Beware the publicity hack.

The Fire & Rescue service got a little bit of a break yesterday.  Through some persistent efforts by Dave Statter and WUSA, coupled with a recent house fire in their own area, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) have opened the door to public discussion about modern “lightweight construction” methods.

For years, we have been complaining loudly about the cheap methods of throwing up homes that came into full practice about 20 years ago.  Initially it included those plywood floor joists, chipwood and glue sheathing, and lightweight trusses held together with gusset plates.  They have continually been degrading their construction practices by using more flimsy materials such as vinyl siding and close-clearance chimneys.

Now, when a fire begins in a home, the time span between ignition and total-involvement has been shortened tremendously…. to a few minutes, in many cases.

The NAHB and other groups that represent the home building industry have largely run from the spotlight and hidden behind the cloak of “code compliance” claiming that they are duly following the approved practices.  And that’s true.  But…. it’s the approved practices that are the direct cause of these catastrophic failures during what should be room-and-contents fires.  And the NAHB chooses to push that inconvenient point aside because these current practices allow them to use much cheaper materials and methods, thus inflating their profit margins.

I presume that by now you have read STATter911’s response from NAHB’s spokeswoman, Carri Schmidt.  Let’s look at what she is really saying, or not saying:

“Homes are, in fact, significantly safer today than 20 years ago because of advances in technology and changes in building codes.”  

She starts off with an old debating trick by saying that her claim is a “fact.”  No, it’s not.  If it was a “fact” then there wouldn’t be any controversy going on.  But by starting out with such a statement, an observer tends to sub-consciously think that it must be true then.

Then the next trick of the debater (and publicity hacks) is to ignore the premise if you can’t defend it and talk about something else:  The claim that homes are significantly safer can only be true if you are talking about the things in the homes, not the buildings themselves.  We don’t have tv sets bursting into flames anymore.  Furnaces are being built much better and safer now.  Gas appliances don’t have pilot lights anymore.  And so on.

We are - and have been - talking about building safety after the fire starts.  But she ignores that and insists on talking about building safety before it starts.  And to keep the debate focused on something other than firefighter safety, she threw out some links to reference sources.  Again, this is another debating stunt that relies on people accepting your word on face value and hoping that they don’t actually check out your references.  But Firegeezer did. 

Here’s one statement from one of her references:  Engineered building components may provide adequate strength under normal loading; but under fire conditions, these truss systems can become weakened and fail, leading to the collapse of roofs, floors, and possibly the entire structure.

That’s exactly what we’ve been saying.  And the NAHB is using this as a rebuttal?  We will get into this phase of the discussion some more tomorrow.

But now it’s time to get this equipment checked out.  I’m going to get the (much safer, these days) coffee maker started.

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