Problem is that the builders sue the regulators to the point where the regulators or planning boards do the easy thing, and grant the permit in a wetland. Under NEPA (national environmental policy act) and state-level state environmental quality review acts, the developer is entitled to a hearing, the decisions on permits are not dictacted to them. Problem is that they flex their political muscle to bulldoze the environmental review process and get what they want most of the time, unless the local community sues the regulators or local planning board. Its the community that loses along with the spotted owl around here. I don’t know about the “POEPLE” (SIC) but the people would do better to create an economy built on tourism, recreation and appreciation of their rare natural resources, and it works…
The builder’s are on the cusp of a new construction wave and the money is rolling in…what cheek to ask for a limitation on damages due to their negligent construction designs or practices.
The builders cry foul when regulators ask them not to build in wetlands and obey environmental laws for the good of the community, and now they cry foul that they can’t be responsible when those wetlands or a wet environment causes their buildings to rot and become mildewed! They can’t have it both ways!
Hey, reinsurers are concerned about the impact of global warming in their long term cat models, environmental impairment liability insurance is an important area of coverage, lead, asbestos and mold are not trivial issues in the insurance world today, and environmental impacts on builder’s warranty/defect claims are obviously an important insurance story, it made the Insurance Journal! Many of the environmental coverages are underwritten and needed due to the way environmental laws are implemented…and I give a hooooooooot
Hey spotted owl get a life! This isn’t about wetlands it about government regulation of construction. The houses are to tight. The moisture is from the rain (possibly an environmental issue)but you are so into your issues that you dont understand what the article is about. O
Sorry baker, but the article is about the retention of moisture by construction resulting from inadequate building codes and standards, not the rainy environment…yes I’m into environmental regulatory issues, and this is a logical link to those issues. If you care to think about retention of moisture, do you know what naturally occurring phenomenon retains moisture successfully and performs 3-4 other well known functions as well?
Sorry, but in the words of the great biologist Rachel Carson, “Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world”
The information is out there on how to keep the water out of a house but the building industry isn’t using it. In many areas of the country, it’s common to see whole developments of new homes without a shred of window flashing. Siding slapped up right over OSB, a wood-waste product that falls apart if it gets wet, and it will get wet if there’s no proper drainage plane behind the siding. We’re seeing roofs with no roofing felt or it’s overlapped backwards. Foundations are not being built high enough and the grading is poor so basements leak.
Many times, these are deliberate shortcuts taken by builders to make more money. Even a $100 per house, if you build a thousand a year, is $100,000. That’s NOT a savings passed on to the buyer, who ends up paying for repairs or lawyers–or both.
Denying responsibility and getting builder-friendly laws passed to restrict consumers’ legal recourse for this fraud on the home buying public is their solution to the problem. The solution should be to build homes right and honor the warranty.
My name is Betsy Lee, I am one of the people that was featured in the Oregonian on Sunday. I have over$200,000 in repairs. I paid $429,000 in 2001 for a new home. My damages range from Efis improperly installed, hardi plank improperly installed, numerous code violations, settlement problems, including cracking foundation and concrete garage floor and a veranda that was installed with OSB that is exposed to the weather.Where were the inspectors?
It’s funny; we live in a newer house in Portland, Oregon, built by a wonderful small contractor. Our house is safe and mold-free. So what happens to me? I inhale toxic mold spores at the Cedar Hills Rec Center,our local public center, during my exercise classes. The building, an old school, has moldy air conditioners in the windows and massive ceiling leaks. The rec center management repeatedly swept me under a rug, “lost” my written communications, and refused to hire a specialist to inspect the building. At the time, I could not find an attorney with mold experience willing to take on my case, even though I deserve billions for all my husband and I been through from this sick building.
The rec center is owned by Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District in Washington County, and paid for by my taxes. Well, my husband’s taxes, because the mold tried to kill me and that sort of made working a little hard at times. So I haven’t been paying taxes, just thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills for the last four mold-filled years.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that mold makes humans sick can talk to my doctor, who has treated many mold victims in the Portland area. There is plenty of data proving that yes indeedy, Mold Kills, but the housing industry and insurance companies don’t want you to know. Because their bonuses are worth way more than your life, or the life of your family. I’m proof of that.
There are no city or state laws in Beaverton, Oregon that will help me get this toxic building cleaned up, nor do we have any national indoor air quality laws (yet- there is one in the works!) So this building is still there, still poisoning people, even as you read this. Scary, huh?
Insurers fight for stronger building codes. However, stronger does not always mean smarter…or wiser.
Follow the reasons why the codes require such weather proof construction, and who is responsible for such established requirements, and you may find subrogation relief.
I agree with CS. All these homes should never be approved by inspectors if those vital construction elements are missing. Inspectors are apparently lax in their responsibility to the public by approving these homes. Our taxes/building permits pay for these inspectors.
I feel that builders should be responsible for their construction but inspectors are also part of the whole picture. Shoddy built homes should never be put on the market.
“”Posted On: June 27, 2005, 3:16 pm CDT
Posted By: Smitty
Comment:
minimum wage illegal immigrant construction workers & crappy houses?
As if -people were replaceable like Litebulbs.””
Truer words have never been spoken. Instead of sending the construction foreman over to “That corner” that seems to be in existance in every city in this country why don’t we send immigration control????
Nothing new reported in the Oregonian that hasn’t been permeating home building for years! How come it takes a front and center article to shake up the mainstream? Builders should be 100% responsible for what they choose to build and with what they choose to build with. They lean severly on the “building Code” as to how to build it- which has been reported to be grossly outdated. What agency updates building codes? Home Inspectors are only as good as what they can see/smell/touch, and they too, lean severly on building code as a barometer for acceptable construction tecniques. These home inspectors cannot report on what is hidden from their view or that they cannot get access to. Local and state building administrators, the construction contractors board and a host of other organizations including our lovely builders are all spokes that make up the home building wheel in which we have to have faith in. They all should share in the responsibility and accountability of the end product in which employs them! The real question is, how does “the wheel” become responsible and liable as fast as the poor consumer needs them to be? New construction is taking place at lightning speed; therefore, so should the new regulations! The bottom line is that our homes are the single largest purchase we will most likely ever make, so shouldn’t each and every one be sold with the integrity in which it is purchased?
Truly maddening !
What gets me is that, as an industry, we loath older homes and want only newer, high value construction. Yet our claims and home office people fully admit that the mold claims are coming from (surprise, surprise!) homes less than 15 years old and higher value.
I see I am months late here, but hope this still gets out there. Most of you are unaware of the real issues here. Everyone wants to blame the materials, or the inspectors not doing their jobs, or even the un-educated employees building your houses for the moisture and mold problems. Here is a beginning solution for many of these issues. I am a builder here on the Oregon coast and have Learned a great deal. FIRST of all, your local building inspectors are doing their job, which is solely to make sure that your project is being built to code, which is primarily a STRUCTURAL CODE. They have no jurisdiction on weather tight issues. THERE ARE NO CODES THAT REQUIRE INSPECTORS TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR HOUSE IS SEALED PROPERLY, OR THAT SOME MATERIALS ARE INSTALLED TO THE MANUFACTURERS INSTRUCTIONS. This is left up to the builder, and a lot of builders are unaware of the correct procedures to seal a house from the elements. Most materials do serve their intended purpose if they are installed correctly, and most inspectors do there job correctly as required. What we need is a continuing education program for contractors and builders and add weather sealing code requirements to the building code that requires inspections. This is where we need to start, and then start working on the manufactures of products to build products that will help the normal natural condensation of moisture in a house to get out of the house. When we seal a house so airtight for energy conservation, we also seal moisture in, and this will eventually create problems too, but for now, the biggest issue is learning how to keep the water and weather on the outside of your house!! One more fact for those of you that hire contractors. GET REFERENCES. A contractor in the State of Oregon is not required to know anything about building and construction. They have to take a study course which is only to help the contractor learn record keeping and basic office, paperwork skills. There are no tests on structural building practices or any form of actual construction techniques. Anybody can get their contratcors license in Oregon if they can get insurance and a bond and pass a simple office, bookkeeping, record keeping test.
Builders don’t build where regulators say they can’t and regulators don’t ask, they tell.
What’s better for the community – letting the spotted owl keep its nest or creating jobs for the POEPLE of the community?
Problem is that the builders sue the regulators to the point where the regulators or planning boards do the easy thing, and grant the permit in a wetland. Under NEPA (national environmental policy act) and state-level state environmental quality review acts, the developer is entitled to a hearing, the decisions on permits are not dictacted to them. Problem is that they flex their political muscle to bulldoze the environmental review process and get what they want most of the time, unless the local community sues the regulators or local planning board. Its the community that loses along with the spotted owl around here. I don’t know about the “POEPLE” (SIC) but the people would do better to create an economy built on tourism, recreation and appreciation of their rare natural resources, and it works…
I thought this was an insurance forum, not an environmental public relations site.
The builder’s are on the cusp of a new construction wave and the money is rolling in…what cheek to ask for a limitation on damages due to their negligent construction designs or practices.
The builders cry foul when regulators ask them not to build in wetlands and obey environmental laws for the good of the community, and now they cry foul that they can’t be responsible when those wetlands or a wet environment causes their buildings to rot and become mildewed! They can’t have it both ways!
Hey, reinsurers are concerned about the impact of global warming in their long term cat models, environmental impairment liability insurance is an important area of coverage, lead, asbestos and mold are not trivial issues in the insurance world today, and environmental impacts on builder’s warranty/defect claims are obviously an important insurance story, it made the Insurance Journal! Many of the environmental coverages are underwritten and needed due to the way environmental laws are implemented…and I give a hooooooooot
Hey spotted owl get a life! This isn’t about wetlands it about government regulation of construction. The houses are to tight. The moisture is from the rain (possibly an environmental issue)but you are so into your issues that you dont understand what the article is about. O
Sorry baker, but the article is about the retention of moisture by construction resulting from inadequate building codes and standards, not the rainy environment…yes I’m into environmental regulatory issues, and this is a logical link to those issues. If you care to think about retention of moisture, do you know what naturally occurring phenomenon retains moisture successfully and performs 3-4 other well known functions as well?
Sorry, but in the words of the great biologist Rachel Carson, “Mankind has gone very far into an artificial world of his own creation. He has sought to insulate himself, in his cities of steel and concrete, from the realities of earth and water and the growing seed. Intoxicated with a sense of his own power, he seems to be going farther and farther into more experiments for the destruction of himself and his world”
The information is out there on how to keep the water out of a house but the building industry isn’t using it. In many areas of the country, it’s common to see whole developments of new homes without a shred of window flashing. Siding slapped up right over OSB, a wood-waste product that falls apart if it gets wet, and it will get wet if there’s no proper drainage plane behind the siding. We’re seeing roofs with no roofing felt or it’s overlapped backwards. Foundations are not being built high enough and the grading is poor so basements leak.
Many times, these are deliberate shortcuts taken by builders to make more money. Even a $100 per house, if you build a thousand a year, is $100,000. That’s NOT a savings passed on to the buyer, who ends up paying for repairs or lawyers–or both.
Denying responsibility and getting builder-friendly laws passed to restrict consumers’ legal recourse for this fraud on the home buying public is their solution to the problem. The solution should be to build homes right and honor the warranty.
My name is Betsy Lee, I am one of the people that was featured in the Oregonian on Sunday. I have over$200,000 in repairs. I paid $429,000 in 2001 for a new home. My damages range from Efis improperly installed, hardi plank improperly installed, numerous code violations, settlement problems, including cracking foundation and concrete garage floor and a veranda that was installed with OSB that is exposed to the weather.Where were the inspectors?
It’s funny; we live in a newer house in Portland, Oregon, built by a wonderful small contractor. Our house is safe and mold-free. So what happens to me? I inhale toxic mold spores at the Cedar Hills Rec Center,our local public center, during my exercise classes. The building, an old school, has moldy air conditioners in the windows and massive ceiling leaks. The rec center management repeatedly swept me under a rug, “lost” my written communications, and refused to hire a specialist to inspect the building. At the time, I could not find an attorney with mold experience willing to take on my case, even though I deserve billions for all my husband and I been through from this sick building.
The rec center is owned by Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District in Washington County, and paid for by my taxes. Well, my husband’s taxes, because the mold tried to kill me and that sort of made working a little hard at times. So I haven’t been paying taxes, just thousands and thousands of dollars in medical bills for the last four mold-filled years.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that mold makes humans sick can talk to my doctor, who has treated many mold victims in the Portland area. There is plenty of data proving that yes indeedy, Mold Kills, but the housing industry and insurance companies don’t want you to know. Because their bonuses are worth way more than your life, or the life of your family. I’m proof of that.
There are no city or state laws in Beaverton, Oregon that will help me get this toxic building cleaned up, nor do we have any national indoor air quality laws (yet- there is one in the works!) So this building is still there, still poisoning people, even as you read this. Scary, huh?
Insurers fight for stronger building codes. However, stronger does not always mean smarter…or wiser.
Follow the reasons why the codes require such weather proof construction, and who is responsible for such established requirements, and you may find subrogation relief.
minimum wage illegal immigrant construction workers & crappy houses?
As if -people were replaceable like Litebulbs.
I agree with CS. All these homes should never be approved by inspectors if those vital construction elements are missing. Inspectors are apparently lax in their responsibility to the public by approving these homes. Our taxes/building permits pay for these inspectors.
I feel that builders should be responsible for their construction but inspectors are also part of the whole picture. Shoddy built homes should never be put on the market.
“”Posted On: June 27, 2005, 3:16 pm CDT
Posted By: Smitty
Comment:
minimum wage illegal immigrant construction workers & crappy houses?
As if -people were replaceable like Litebulbs.””
Truer words have never been spoken. Instead of sending the construction foreman over to “That corner” that seems to be in existance in every city in this country why don’t we send immigration control????
Nothing new reported in the Oregonian that hasn’t been permeating home building for years! How come it takes a front and center article to shake up the mainstream? Builders should be 100% responsible for what they choose to build and with what they choose to build with. They lean severly on the “building Code” as to how to build it- which has been reported to be grossly outdated. What agency updates building codes? Home Inspectors are only as good as what they can see/smell/touch, and they too, lean severly on building code as a barometer for acceptable construction tecniques. These home inspectors cannot report on what is hidden from their view or that they cannot get access to. Local and state building administrators, the construction contractors board and a host of other organizations including our lovely builders are all spokes that make up the home building wheel in which we have to have faith in. They all should share in the responsibility and accountability of the end product in which employs them! The real question is, how does “the wheel” become responsible and liable as fast as the poor consumer needs them to be? New construction is taking place at lightning speed; therefore, so should the new regulations! The bottom line is that our homes are the single largest purchase we will most likely ever make, so shouldn’t each and every one be sold with the integrity in which it is purchased?
Truly maddening !
What gets me is that, as an industry, we loath older homes and want only newer, high value construction. Yet our claims and home office people fully admit that the mold claims are coming from (surprise, surprise!) homes less than 15 years old and higher value.
I see I am months late here, but hope this still gets out there. Most of you are unaware of the real issues here. Everyone wants to blame the materials, or the inspectors not doing their jobs, or even the un-educated employees building your houses for the moisture and mold problems. Here is a beginning solution for many of these issues. I am a builder here on the Oregon coast and have Learned a great deal. FIRST of all, your local building inspectors are doing their job, which is solely to make sure that your project is being built to code, which is primarily a STRUCTURAL CODE. They have no jurisdiction on weather tight issues. THERE ARE NO CODES THAT REQUIRE INSPECTORS TO MAKE SURE THAT YOUR HOUSE IS SEALED PROPERLY, OR THAT SOME MATERIALS ARE INSTALLED TO THE MANUFACTURERS INSTRUCTIONS. This is left up to the builder, and a lot of builders are unaware of the correct procedures to seal a house from the elements. Most materials do serve their intended purpose if they are installed correctly, and most inspectors do there job correctly as required. What we need is a continuing education program for contractors and builders and add weather sealing code requirements to the building code that requires inspections. This is where we need to start, and then start working on the manufactures of products to build products that will help the normal natural condensation of moisture in a house to get out of the house. When we seal a house so airtight for energy conservation, we also seal moisture in, and this will eventually create problems too, but for now, the biggest issue is learning how to keep the water and weather on the outside of your house!! One more fact for those of you that hire contractors. GET REFERENCES. A contractor in the State of Oregon is not required to know anything about building and construction. They have to take a study course which is only to help the contractor learn record keeping and basic office, paperwork skills. There are no tests on structural building practices or any form of actual construction techniques. Anybody can get their contratcors license in Oregon if they can get insurance and a bond and pass a simple office, bookkeeping, record keeping test.
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