[Cob] Building codes

[Shannon Dealy]

On Sun, 6 May 2007, joe r dupont wrote:

> http://www.kansas.com/static/slides/050507tornadoaerials/
>
> you might want to share this with your subscribers..
>
> so much for building codes... the only thing standing is the concrete
> silos.. round..
> looks like hiroshima..

Joe Dupont sent me this right after I sent an email about the building 
code discussing that started to get off-topic and away from cob. 
Unfortunately I was busy and am just now catching up.

This photo makes a good point, building codes cannot protect you from 
everything.  When/if any of you choose to work towards changes in the 
codes to support cob, you might want to include in the changes, working
towards codes that are more realistically based on the probability of 
injury/death of the occupants due to the design and construction of the 
structure.  Statistically in the USA, you are far more likely to die in a 
house fire than from any event where the building falls on you 
(earthquake, tornado, poor construction, etc.), and yet we are being 
forced to try and prove that cob can live up to seismic codes (which it 
clearly can if built correct but is difficult to prove), while at the same 
time it is trivial to prove that cob is far safer from a fire perspective, 
making it likely that overall you will be safer living in a cob structure 
than wood framed.  In my view, based on a proper statistical assessment 
of how a building protects the occupants, cob for one or two story 
residential structures should be allowed in all but the worst quake zones 
without any strutural evidence other than that it can support itself and 
interior load (for which photos of old cob building should be sufficient).
To require anything more is to hold cob to a higher standard than our 
current wood frame residential structures.

Something to think about.

FWIW.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                       |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
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