You mean regulations like the CPSIA? You consider them reasonable? How about the new regulation that is about to be passed which requires any renovation of a home to include a charging station for an electric car? Is that reasonable? How about the new regulations for contractors that require a certification when cutting holes into buildings or building mechanicals? Here in my neck of the woods, plumbers, contractors, HVAC repair / installations, etc are all required to take a course on lead paint. Only problem is that the county in which I live has no lead paint. None. Never has. So people are forced to take a course for which there is no use. Still think that is a good regulation?

Do you know Paul that in the state of Florida, if you purchase a new front entry door, the door has to be installed by a licensed professional? Even if the door is going back on the same frame with the same hinges, it has to be installed by a professional. So instead of a 30 minute do it yourself job, doors now cost $15 0 – $200 to install. It isn’t the labor that is expensive, it is the licensing.

Still think that is a good outcome?

Then you consider Haiti. Without enforced building codes, Port au Prince was completely destroyed by an earthquake with tremendous loss of life. What could have been a minor disaster turned into a major disaster. Much of the world is without reasonable enforced standards for habitation, sanitation, transportation and other common and necessary activities. Despite the claims that our rules and regulations are killing us, the US is a safer and happier place — and more successful and wealthy and sought after for residency and investing — because it has good, reasonable enforced regulations which control risk, make outcomes predictable, and provide transparency. The occasional story of excess does not change the fact that the system works well. If you really doubt this, you can move to and live in the Third World — and, perhaps, die like a dog in a Haitian earthquake.

Most code enforcement people can look at something and say “that isn’t right.” Most people who build buildings can look at a stud and say that it is 16″ on center vs 15.5 inches on center.

When you have 4 groups of professionals and none of them caught these discrepancies, that indicates to me that in some cases, the ADA is so complex, that no one can understand it or correct it by sight.

Dennis,
No, the wall needs to be furred out an inch and re-tiled. It’s not a big deal if they don’t want to make it so.

No, they can’t. The distance in question is the distance from the side wall to the center of the bowl, not the distance from the center of the bowl to the back wall. (http://www.access-board.gov/adaag/html/figures/fig30a.html )

If you fir the side wall out (even assuming that you could with the type of stall walls used) the added one inch now makes the overall stall width an inch too small.

The 18 vs 19 inches issue is BS, though. ADA is full of “guidelines” like this. The law stated they were guidelines, and they’re written and drawn like guidelines, but the courts have interpret them as iron clad engineering standards.

Most of the guidelines were set as rules of thumb, as “good enough” average figures to be interpreted by design professionals. The toilet needs to be far enough from the wall to allow access. How far? “Awww, lets set it a foot and a half.” Do you think anyone but a lawsuit leech can tell if the can is 18 or 19 inches from the wall? Would 18-1/2 inches be too much? How about 18-1/16? 18.0000000001? The person who wrote the guideline literally did not care, and the courts are not smart enough to know.

I have a wisearsed solution for these cases. Send a “jury’ of twelve suitably handicapped people to inspect the item in question. Don’t tell them what the defect, if any, is. If they rule it is OK, then throw out the suit on a ballistic arc.

We have a big problem with handicap ramps and lawyers going around with digital levels to find a lawsuit if the ramp is too steep. We’ve actually pulled out ramps and replaced them with curbs, because the grades could not be met without rebuilding the street. We’ve failed one ramp and not another because of a difference of 1/2 percent grade. You can literally not see the difference without a digital level.

I had another wisearsed solution for those. Send the judge out for a day to build handicapped ramps. He won’t have to do any real work, just pretend, and I’ll buy him a pair of jeans and a nasty T shirt. The Mexicans will feed him – they’re good guys. He’ll learn a thing or two, have a nice day off, and eat some great tacos. Of course, it’ll never happen.

I know. It’s like the instructions for my refrigerator which specified that there must be 5 inches clearance between the back of the unit and the wall. How was I supposed to know that meant 4 inches was inadequate clearance?

In this case the numbers are even larger – 18 and 19. How is a mere architecht or PE supposed to figure out the difference between them?

I have always thought that ADA was totally overboard on it’s requirements. I had to layout a computer lab for a community college. I could never understand why every computer had to be wheelchair accessable in a lab on the second floor of a building with no elevators? The building was grandfathered somehow to not have to comply with ADA unless major renovations were done. All of this for a campus that never had more than 5 students in wheelchairs. “Political Correctness Disclaimer” No classes were taught in this lab, and there were over 200 fully accessable computers on campus.

While I agree with Aaron that this is not the fault of the ADA, it does show how the ADA is so complex and cumbersome that it is not understood by architects, construction engineers and the town’s own building inspectors.

A friend of mine who does architectural drawings has commented that the ADA has more regulations than the actual building codes.

There is something wrong with that.