Houston should follow state’s lead on building codes

After Hurricane Harvey, many property owners in Houston had problems resulting from the high winds and wind-driven rains associated with the storm. These ranged from leaking windows to loss of shingles to failure of other items making up the waterproof envelope of the building. These failures, some suggest, were due to poor construction quality and builders’ reliance on cheap, unskilled labor.

As a residential design engineer who’s been involved in construction in the Houston area since the late ’70s, I would offer a simple solution: Enforce the building codes.

Let’s take an in-depth look at one specific issue — window leaks.

Windows are designed, manufactured and certified to meet a certain design pressure —that is, the pressure exerted on the window by wind. The building code requires windows bear a label showing the design pressure as well as the maximum allowable size.

In order for a window to work in a particular house at a particular location, four things need to happen. They are: 1) Determine the wind loads on the windows; 2) Specify a window that is designed to resist those loads; 3) Determine exactly how the window needs to be installed to resist those loads; and 4) Go out and inspect the window installation to make sure the correct window made it to the job and is installed correctly.

The city of Houston is in a region where “wind design” is required by the building codes.

Basically, this means an engineer should be involved in the entire structural design. That engineer must determine the wind pressure on all elements of the structure and ensure the various components and cladding materials selected are designed and tested to meet those pressures. While that addresses the first two steps described above, it leaves open the question of who is going to inspect those items.

I recently contacted a company whose workers installed the overhead doors on a house in Houston and asked them why the doors were not labeled with the design wind pressure and why they did not provide the installation drawing so we could verify the installation was correct. The vendor’s reply was, “It’s in Houston.” When I pushed back, I was told they never provide that information for jobs in Houston. When I asked about the pressure rating of the door, I was told it was not rated. I pointed out this was a clear violation of the building code, but all I got was a shrug in response. The City doesn’t enforce the code so the vendors don’t worry about complying with the code.

Now, in fairness to the city inspectors, they never get a chance to inspect items such as window or door installation, the exterior sheathing on walls, the roof decking or the roof covering.

Typically, all of those items are covered and not accessible when the City inspector arrives. A proper inspection program to ensure compliance with the wind load requirements of the code should include all of these items and requires at least five or six inspections. Most municipalities only perform three.

So, what’s the answer? The city of Houston should do the same thing the state of Texas did when it realized it could never inspect all of the structures the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association was insuring along the coast.

Texas required the structures be designed and inspected by licensed engineers. At the completion of construction, the responsible engineer submits documentation certifying the wind load aspects of the building codes have been met.

The city of Houston should do the same thing. That would have a real and immediate impact on the quality of residential construction.