A few weeks ago there was a story about a senior citizens center that had won a grant for a new elevator. Great! But on Twitter it was an object of scorn: Why were we so delighted about a $365,000 elevator that would have cost half that in Europe and been installed twice as fast?
I couldn't confirm any of that, so I skipped past without writing about it. But on my recent vacation I did notice that Austria seemed to have an awful lot of elevators and they all had an odd sameness of appearance. It turns out I wasn't mistaken. There are a lot of elevators in Europe and they are pretty standardized. Stephen Smith explains:
A basic four-stop elevator costs about $158,000 in New York City, compared with about $36,000 in Switzerland. A six-stop model will set you back more than three times as much in Pennsylvania as in Belgium. Maintenance, repairs, and inspections all cost more in America too.
The first thing to notice about our elevators is that, like many things in America, they are huge. New elevators outside the U.S. are typically sized to accommodate a person in a large wheelchair plus somebody standing behind them. American elevators have ballooned to about twice that size, driven by a drip-drip-drip of regulations, each motivated by a slightly different concern — first accessibility, then accommodation for ambulance stretchers, then even bigger stretchers.
The U.S. and Canada have also marooned themselves on a regulatory island for elevator parts and designs.... Not only do we have our own elevator code, but individual U.S. jurisdictions modify it further. More accurate and efficient electronic testing practices, for example, are still mostly viewed with suspicion by the nearly 100 separate boards and jurisdictions that regulate elevator safety in North America (the exact number in the regulatory patchwork is hard to nail down exactly).
....Architects have dreamed of modular construction for decades, where entire rooms are built in factories and then shipped on flatbed trucks to sites, for lower costs and greater precision. But we can’t even put elevators together in factories in America, because the elevator union’s contract forbids even basic forms of preassembly and prefabrication that have become standard in elevators in the rest of the world. The union and manufacturers bicker over which holes can be drilled in a factory and which must be drilled (or redrilled) on site.
So there you have it. Elevators are cheap and standardized in Europe, so they're everywhere. They're expensive and customized in America, so we have fewer of them. Apparently the ADA doesn't require elevators in low-rise apartment buildings, and a lot of them go without because it's too expensive and too much of a hassle.
Is this a metaphor for American construction in general? I'm not sure I'd go that far. But you could talk me into it.
we can’t even put elevators together in factories in America, because the elevator union’s contract forbids even basic forms of preassembly and prefabrication that have become standard in elevators in the rest of the world.
It seems the US has all the problems of low unionization rates and yet likewise many of the problems of a country where most workers are organized. the worst of all worlds: the crazy rules you might expect in, say, France, but with none of the worker protections or benefits.
While were at it, why does a sandwich in Paris cost 2/3rds a sandwich in Nowhere'sville USA?
Not "American Construction...", rather 'American Building Departments and the IUEC (International Union of Elevator Constructors)'. I know, not as catchy.
My first job as a construction superintendent, I had the unfortunate experience of dealing with the IUEC. Both of the workers would show up around 7:45 (start time was 7:00 am), pull a coffee pot out of their job box and brew a full pot of coffee. They would take out folding chairs and read the paper (yes, it was long time ago) and finally start working around 9am or so. It wasn't as bad as that in future jobs, but the IUEC is a notoriously unproductive union.
I noticed this in Prague. We stayed in an older building, probably built near the turn of the 20th century. The building had a big open stairwell in the center, the kind of design common in apartment buildings of that sort all around the world. My brother, who I was traveling with, lives in a building with a similar basic design in Brooklyn. The difference? The building in Prague had a small elevator in the center of the big stairwell. It was a small elevator but did its job just fine. My brother's building, of course, has no elevator.
Mandating additional capabilities in a system results in lower adoption. There's a crossover point where this becomes a net negative.
That seems like something one should incorporate in regulatory models.
Remember that story about airline safety seats for babies, where somebody (the FAA I guess) apparently determined that requiring safety seats would result in fewer babies on planes and more in cars, with a net increase in injuries and fatalities (since flying is so much safer than driving)? I don't know if that's true or apocryphal, but it's a great example of thoughtful regulation.
Another example: septic systems.
Along the Russian River in Northern California, you are required to update your septic system to get a permit for any other major construction (e.g. adding a deck, remodeling a kitchen). The requirements for the septic systems are so elaborate that people just put off new construction altogether.
The result: more really old septic systems leaking into the river, and lots of really scary old structures (like decks) that don't get updated.
This is not my field, but I am guessing there's a middle ground here that would cost less and provide greater overall benefit to the river.
FYI: The #1 highest-paid building trade in the US is elevator mechanic.
So too is the case for the mechanical code, fire code, electrical code, plumbing code, commercial (building) code, residential code, the "tiny houses" code, energy efficiency code, manufactured dwelling code, and the boiler/pressure vessel code. It costs about $1000 annually to gain full access to a state's full set of codes related to construction, and that's not including the industry standard references such as ASHRAE, UL, ANSI, everything from the Wood Counsel like the APA, the ADA, etc. If you want full access to all of these ancillary references, it'll cost you several thousand dollars more, annually.
And then there's California. They like to write their own codes from scratch.
It is surprising how states will modify or eliminate words just to flip the meaning of a sentence on its head, or how entire appendix sections are adopted or not. And states have "adopted" different versions of each code with different adoption schedules from the 2-year code cycles. Hawaii had been stuck on the same code for a decade.
Somewhat ironically, the building code in the early 1990s was even more fragmented. There were distinctly different code counsels with completely different base codes, until they all came together and built "international" codes.
Just about everything in the US costs more because in the US, we're the kings of regulation. This is not necessarily because we have more regulation, but because we turn standardized model regulations into a million different code-compliance pathways depending on what, where, and when you're building something.
As someone who grew up in other parts of the world, I was amazed by the idea of school districts setting local requirements for education and standards for graduation. I don't think I'm aware of any other country that doesn't have a minimum set of national standards. How inefficient is that?
Education professionals, correct me if I'm wrong.
"Hawaii had been stuck on the same code for a decade."
I lived in Honolulu for a year. It did not appear that there were any building codes or zoning there at all.
See: https://codes.iccsafe.org/codes/hawaii
Click down on the "year" tab. Note the gap between the adopted 2006 and 2018 codes.
See: https://www.honolulu.gov/dpp/permitting/zoning-permits.html
Code compliance is an issue.
*wood council 😀
It's not so much that Americans are the kings of regulation as that they're the kings of LOCAL regulation. Other countries tend to do things like building codes at the national level; in federal systems sometimes at the state level, but never at the local level. Smaller countries often try to harmonize regulations over several countries, or simply follow the lead of their bigger neighbors. Canada, for instance, often follows the American lead where American regulations make sense just because it's much more economical to be part of a market of nearly 400 million people than to expect builders and manufacturers to produce goods that can only be sold in one market of 40 million people.
As a New Yorker, let me share the phrase we use in my town: “everything is legal until somebody complains or is hurt.” There are a lot of rules on the books. They’re only enforced by neighbors, insurance companies, and co-op boards (the NYC equivalent of the HOA). Whenever the codes are revised, they are revised as the result of litigation, which reflects this exceedingly piecemeal enforcement
This is true for most of the country. But to do that, you generally have to bypass credentialed/licensed people. No licensed contractors, no licensed structural engineers or architects, etc.
Wut? You mean if you make a lot of things to a standard set of requirements it works out to be cheaper? Some economist should look into this, perhaps come up with some catchy phrase like "economies of scale".
Landlords aren’t the only ones seeking rent.
So, why do the Europeans hate people on stretchers? …
I'll rephrase the question a little. What do European EMTs do when they need to stretcher someone out of, say, a 4th-floor unit in one of these center-stairwell buildings with small elevators? Do they have specialized equipment for patients who can't be put in chairs but need to be taken down stairs? Or do they use chairs anyhow?
They all have nationalized health care, so I can only assume European death panels let people on upper floors die.
Stretchers can be carried down stairs. If all else fails, you put the stretcher out the window and lower it to the ground on ropes, or get a high lift service vehicle. Four stories is within reach of your average fire department's ladder truck. Ten stories would make for serious difficulties.
My bad, I didn't elaborate enough. An "ambulance stretcher" in this country is almost always going to be a gurney with the legs that fold away so the surface height won't change when it's rolled from the ground into the vehicle. They're really heavy items and they're big, and I assumed that's what at least some (a lot?) of the elevators mentioned in the article are sized to hold, like maybe in bigger apartment structures and especially I'd guess in purpose-built senior-living buildings, etc.
In houses with stairs, where the gurneys can't go, EMTs will typically use chairs that have some features to make them more usable on stairs, and then they'll put people on the gurneys outside. Quite a number of people, I'm thinking, really shouldn't be in those chairs but if possible should be carried out flat instead. But it seems like everything's designed around the gurneys with the collapsing legs. I've seen one chair pickup like that up close and it isn't something I want to be near again-- inordinately painful and could have seriously worsened the condition. An actual human-carried stretcher would have been better, but didn't seem to be an option.
So that's why I asked about that. Europe has tons of older structures with only stairs or small elevators, so it seems like they'd have good reason to think about how to get people out in emergencies and sizing elevators for whatever methods they use, if space allows. I'm speculating that they'd do things differently, but have no good basis for that.
Many years ago the alumni magazine of my alma mater reported on the renovation of an older building on campus, which included installing a "multi-floor elevator". It got me wondering what an elevator that wasn't multi-floor would do.
"Multi" means "more than two". I've seen quite a few two story buildings with elevators to support handicapped access.
it kills you doesn't it? the accommodation of the worst of our society?
makes your little glibertarian schwantz turtle.
Is that comment directed at me? If so, how did you reach the conclusion that I'm criticizing two story buildings with elevators?
So . . . federalism?
Also, why isn't there a non-union elevator maker? And why are unions making design decisions anyway? That has nothing to do with working conditions, benefits, or salaries.
Here's another example of how we are screwing ourselves over regarding infrastructure. In California, the investor-owned utilities (PG&E, Edison and San Diego) are way behind in upgrading their electric transmission facilities. One reason is supply chain delays. It can take more than four years from order to when a circuit breaker is delivered. One reason for the delay is that there is not a single standardized circuit breaker each of the three can use. Each has their own unique specifications. California could buy circuit breakers in bulk, which would be cheaper and they would be on hand and available, but no-can-do because there is no standardization. I could also talk about similar issues with American-made electric vehicles or why a low-income housing unit in LA costs more than $800,000 to construct, but this is not a situation unique to elevators -- not by a longshot.
I wonder how much of this is driven by Americans’ need for more personal space than other cultures. Or, to put it another way, Americans would rather be unaware of others physically close to them. Supermarket aisles seem smaller in Europe. Especially in towns, drivers there must be much more alert for pedestrians and bicyclists, not to mention other vehicles and, on hot days, sleeping dogs. Here in America we are much more willing to put up with long red lights.