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Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

slate.com

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Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#51

Post by emodendroket »

handmodel wrote: post #28

The Slate article doesn't directly state this but does mention that many of the safety rules have been in place for decades - some since the 1940s. Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now. I dont think its unreasonable to want very safe buildings but clear that by the rules staying the same means they are using a different ris…

> Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now.

I wouldn't be so sure. Fire prevention methods have improved, but instead of booking the safety gains, this has been seen as a reason to allow wooden structures that previously would not have been legal to build (the famous 5-over-1).

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#52

Post by afirement »

I live in a London apartment building with a single staircase, which is standard here. The difference in principle seems to relate to “what happens when there’s a fire?”. Here, we don’t need to escape if there’s a fire in the building[1], because regulations demand walls, floors and doors that can withstand many hours of fire, which provides more than enough time for the fire service to attend and extinguish the fire. My building specifically asks residents to shelter in place.

If a fire in my neighbours apartment meant I needed to escape, certainly an extra egress point would be nice, but the solution to that problem seems to be… better fire isolation.

[1] The grenfell disaster (mentioned by the article) was so deadly because people sheltered in place as instructed… but that building had been modified without following regulations.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#53

Post by jpollock »

petee wrote: post #33
istinetz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone in the comments is raising the (valid) fire safety argument; however, I'd like to point out that this is a non-obvious trade-off. How many house fires are there? How many of them are in tall buildings? How many of them would block just one stair, and not two? Yes, there is a probability that an extra stair will save your life; however, this is a very tiny probability, against a certainty of extra living spac…

The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that I hate the space argument because its a money argument, not a real quality of life issue - make the building 1 floor taller, or don't cram your residents just because you wanted to milk 4 apts instead of 3 on a floor.

We can compare fatality rates from fires between countries with dual exits and those without:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_building_or_structure_...

We can also see if mass casualty fires in buildings stopped happening after the regulation change.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Theatre_fire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

https://www.nytimes.com/1860/02/03/archives/calamitous-fire-...

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#54

Post by handmodel »

emodendroket wrote: post #51
handmodel wrote: post #28

The Slate article doesn't directly state this but does mention that many of the safety rules have been in place for decades - some since the 1940s. Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now. I dont think its unreasonable to want very safe buildings but clear that by the rules staying the same means they are using a different ris…

> Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now. I wouldn't be so sure. Fire prevention methods have improved, but instead of booking the safety gains, this has been seen as a reason to allow wooden structures that previously would not have been legal to build (the famous 5-over-1).

FWIW fire deaths have gone down by half since the 70s. Perhaps you could attribute this to fire alarms or better automatic sprinklers but overall this is a very good trend given population trends.

I'm also fairly certain that better fire retardant materials are used now and that's why wooden structures are allowed.

Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trend-in-US-fire-deaths-...

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#55

Post by afirement »

petee wrote: post #3

When the hallway is on fire and the only option is the stairs behind you, I really doubt you'll care about the space 'wasted' on them. And in response to Grenfell, the argument is tenants don't like fire drills; just wow. Eventually everyone forgets the reason for regulations...is there a named law for this phenomenon?

A dozen extra staircases wouldn’t have done much to save people in Grenfell tower. They were instructed to stay in place, because when building regulations are followed, that’s the safest place to be. The problem with Grenfell was that building regulations had been violated, at which point, all bets about safety are off.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#56

Post by ncallaway »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #9
Apreche wrote: post #6

If you want to save space maybe eliminate the parking lot/garage before you eliminate the extra staircase.

Wouldn't that make parking pretty annoying? Anecdotally, at least in SF, lack of parking options set a home's value back pretty far.

Yeah, but you have to weigh that against the annoyance of slowly choking on black smoke, while the temperature rises and cooks you alive.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#57

Post by petee »

armada651 wrote: post #50
petee wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that I hate the space argument because its a money argument, not a real quality of life issue - make the building 1 floor taller, or don't cram your residents just because you wanted to milk 4 apts instead of 3 on a floor.

> The problem is that you can't track how many disasters were prevented by having two means of egress, so I cant imagine there are real statistics on that Why wouldn't you be able to compare statistics from the US to any other country that doesn't have that rule?

There are alot of factors: building codes, materials, age, likely ignition sources . Probably not impossible, but difficult to find a meaningful way to compare.

I'm also guessing that fire reporting doesn't include the level of detail you would need. For example, a fire in which firefighters were able to tackle from two sides would be quickly extinguished, where as the same fire with 1-sided access might have become a disaster. But thats a what-if, only learned the hard way.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#58

Post by emodendroket »

handmodel wrote: post #54
emodendroket wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Presumably - construction materials + fire fighting methods have improved dramatically in that time so buildings are much safer now. I wouldn't be so sure. Fire prevention methods have improved, but instead of booking the safety gains, this has been seen as a reason to allow wooden structures that previously would not have been legal to build (the famous 5-over-1).

FWIW fire deaths have gone down by half since the 70s. Perhaps you could attribute this to fire alarms or better automatic sprinklers but overall this is a very good trend given population trends. I'm also fairly certain that better fire retardant materials are used now and that's why wooden structures are allowed. Source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Trend-in-US-fire-deaths-...

I read a lot about these in local news because I used to live in a town in Massachusetts where one of those buildings burned down in construction. According to what I read, it's mostly the sprinklers that make it safe (or at least viewed that way) -- before those go in they're a big tinder box. This trend really took off with building code changes in 2009 though, so 1970 might not be the right starting point.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#59

Post by brian-armstrong »

ncallaway wrote: post #56
brian-armstrong wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that make parking pretty annoying? Anecdotally, at least in SF, lack of parking options set a home's value back pretty far.

Yeah, but you have to weigh that against the annoyance of slowly choking on black smoke, while the temperature rises and cooks you alive.

I don't think anyone's weighing the two options against each other? The space used by a first-floor garage can't be used by stairs instead, unless it was like one really big set of stairs just to the second floor.

Re: Could housing be cheaper and better if we stop building so many staircases?

#60

Post by mikysco »

dymk wrote: post #22
brian-armstrong wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this basically subsidizing a slightly higher survival rate for a relatively few number of fires with a significant loss of space for everyone?

Why are you qualifying with “slightly” and “relatively few”? Relative to what?

Presumably relative to countries that don’t share these same 2-staircase fire regulations
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