Re: occupancy permission.

[Martin Clark]

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Hi Ken,

After living in our house for 2 years we finally > got an occupancy permit.

That's pretty good. It took us about 8 years. Didn't worry us too much as the Chief Building Inspector at the time didn't have one after 9 years. The local Building Act does not require a Final (a.k.a. occupancy permit) for a single private dwelling to be lawfully occupied, only that a permit exists. Also, a permit cannot be lapsed if the dwelling has substantial commencement. Bit of a bane to regulators :-) but imho very wise.

We had only 2x4 fiber insulated walls, but then > installed 1.5 sm (styrofoam) over that and siding, > to bring the wall insulation up to code. It made a > heck of a good diff in our a/c and heating bills, > but even better, the place feels more comfortable. > > There were a few quibbles, such as the stink > pipe must go through the roof, that we objected > to on the grounds it pierces the ceiling vapor > barrier, something we wouldn't do, so we worked > a compromise to keep it coming out the side.

Very odd phenomenon, this 'stink pipe through the roof' shibboleth. Occurs in a lot of places. My (long) association with buildings has led me to avoid breaching roof planes in any climate zone unless it is unavoidable.

Safety and hygiene was never a question in our work. > > I wonder, is "safety and hygiene" an opinion?

I should be a performance-based criterion. The Codes should provide for performance-based solutions as an alternative to prescription or 'deemed-to-satisfy'. My (again long) association with prescription is that it invariably ends up producing a dumb result in one area or another. No one is capable of playing God (even if they think otherwise). Prescription blocks innovation and makes codes difficult to adapt to change. They can always add a requirement for "peer review" or similar if they get nervous ...

lt=AqMUT37eGZF65JI7J3OncyJ34T0D Ken

Amish building practices ... I encountered something similar with households of Melanesian and Polynesian descent who have a problem with certain domestic functions all being grouped under one roof. The solution was to point out that nowhere in the building codes was there a requirement for "one dwelling - one contiguous roof".

Regards

[Martin Clark]

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Townsville North Queensland Oz - about 19 deg south 146 east

Could be a concern I guess, although I'm not sure how. Once had -21 Celcius in the old place in Wales. No sign of anything filling with ice except the toilet pan, but then it wouldn't stay that low for long. I recall ours was the only house around that didn't have burst pipes. I'd lashed it up with black plastic for the cold system and butylene for the hot. It swelled but didn't split. The copper stuff was bursting all over the place.

We had a caravan and a chemical loo in a shed recycled from the dump. Dunno how we got away with it. Maybe no neighbours at the time to dob us in, except people in the same situation :-)

[Martin Clark]

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Yes it is - mostly. Currently wet season, hot, humid, thunderstorms, but no cyclones or monsoon troughs yet.

We can pretty much rely on around 650 watts / m2 coming down most days. Up to now the take-up on solar has been very low because reticulated power was cheap, but that's about to change

[snip]

Wow - makes my bones ache just thinking about it. If it drops below 16C here I start dreaming about frosty mist-covered hillsides.... A cold winter morning here is like 6C at 5am, so you go looking for a warm jacket, or debate whether the electric heater in the cupboard will set the place on fire....

[RicodJour]

Hey Ken. What's the big deal about piercing a vapor barrier? There are effective ways to seal such a penetration.

I saw the "bit of a cold snap" post. I guess you're wearing more in the way of vestments than you'd prefer!

Pretty damn quiet around here...

R

[Martin Clark]

"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

We are currently paying 16 cents ($A) per kwh on the basic tariff. Not cheap after all. The problem here in NQ is there is no local base- load power station yet. Base load is dependent on plants 1500km or more south of here, and the losses in the grid amount to about 30%. So local solar isn't going to make much difference compared to that.

The CO2 targets are regarded as reasonable by some and inadequate by others. Australia gets hammered a bit because it is a major exporter of coal, and because the per capita energy consumption is relatively high. However, Australia produces around 30% of the world's aluminium. Don't know how much is consumed locally, but with only 20m people it isn't going to be much of the 30%. If you take the three aluminium smelting plants out of the equation the per capita consumption rate drops dramatically.

Morons indeed. Everything not compulsory is forbidden. Shuttered windows would reduce the heat loss through the glass, wind penetration etc. Our codes have a list of items that are excluded from assessment, and includes shutters, attached window hoods and sun screens below a certain size, attached satellite dishes 600mm dia or less, stuff like that. And this is an area where cyclonic winds occur. There was a powerful blow, Cyclone Larry, just north of here in 2006. James Cook University Cyclone Testing Station did a postmortem on it:

First things that got ripped off were gutters and roller doors, which are assessable. Doesn't seem to mention any of the exempt items above.

Seasons Greetings

Martin

[creative1986]

Use a Studor :

Or, run the pipe up the inside of the interior wall and before it gets to the top plate install an elbow and run it out the sidewall, then install another elbow, and then up through the overhang.

Your exterior penetration will be at a a wall juntion and easily secured. Tell the inspector to go pound sand.

[creative1986]

Or pine needles, leaves or insects and creatures, etc. Besides, they just look hideous and of all the things one can have, why in the world would anyone want to have a stink pipe right out there in broad daylight. Please. There's any number of reasons to NOT penetrate the roof envelope and no reason TO penetrate it except thug rule. Our house, with 3 bathrooms and 1 kitchen and 1 laundry room does not have even 1 roof pentration, and thats the way it should be.

[RicodJour]

I'm back in NY and trying not to do any work before Christmas/New Years. So far I've been successful. ;)

Ho Ho Ho!

R

[RicodJour]

Iceland's architects have it far worse. I read something like 75% of the private sector architects were laid off due to their economy's implosion. Ouch.

R

[creative1986]

Nit wits. To get our CO we had to install anti-siphon valves on all the hose bibbs. The cost was minimal, something like $4 each, but it was the idea that pissed me off. After the CO I took them off.

[creative1986]

Tell the code punk to show you where they are DISapproved. If he can't do that, lay him out.