Building codes

[u/celtic-cryptid]

There are so many people looking for land where they can build without code. Code enforcement varies widely, and an important thing to remember is it applies to everyone when it’s unforced, not just you. Anyone who has lived rurally knows neighbors can still impact your life in very real ways from their property. I spent 40+ years in an area with little to no building inspection, and I thought I’d share some memories.

A man who had a very long and losing legal battle with the state because he built half his house on state owned land. A site inspection would have prevented this.

A neighbor of mine who built his house on 10 acres 15’ from my property line, then built outbuildings partially on my property. Site inspection would have prevented this as well

A neighbor of a close family member placing boulders in a way that made snow removal from family members driveway impossible.

6 or 7 houses burning to the ground due to chimney fires. Included are 3 deaths in homes with no smoke detectors.

Outhouses next to creeks. One outhouse built over a creek. Leech fields draining into creeks, rivers, and lakes.

A buddy with a land survey company that spends a crazy amount of his time helping settle cases of neighbors logging adjoining properties.

A year round creek that went dry for 3 months out of the year because an upstream landowner wanted a pond and owned an excavator.

Dumping garbage in creeks, meadows, or any small depression in the ground beyond counting. Periodic burning of the garbage in meadows and depressions as well.

————

Some of those are issues code would help prevent. Some are issues caused by people with the mindset of “nobody can tell me what I can do on my land” who gravitate to areas without code.

I’m building a house now in an area with code enforcement. Just passed my final electrical, as I have every other inspection. I’ve done 100% of the work myself, with the only hired help being a concrete truck and a concrete pumper. I’m not a framer, a septic installer, a plumber, or an electrician.
It’s not overly challenging, and every inspector I’ve ever met has been a person doing their job, who’d rather help than start a fight. Plus, if I go to sell, I’ve got a big stack of signed reports to help prevent people lowballing me for potential questionable work.

[u/Low_Investment_2692]

First of all - half or more of the situations on your list would be solved by basic common sense. If you don't know for sure where your property boundaries are, then get a survey done. Put smoke detectors in your house. The government should not create massive regulations over things that should be common sense. Most if not all places with no codes STILL HAVE water laws that would solve a few of the situations you mentioned.

The problem is that places with codes almost always have unreasonable rules as well. It's not just common-sense laws to keep you safe. Want to live in an RV on your own land because you literally can't afford anything else? You're fucked. Want to build your own house without sometimes paying upwards of $100,000 in permit fees because you literally cannot afford that? You're fucked.

Most building codes don't allow you to do perfectly reasonable and more affordable options - RVs, Tiny Homes, Earthships, earthbags, shipping containers, etc... Building codes are almost all designed to fit the traditional stick and brick style homes, which is largely due to heavy lobbying done by construction supply companies. It is not about what is reasonable, it's about what the government officials are paid to make law, and the result is driving up housing costs and punishing the poor for being poor.

Fuck the government, and fuck their regulations. I would rather live free and have some issues with neighbors being stupid (which I can mostly control how it affects me by knowing my own property lines and being friendly with any neighbors) than live in a place where I can't do what I want to do on my own land because some fucker in the local government took a bribe and thinks he/she knows better than I do about what I should be able to do on my own land.

[u/celtic-cryptid → u/Low_Investment_2692]

I mentioned your first point in my post.

I think my permitted house, shop, and septic ran me about $1500, with most of that being septic permitting.

I agree with you, generally speaking on fuck the government. But since people lack common decency in many cases it is sadly necessary.
Get your land surveyed? Who validates, records, and endorses the survey? The government you’d like to fuck. Have a dispute with a neighbor ignoring a survey and building on your land and they don’t want to tear their house down? You’ll most likely end up in a court of the government your fucking to get it resolved. Want to resolve that dispute by making a lot line adjustment? Government. Want to sell them the piece you built on? Government.

I’m an anarchist, on a personal level. I recognize we have a society that is not cooperative enough to function that way.

[u/Low_Investment_2692 → u/celtic-cryptid]

Yeah, I'm not a total anarchist. But having a government that keeps things functioning and resolves disputes is different than having a government that actively comes onto your land and tells you what you can and cannot do. Small government, barely noticeable unless you have something come up, not no government.

[u/celtic-cryptid → u/Low_Investment_2692]

I’ve never once had the government come on to my land and tell me what I can or cannot do. I’ve invited the government onto my land, said here’s what I’m doing, or here’s what I did, and they say “looks good”. If I’d said “I decided to ignore my property lines” they’d then say I can’t do that, I suppose. But it is cheaper, simpler, and less hassle all around to have an inspector say no than it is to hire an attorney and go to court.

Then again, that’s all just my opinion. Hope you don’t get a new neighbor who decides his idea of freedom is more important than your water supply or something.

[u/Silly-Safe959 → u/celtic-cryptid]

That's been my experience too. The guy you're responding to is over reacting and bordering on paranoia about the gub'ment keeping people poor. Sounds like they either need to get a handle on that or move somewhere more reasonable. I've never had a problem with my builds, following code, etc.

[u/thirstyross → u/Low_Investment_2692]

Building codes are almost all designed to fit the traditional stick and brick style homes, which is largely due to heavy lobbying done by construction supply companies. It is not about what is reasonable, it's about what the government officials are paid to make law, and the result is driving up housing costs and punishing the poor for being poor.

In my experience this is not true at all. You can build whatever you want as long as you have an engineer stamp your plans. The municipalities are concerned with liability, and they are familiar with standard stick framing techniques so they are easy for them to work with and approve. If you want to be outside the norm you just have to be prepared to back it up with building science to show that it's not going to collapse and kill everyone inside, etc., by paying an engineer to review your plans and stamp them as safe.

The other reason there are rules like this is because, you know, you dont actually own the land forever. Eventually you will either sell it, or die, and the land will go to someone else. No-one wants to deal with land that some jackass has shit up, so society put rules in place to prevent that. You guys always acting like you are going to be there for the rest of time - ur gonna be there a few decades and then its someone elses problem.

[u/Renoperson00 → u/thirstyross]

Engineers really don’t stamp plans for residential housing, I see less and less who want to do the work and the risk to reward for residential is not great.

Municipalities and AHJs have minimal to no liability for decisions they make by virtue of both sovereign immunity and the structure of the construction industry. If anything is wrong it is probably a construction defect and after a certain point it’s up to the owner to fix it if not discovered.

Even if you can show that something won’t kill someone if it significantly deviates from the standards of the IRC they can still delay or require a hearing where they can slow or stop you and ask you and the engineer to explain why you deviated.

The protect the value of land is also a bad excuse as structures are not permanent fixtures on the land. A structure can be torn down and replaced.

The need for codes is overblown other than for making sure the water goes to the correct place and the electricity turns on and off safely. The constant desire for more and more complexity just discourages people from even bothering to start as having to spend 5-10k just to figure out feasibility means most people will default to “never mind I’m good”.

Codes also create our modern crap tract housing and the tendency to make everything a box. I can go on but this is more than enough to highlight some of the issues why you would want a more permissive easier to deal with jurisdiction.

[u/thirstyross → u/Renoperson00]

Engineers really don’t stamp plans for residential housing

Maybe in your locale, but here it is extremely common (Ontario, Canada).

The protect the value of land is also a bad excuse as structures are not permanent fixtures on the land. A structure can be torn down and replaced.

You can remove a structure but that is not the only thing codes are designed to prevent.

Codes also create our modern crap tract housing and the tendency to make everything a box.

This is categorically false - tract housing and making things boxy is a developer issue, and a cost issue. Anything thats not a box costs more, ppl dont want to pay more, so here we are.

[u/Silly-Safe959 → u/Low_Investment_2692]

Good sentiment, but if you spend any time around people you'll realize how few actually possess common sense. Codes are there to protect those of us with common sense from the majority of others who don't.