clint Eastwood recently said we were a nation of "pussies".  Marchionni has recently announced that he is *killing the Viper after 27 years, *, this will be the end of that beautiful 5 liter 10 cylinder engine, he agreed to buy credits from Tesla so wimps can drive around cheaper, but 2017 airbag standards just can't be met.  The Viper is a very dangerous car with no weight on the rear end, nobody concerned about safety buys one, but those who want better should have the right to better things.


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## JBI

I do remember you from the old board... generally you advocate for better construction, but not 'strong codes', preferring to let the market thin the herd of bad builders from what I've read of your posts. 
I've always felt, since becoming a Code Official, that if all the Contractors did the right thing, and all the Design Professionals did the right thing, there'd be no need for Codes and Code Officials. We exist because of the bad ones. 
Perhaps an anomaly, but NYS has always stated that the Code is about 'health, safety, and (general) welfare of the community', more recently adding cost as a factor. Before any State regulation is implemented or modified, the cost of implementation (initially, and as a function of construction costs) must be included and justified. 
For me public service was not about avoiding risks, it was about regular employment and benefits that could not be easily guaranteed on the other side of the counter. I had started a family and my wife wanted the security of a steady job. 

What any of it has to do with the Viper is beyond me (but we are accustomed to your tangential rants, so I just go with it. LOL).


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## conarb

JBI said:
			
		

> What any of it has to do with the Viper is beyond me (but we are accustomed to your tangential rants, so I just go with it. LOL).



Because a great American made car is being discontinued because of safety concerns, if the type of drivers who buy Vipers were concerned about safety they wold never buy a Viper in the first place.  

Cost is a tricky one, I value high quality construction, but code approvals of cheap crap like OSB and plastic pipe should not be the way to lower costs, also Green and Energy codes have been a disaster in many cases creating the "sick home syndrome", in other cases causing buildings to rot out in a few years.  When Vancouver had it's "leaky condo" crisis we were experiencing something similar here so I flew up to see what was going on, after reviewing the problems it became apparent that the code requirement to seal up buildings was the problem, after all the buildings didn't leak until they started sealing them up, at first they were requiring that 2" holes be drilled in the plywood sheathing to let air in but with all the insulation in the walls they started requiring rain screen construction, construction practices didn't all of a sudden become terrible over night, the problem coincided with code compliance.



> B.C.’s leaky condo disaster is entering its third decade. The worst of it is behind us but it is far from over and we are not nearly finished paying for it, or arguing about who is to blame.
> 
> The human cost of the disaster is not measurable. Hundreds of thousands of British Columbians have been touched by it.
> 
> For some, it was no more than a financial inconvenience. Their homes leaked, and they paid to repair to them.
> 
> Others, especially in the 1990s, lost their homes, their savings and their health.
> 
> Tens of thousands of condo units built during the B.C. building boom of the mid-1980s to the late 1990s suffered water damage as wind-driven rain entered the walls of badly designed, badly built buildings.¹




¹ http://www.6717000.com/blog/2006/05/leaky-condos-still-a-disaster/


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## tmurray

mark handler said:


> So your child/grandchild is only worth 3 million?


Yes. Everyone's children are. 

If you don't put a number on this, what is stopping the codes from requiring completely non-combustible buildings? Fire alarms in every building? If your objective is safety, but there is no limit on how much you are willing to pay, codes can involve more expensive requirements that result in fewer lives saved. The main issue becomes stimuli generalization. If you have important things that save lots of lives in your code and you start adding things that cost a lot, but don't save many lives, code users start to question the code in its entirety. 

And without this number, a performance based code, like the one we have here in Canada, Simply cannot function.


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## tmurray

conarb said:


> Cost is a tricky one, I value high quality construction, but code approvals of cheap crap like OSB and plastic pipe should not be the way to lower costs, also Green and Energy codes have been a disaster in many cases creating the "sick home syndrome", in other cases causing buildings to rot out in a few years.  When Vancouver had it's "leaky condo" crisis we were experiencing something similar here so I flew up to see what was going on, after reviewing the problems it became apparent that the code requirement to seal up buildings was the problem, after all the buildings didn't leak until they started sealing them up, at first they were requiring that 2" holes be drilled in the plywood sheathing to let air in but with all the insulation in the walls they started requiring rain screen construction, construction practices didn't all of a sudden become terrible over night, the problem coincided with code compliance.



Actually, the condos always leaked. the only thing that changed was that people wanted more energy efficient buildings (the code didn't deal with energy efficiency in 1970). So, designers increased the thermal resistance of the walls and air tightness of the building enclosure. The problem was that by reducing the thermal transmittance and airflow, they reduced the drying capacity of the enclosure without preventing bulk water from entering the building envelope. The architects made changes to their building enclosures without understanding how they worked, a dangerous thing for anyone to do. Now, we have rainscreens required in areas that meet certain precipitation rates (I'm in one), because the architects did something stupid, the insurance industry got involved and asked; "why are they allowed to do this stupid thing, it's costing us a lot of money", so it ends up in the code. Things don't end up in the code "just because" (at least in ours). Generally, someone has to die, severely injured or, as in this case, a systematic industry failure.

"sick building syndrome" is the same thing. If you make your building more airtight, you need to provide mechanical ventilation. I love hearing the argument from everyone that doesn't understand how ventilation works; " you're making the building more airtight just to ventilated it with fans?". Yes, because I can turn a fan off and on. I can run a fan at different speeds if I need more or less ventilation. It's the same thing as having a window that you can close or open or simply a hole in your wall. 

It's not the ventilation that's the problem, It's the lack of control.


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## steveray

Good posts tmurray!....


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## conarb

TMurray said:
			
		

> Actually, the condos always leaked. the only thing that changed was that people wanted more energy efficient buildings (the code didn't deal with energy efficiency in 1970). So, designers increased the thermal resistance of the walls and air tightness of the building enclosure. The problem was that by reducing the thermal transmittance and airflow, they reduced the drying capacity of the enclosure without preventing bulk water from entering the building envelope. The architects made changes to their building enclosures without understanding how they worked, a dangerous thing for anyone to do.



Absolutely correct, after seeing the problems here I read about the Vancouver problems, I called one of my suppliers in Vancouver (Canadians make vastly superior building products than anything made in the United States) and discussed the problems with them, I arranged a meeting and flew up to be shown around about 1999, contractors were being blamed and sued, in Canada they were blaming and suing both architects and builders, in reality it was government energy saving policy and the codes.  Anyone who has ever remodeled an old building can easily see the problem when he opens up the walls, water runs in and water runs out, add insulation and you have the interior of walls that acts like a huge sponge trapping the water to slowly dry out, add plywood sheathing and you seal the water in the sponge.   A good example was a woman living in a 1905 Victorian called me saying she needed new windows because they were leaking, those were very fancy windows that would cost several thousand each to replace, as we looked at the water stains on the plaster I asked how long she had lived there thinking she might have just bought the house and the prior owner covered up the evidence, she said 25 years and this was the first year they leaked, she then said she didn't know why because she had the house painted and the painter did a good job caulking around the windows.  At this point I said you don't need windows, get that painter back and make him strip all that caulking out, call me when he gets here and I'll make sure he does it right.  After the caulking was removed the windows never leaked again, the water went back to running in and running out just like it had done for a century.

That's why I say that political codes like Energy and Green do far more harm than any energy that they might save and it's questionable that in a moderate climate like mine that they do any good at all.  In all of my homes I try to put an electrically operated skylight over a bathtub in some bathroom, I tell my customers to leave it open 24/7, if it rains the rain sensor will close it, for peace of mind should that fail water falling into the bathtub can't hurt anything, why should I seal up a house or be forced to pay for a fan running, or listen to the noise of the fan when I' going to have a 12 square foot opening in the ceiling 24/7?

As far as Canada is concerned our idiot President has royally fu¢ked the Canadian economy by killing their oil sands, just like he has fu¢ked the Russian economy by stopping the export of gas and oil to Europe, like he has fu¢ked the Venezuelan economy, Venezuela sits on the world's largest oil reserves and the people are shooting and eating cats and dogs on the streets for food.


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## tmurray

conarb said:


> in reality it was government energy saving policy and the codes.
> 
> As far as Canada is concerned our idiot President has royally fu¢ked the Canadian economy by killing their oil sands



the Canadian government really didn't have anything on energy efficiency until the 80s. Even then, they were voluntary programs (R2000) that dealt with single family homes. not the large condominium buildings that suffered from the leaky condo crisis. Energy codes for these buildings were enacted at provincial and municipal levels in the early 2000s and the federal level in 2011. I actually know one of the people who helped start the R2000 program 25 years ago and he said that the reason the federal government started this was because of the number of builders who claimed to be building energy efficient construction, but did not construct actual energy efficient buildings, or did so in a way that violated proper building science. R2000 was developed as a voluntary standard for people who were interested in energy efficient, new home construction. Basically, an attempt to deal with the systematic failure of the builders to provide products that their clients were requesting. The issue was that people had to pay for the R2000 evaluation. People weren't interested in paying for it, but still wanted the efficient housing, so they went back to the same builders who were building poor houses. The problem persisted and there were more and more complaints until energy efficiency was included in the code.

The thing that always gets me is that I see the same people complaining about the government doing two, but opposite things. They complain about lazy government employees and then in the next breath complain about regulations put into place by government and enforced, presumably both by the same "lazy" government employees. It's easy to let the market decide things from a regulatory standpoint. The issue is that tax paying voters often are the ones on the losing end of the deal. If enough of these people get together and tell politicians that they want something, the politicians will tell us to do it. It doesn't matter if I think it's a good idea or not. I need to eat and  the community that I work for democratically elected this person to govern on their behalf. No one elected me, so who am I to undermine them.

Actually, killing Keystone XL just put more emphasis on Canada East pipeline to a refinery just down the street from where I am. Moving oil by pipeline results in far fewer contamination issues than many other transportation methods and way better for the environment, so I was a little confused when people are against pipelines for "environmental" reasons.

I guess they're just against oil in general.


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## steveray

"As far as Canada is concerned our idiot President has royally fu¢ked the Canadian economy by killing their oil sands, just like he has fu¢ked the Russian economy by stopping the export of gas and oil to Europe, like he has fu¢ked the Venezuelan economy, Venezuela sits on the world's largest oil reserves and the people are shooting and eating cats and dogs on the streets for food."

     So are the greedy pigs that sent all of "our" manufacturing jobs out of the country for cheaper labor responsible for our economy? That is why the "global economy" is being pushed these days because they know they now need to cannibalize some other countries working class....Or is it just the Democrats fault?

     While every industry gets perverted (especially when it is subsidized by the government) the reasoning behind the energy codes is so that people can afford to heat their houses and pay the mortgage. The fact that builders will not learn how to build houses that won't leak or rot is all of our issue, but their problem...I don't agree with all of the energy code by any stretch (or the other codes for that matter) but it is what it is. I don't get to disregard the laws I don't like (on or off the clock) or the world would certainly be a much more interesting place...


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