When Your Community Adopts a Building Code, Residents Are Safer

When it comes to safety at home, it's hard to think of what's more important than a building code. This law protects you, your household, and your guests from fire, the destructiveness of any fire that does start, collapse of the structure, severe weather, and other unforeseen events.

Of course the advantages of building safely extend to your neighbors as well as to anyone you welcome onto your property. Such laws also protect future purchasers of your home, who may not be as savvy about construction as you. It's hard to believe that some communities will ignore the benefits and necessity of such a law, even if there's a libertarian bent around town.

The suggested code itself is published as a book, and the municipality simply adopts an ordinance referring to its name, publisher, and date, and spells out any changes or exceptions they want to make on a local basis. Topics include electrical wiring, plumbing, heating and cooling facilities, structural support for the building and roof, and provision of doors and windows. In many places it is customary to refer to the building code, electrical code, and plumbing code as three separate codes.

Energy conservation is another good reason to regulate construction. The public now is beginning to understand that besides an expensive energy bill to the consumer, excess energy consumption on the part of our society perhaps is contributing to global climate change. There are separate energy conservation manuals that can adopted, so this step is optional.

Of course once such a law is in place, the town or city has the right to inspect work as it is being completed so that conformity with the law is agreed to by the municipality before the work is covered up by the exterior of the building. Unlike zoning, these laws have been in existence for hundreds or thousands of years in some form. Thomas Jefferson for one was quite interested in them, even though he was a self-trained architect.

How is a Building Code Written?

Today's standard building code is a result of periodic revisions with a huge amount of input from the construction industry and structural experts. Adopting a published version is much more cost-effective than each municipality researching standards and thresholds they believe to be safe or desirable. Not to mention that a high degree of expertise is available to those who develop these international documents.

Building code administration typically is supported by charging fees for a building permit. The permit is issued after a review of the plans for the building or structure shows that the structure will conform to the code. Periodic inspections during construction, and usually at specific milestones, also are sustained through the fee structure. In 2008 there was a move to pass a federal law providing a block grant structure to local governments for the administration of these laws, but it's unlikely to pass in the current environment.

Rural Opposition to Regulation

Rural communities often resist the whole notion. This is sheer folly. Porch collapses, roofs that fail before their time, fires started by faulty wiring, and unsanitary plumbing conditions are the possible result. I love small towns, but I'd like one that feels that they're subject to the same laws of gravity as the rest of the world. I can do without the bathtub falling into the basement.

The groups that adopt the international building codes aren't governments, although local government officials participate, so just being a libertarian doesn't seem like a good excuse for ignoring such an important safety measure. In fact, the smaller the location, the more likely it is that they need to adopt a standard code and contract with someone to enforce it. Otherwise one or two dominant builders in town who don't know their stuff could cause really unnecessary damage to property or people.

So you can fuss and fight with your local government about how much it should cost to obtain a building permit, but it's quite silly to oppose adopting a building code.

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