It's also difficult to know what's on the inside of built houses (which is why inspection is supposed to happy during construction, not after). Commercial buildings often have both plans and as-built drawings; but residential buildings don't, and when you get on-site and the plan doesn't match the house, you really don't know what's in the walls. Some sort of government driven new code compliance inspection for existing housing stock seems really expensive. Even public use buildings take a long time to get code compliance updates, such as retrofits on unreinforced masonry buildings in many places, and there's both more risk and more enforcement power for public use buildings.
The old house was up-to-code, and considered safe for habitation, when it was built. Your new house was not.
Very importantly, if you renovate an old house, regulations may require you to update the house to modern building code standards for plumbing, electricity, etc.
Old houses are held up to the new code when they are renovated, because updating old houses to the new code frequently requires rebuilding substantial portions of the house to comply with new requirements. It's not about "fuck everyone else." It's about recognizing that the extensive work that would be required to comply with substantially safer modern codes is best done when substantial construction work is already planned to be performed.
Commercial buildings are held to up to new codes whenever ownership, or tenancy, changes hands.
OK but if I build a new house to the old code then I also will need substantial work to rebuild it to bring it into compliance. So I could use the same logic I shouldn't have to. Safe enough for them, safe enough for me.
>No, houses are held up to the code that applied when they were built,
Again, that's the scam. I'll build my house to one code and then vote to make the code harsher for the next guy to up my property value. If it's impossible to build a new house as economically as mine, mine's now worth more than it would have been.
It's not reasonable to build with GFCI outlets in the bathrooms in 1956. It's not reasonable to build without them in 2023.
Most places have a very limited enforcement appetite for existing construction. If it was safe and current when built, it's fine enough. Exceptions include adding smoke and carbon monoxide detectors --- but they're not that expensive to buy or install; and sometimes you can't get a home insured if it had certain electrical panels with poor safety records, and knob and tube wiring is sometimes frowned upon (but really, it's not that bad if it hasn't been altered; just a lot of houses where they added too much load on the existing knob and tube and overloaded wiring is never good). That doesn't mean you should build that way today. Somethings that were standard aren't even available anymore; nobody makes orangeburg pipe since the 1970s, so you've got to use something better.
And that's part of the trickery involved here. People say "look that one guy died in that house so we need to require stricter code here." They're not noticing the freezing homeless people that died because housing become $X dollars more expensive and they lost the musical chairs game. Sure the homeless guy wasn't going to buy a brand new house, but through the substitution effect across a wide swath of society eventually down the chain it does filter down to everyone ultimately affecting their access to housing. And hey, added bonus, current homeowners property is also worth more when building becomes more expensive so why not juice that one housing related death for all you got even if you know saving that one in a million rich person's life ends with 2 more dead homeless people or whatever.
The ability for voters, already homed, to just change up the codes on everyone while not having their own homes subjected creates a cruel moral hazard and socially bifurcating effect. The guy that gets in early comes in and gets his, then says fuck you, you have to play by different rules.
I'm not saying the houses should be torn down. I'm saying any updates should put situation where homeowner voters are subject to their own medicine. I don't think they'll choose to tear down the houses. No they might decide after all "hey good enough for me, good enough for you."
As for "can't build with X thing they did/didn't have before." Well you can update the codes to allow both the old and new method for something. That would satisfy conditions for both standing and new construction without uniform enforcement causing old houses to be demolished.
It's honestly kind of insane I've had a couple people basically suggest that if the rules be applied evenly, they're going with the "go and tear down houses when code is updated and see how quick we can make everyone homeless" option to pick up their toys and go home rather than give others the same chance they had by allowing the old ways in the code. That's the only way I can make out you would seriously think people would end up homeless.
We as a society have strong reasons to provide a glide path towards reducing that moral hazard created by old entrants.
What happens when insurers won’t insure older properties? Those without insurance will make due until a catastrophic event or sell to someone for cash, and those with a mortgage will suffer exceedingly high premiums until the mortgage is paid off and they can go without insurance (or they’re of sufficient means they can afford the premiums, currently running roughly $4k-$12k/annually).
Forcing them to eat their own medicine would allow the youth to also have the chance to build a house, even if it's not perfectly safe, closer to the cost their parents had to spend. Rather than changing the game and screwing over new entrants while old entrants enjoy immunity to the same rules.
I've noticed that there has been mass hysteria in some California-centric websites that flood insurance must be provided by the Federal government in Florida, but not that earthquake insurance must be provided by the Federal government in California.
Botton line, the private sector doesn't handle this type of correlated risk well, and somehow picking on Florida when California does the same thing is pretty weird. We know there will be a big earthquake that will level a lot of property in California just we know there will be a big flood in Florida. Yet "entitled fucks" keep choosing to live in these states. Life goes on.
Earthquake insurance availability is mandated within the state. Why would we need a Federal mandate when we have an effective state mandate. It's not attractively priced, but Federal flood insurance often isn't attractively priced when they've updated maps recently either.
Anyways, you are confusing the issue of whether insurance is mandated with the fact that no private insurer will cover it, and so the risk is socialized and the only providers are government.
That's what people are complaining about -- that private insurers walked away from covering flood/earthquakes in regions prone to the same, and so the government has to step in to insure the correlated risk. This causes no end of outrage for Florida but is somehow just fine in California. And my only point was to point out this hypocrisy and argue that there are good reasons for government to cover correlated risks and that there is nothing wrong with either state or those who choose to build in either state. They can accept risk or they can purchase government insurance.
AFAIK, your residential insurance carrier is mandated to offer you Earthquake insurance. If there's some exception I'm not aware of, let me know.
Soft-story retrofits are a thing and should be expanded with long-term State loans
There are fewer places where it is more reckless to build housing than coastal California.