I'm not sure what to change.
Building codes are here to stay - for better and worse, in many instances for the better, in some not so much. Wishing away the fact that wood to wood joinery needs special consideration to handle lateral and tension loading and that many contemporary frames are just not designed to handle this loading doesn't change things.
Designing a euro style frame as in DL's other thread may solve some issues - but it would increase costs significantly - and I can't see many typical US customers going for having studs, horizontal timbers, and large diagonal bracing running along their walls. (and I haven't studied these options enough to know if they work under load - while the crow bar effect may be minimized from plate or beam to post - there is still a reaction to be had when something pushes on the building from the side - and those forces need to be resolved somewhere in the structure)
I'm all for sane and common sense practices. Before we moved out of our town house we needed to install hardwired smoke and CO detectors as we were attached to 5 other units. This is tricky to do well after the fact (the units were built in the late 80s). Of course - the updated code said that we needed to have a detector (interlinked to all the others) on each floor. Fair enough, one in the basement / garage level, one on the main living space, and one on the bedroom level. The fine print also called out for 1 in each bedroom. So atop our stairs we had 1 in the landing (to cover the upper 'floor') - and 6' away in each direction were 2 more - 1 in each bedroom. The whole place was 1100 sq. ft. - with approximately 450 sq. ft. on each main living level. So on the upper level we had 3 smoke and CO detectors covering 450 sq. ft. of living area, all within a 6' diameter of one another.
Silly, for sure. But someone in Burlington a few years ago hacked up an old Victorian, rented it out to college kids, and jammed way too many 'apartments' into the thing. When the furnace failed and someone died - city council and the fire chief pushed through some new codes. Since then all 'multi' family units were required to undergo the changes at time of a later sale. Even though our 'unit' was single family - but attached to 5 others (with firewalls and no common hallways or entrances...)
Last edited by bmike; 02/28/11 02:33 PM.
