Ed Vitale: Building: A Self-Help Guide For The Owner Builder

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

At about the same time, building officials were banding together in different sections of the country and drafting their own model codes. The International Conference of Building Officials issued the Uniform Building Code (which still predominates in the western part of the country) and the Building Officials and Code Administrators International wrote the Basic Building Code (prevalent in the Midwest and East). The Southern Building Code Conference, unhappy with the way the other three groups addressed themselves to the unique problems of that part of the nation, drafted still a fourth model . . . the Standard Building Code.

These organizations have, over the years, broken down the whole construction process into a number of individual components—plumbing, mechanical (heat and air conditioning), fire prevention, etc.... and issued a separate set of regulations for each one. The main building code itself in each case, however, is still the basic construction document that guides a contractor in the erection of everything from a single-family dwelling to high-rise buildings and huge shopping centers.

And that's the problem: the attempt of each major code to cover so many different kinds of construction (not only the high-rises and shopping centers mentioned above, but also farm buildings and factories) in a single document. This has resulted in a general building code (not including the separate plumbing, mechanical, and other codes) that is hundreds of pages long and so tightly crammed with charts, graphs, formulas, and equations that only an engineer can decipher it. This, of course, puts the owner-builder who wants to construct his own simple dwelling at a decided disadvantage.

There has been, however, an attempt to solve this particular dilemma of the builder of residential dwellings. All four model code organizations have collaborated to produce the "One and Two Family Dwelling Code". Its title is self-explanatory and it combines those provisions of the plumbing and mechanical codes that are applicable to single-family residential construction. (The main building codes themselves do not contain plumbing and mechanical specifications, As indicated above, such regulations have been relegated to their very own volumes.)

The chapters of the One and Two Family Dwelling Code are presented in a logical construction sequence and the manual is therefore much easier to follow than any of its four bigger brothers (the National, Uniform, Basic, and Standard Building Codes). This code, however, is compatible with the other four and is an excellent reference and instruction book if you're considering the construction of your own shelter in a code-dominated municipality. The manual costs $8.00 and is available from Building Officials and Code Administrators Int'l. Inc., 1313 East 60th Street, Chicago, Illinois 60637; American Insurance Association, 85 John Street, New York, New York 10038; Southern Building Code Congress International, 3617 Eighth Avenue South, Birmingham, Alabama 35222; or International Conference of Building Officials, 5360 South Workman Mill Road, Whittier, California 90601.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print