Of the built environment, a substantial
percentage is residential housing. Based on my experience testing many homes as
a HERS Rater, I know we have created a very unhealthy and inefficient housing
stock through the lack of sensible building standards. 2018 code offers an
excellent opportunity to resolve that problem. Not only does it address
effective standards for health, safety, durability and efficiency in new
construction, 2018 also address existing home retrofits by making renovations
also subject to these new standards.
Further, it seems unnecessarily complicated to have different standards for
Commercial and Residential structures when the building science is essentially
the same. Why force builders, trades, subcontractors and code inspectors to
learn, enforce and comply with 2 sets of rules?
There are (+-) 125,000,000 single family
homes in the US, the majority of them constructed without any building code.
Roughly ½ of the State of Tennessee has no building code. (See attached maps
link) The resultant health and infrastructure costs due to mold, rot, poor air
quality and resulting respiratory ailments is staggering. Homes retrofit to
2018 standards would reduce energy loads by 50% and cut recurring medical costs
for the life of the building, given reasonable upkeep.
In the world of building science, we are
very close to the path of diminishing returns, R values, fenestration, ducts
and mechanical equipment, air tightness levels and ventilation standards are at
a level that is affordable and technically achievable. I suggest a blanket
adoption of 2018 codes and a 6-9 year moratorium on code upgrades to give all
parties sufficient time to get it right.
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