311–320 of 562 posts
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Don't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.
Hm.. couldn't a fire engine be driven in reverse? It could have an emergency driver's wheel in the back. I have seen crane trucks driven with a joystick from outside the vehicle, so it doesn't seem impossible.
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And if you don't supervise well enough, should it be legally fine to give you a defective house? If yes, that's a horrible idea. If no, then I don't see how "things have changed" in a way that's relevant to the comment you replied to.
Please respond in good faith instead of trying to ‘gotcha’ me. There are building inspections periodically during construction by the authority having jurisdiction, with the important trades (MEP, civil, structural) having their own specialized inspections. When you buy a new house (or a new building), you will receive a warranty for workmanship from the builder who should have corresponding workmanship warranties fo…
As a reminder, the argument above was "It's fucked up that you have problem with society and you think the way to solve it is building code." followed by a citation for how many thousands of years building codes have been around to counter bad work. And you're saying that the ancient blunt building code has been replaced with... another kind of building code.
So what's wrong with the citation you replied to? Doesn't it serve the purpose of establishing building codes as normal? Why does it make you despair for HN's knowledge of construction? It's pretty clear they weren't suggesting current law works the same way.
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Having streets unable to be accessible by fire response vehicles doesn't seem like a good idea. What would be the alternative here? (genuine question, I'm not from the US)
And yet, European cities exist and are fine without wide streets.
Lots of safety regulations stem from that divide. Wood is a bit more flammable.
(I'm not saying the difference in safety regulations still make sense today. I'm talking about one of the historical origins of the divide.)
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Don't forget about street widths being determined by the ability to turn around fire equipment.
We can make them turn 360 degrees like the electric G-Wagon. If upgrading the fleet of firefighting trucks to do so costs less than the value brought by tighter spacing of homes, it’s worth it.
If you time your upgrade to the fire engines with when you naturally would want to renew them anyway, then it doesn't really cost much extra.
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Double stair Vs single stair is totally a safety issue
One that much of Europe has mitigated somehow.
I reckon single is safer: no decision to make as you exit.
I'd like to see more discussion of the safety impact; I know the article makes the point that fire deaths per capita are lower in Europe, which lacks the requirement, but it also notes that US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at higher risk to begin with. (Wood construction is generally a good thing from a sustainability perspective) Whenever I see this proposed my brain immediately goes to the Gr…
I don't really see how wood is more sustainable than eg brick or even steel and glass?
> Whenever I see this proposed my brain immediately goes to the Grenfell Tower fire in the UK. I guess that may just be an outlier due to the myriad of other causes, but it gives me pause.
You should look at statistics instead of single lurid anecdata. In any case, Grenfell Tower is a nice illustration of how when government provides services like housing, they don't magically provide safety. (Funnily enough, people usually try to spin that tower fire as some failure of the market, when the estate was managed by the local council.)
> I know the article makes the point that fire deaths per capita are lower in Europe, which lacks the requirement, but it also notes that US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at higher risk to begin with.
Btw, this might suggest to change the regulation so that you can either follow the existing US regulations when building with wood; or you get allowed more density and single-stairs etc, when building with whatever they use in Europe.
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Unfortunately people from the US (including those who have never lived in an apartment or thought about fire regulations before) instinctively get really worried about this whole idea and assume people are just going to get killed. Happens in this thread and whenever it is brought up in social media. The original article talks about statistics, various extra measures to ensure safety and limiting to buildings 6 store…
Having lived in both places - Italy and the US - I think it's a natural question. The answer I've heard that makes sense, is that if you do this in US buildings you need decent fire suppression systems even if those bump the price. But it's well worth doing in terms of making more types of nice buildings viable.
Either build in the traditional American style out of wood, or (new option) build out of stone and add a robust fire suppression system, but in return we let you get away with a single staircase and other features that increase density.
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Just curious, are there any regulations on housing you agree with? There tends to be belief that housing regulations exist to limit supply. Let's not forget that many of these encourage safety and are cost effective ways to increase the quality of life of the residents. If we take deregulation and cheap housing to the extreme we end up with shanty towns.
You already have shanty towns with all the regulation. Making housing cheaper also means making higher quality housing cheaper.
I'd like to see more discussion of the safety impact; I know the article makes the point that fire deaths per capita are lower in Europe, which lacks the requirement, but it also notes that US housing stock is also much more wooden and therefore at higher risk to begin with. (Wood construction is generally a good thing from a sustainability perspective) Whenever I see this proposed my brain immediately goes to the Gr…
Grenfell is what happens when building regulations are poorly enforced. In principle, each apartment in Grenfell should have been able to burn out completely while the neighbouring units were untouched, so there was no need for a second stair as any evacuation would have been limited to units adjacent rather than the entire population. What actually happened is that years of neglect had seen firebreaks and bulkheads…
Big business gets a lot of flak, but they are honestly better on average than small businesses and many local governments institutions.