[Cob] Why bother with Building Inspectors

[Marlin Nissen]

SOME building inspectors serve the functions of protecting us....many I've met are simply not very thorough and collect checks at closing of mortgages...I've had several homes, almost all of which I could inspect better then the paid inspector for the mortgage company.
   
  With that said, I find the question of codes with Cob an excercise in frustration as it's been stated that Cob doesn't conform to usual material data analysis. YET it can be overbuilt and stronger then 2x2 trailers etc. that DO conform to code (try burn a Cob building vs. a trailer OR worse yet compare in a windstorm).
   
  My (cynical) belief is that we could have building inspections that were FAIR if an inspector could come out to your building, see that you built it with many redundant supports, test the material with his own hands and PASS the building. HOWEVER this leaves them open to the almighty lawsuit IF it falls down upon you and they can't verify that you used CLEAR CUT DOUGLAS FIR, STAMPED/GRADED ETC ETC ETC. when they passed the building originally. The code requirement usually force one into using all NEW lumber as well regardless of the quality of the used lumber.
   
  The great irony is many passed building will burn down, fall down, rot and of course poison the air of the inhabitants but this will NOT be questioned as it is STATUS quo. If you're not allowed to burn yourself with hot coffee without being able to sue you're sure not capable of building your own dwelling.................
   
  Henry David Thoreau
  "There is some of the same fitness in a man's building his own house that there is in a bird's building its own nest. Who knows but if men constructed their dwellings with their own hands, and provided food for themselves and families simply and honestly enough, the poetic faculty would be universally developed, as birds universally sing when they are so engaged? But alas! we do like cowbirds and cuckoos, which lay their eggs in nests which other birds have built, and cheer no traveller with their chattering and unmusical notes. Shall we forever resign the pleasure of construction to the carpenter? What does architecture amount to in the experience of the mass of men? I never in all my walks came across a man engaged in so simple and natural an occupation as building his house."
   
   
   
  Marlin
  
 


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  "And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire 
they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher 
than war." Aristotle on Politics

   

       
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