[Cob] building codes rant

[Marlin Nissen]

The more prohibitions you make, 
the poorer people will be. 
The more weapons you posses, 
the greater the chaos in your country. 
The more knowledge that is acquired, 
the stranger the world will become. 
The more laws that you make, 
the greater the number of criminals.- paraphrasing from the Tao Te Ching
   
  Yes, there are building rules that protect us from unscrupilus contractors.....more often it appears that the code enforcement has made SURE that manufactured materials are NECESSARY. Cob makes a poor manufactured material and as stated before, if it was standardized it would be controlled/polluted and ruined.
   
  I think it is naiive to assume that the building industry is different then the Drug industry (the legal ones of course, the ones that kill more people), Gas Industry, Hospital Industry, the Military Industry etc. etc. in that they will not TIP the playing field to force the hand of little people to HAVE to buy their products. Their products are LEGAL of course.
   
  Right NOW you cannot build your own structure, however it is built, WITHOUT commercial materials. Think about it, trees are only structural if they've been cut and graded by Weyerhauser - why? The industry has promoted that it's in "our own good" because there could be unsafe limbs used in building etc. etc. Meanwhile the "lungs of our planet" are clearcut to make $millions for stockholders and CEOs. Environmental destruction, poor quality buildings ensue - but $ is made all around. Somehow I don't trust that the Boardroom is sitting there trying to "make my life more safe" - follow the Money Trail....is Plastic and Glueboard for our own good?
   
  On 3rd world subject - Concrete has been promoted, pushed, subsidized etc. to make sure that 'developing' countries contribute to Global Warming in much the same way as the West. Bad earthen construction can, of course, fall down very easily. But rather then throwing the baby out (indigenous building skills and materials) common sense would indicate improving on using the local materials (fiber, clay, fast growing wood etc.) would be a better "common good" tactic.

  When the building industry admits that particle board and chemicals in the home are a bad idea AND bans them - I'll believe that they care about "my own good"..
   
  Codes are (more than) often $ driven........
   
  Marlin
   
  from the US of A - where everything is either mandatory or prohibited.
   
  p.s. on non Cob subject - composting toilets are (generally) illegal with the same argument....."throw the baby out with the bathwater, just make sure you make money on the baby and the bathwater....."
  
Wesley Sandel <wsandel at gmail.com> wrote:
  I've been reading the posts on building codes.

It's true, it seems pretty damn silly that you can't just build whatever you
want to live in, but often have to conform to all kinds of standards that
may seem to make no sense (except in most rural areas, where apparently you
can just build whatever you want anyway).

But not all codes are just attempts by big brother to force you to give your
money to corporations.

I've spent a good bit of time in Central America. After awhile I started
remarking on how ugly and expensive all the structural concrete homes were,
and how much cheaper and more liveable the natural product homes were. Then
it was pointed out to me that every 20 years or so they have a series of
horrendous earthquakes and lots of natural homes fall down on people, so
they've fallen out of favor. The locals have opted, without code, to use
steel reinforced concrete when they can.

I was involved with a non-profit in Houston, building low cost housing. On
one project, someone hung the drywall before the electrical was inspected,
and the city inspector made us cut holes in the drywall every few feet to
verify that everything was up to code. We were pretty upset. But the fact
is, a lot of contractors will cut corners to save money, and one of the
functions of the code is to prevent that happening and compromising safety.

Codes are often safety driven.
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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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