I used to know a cranky carpenter who said he followed two rules in his construction practice. First, ignore the architect, and second, don't pay much attention to the building code.
This sounds like the delusions of an unreliable worker, but this guy was the best carpenter around. It was just necessary to understand his rules properly. When he suggested ignoring the architect, what he meant was that architects sometimes designed things that looked pretty on paper, but wouldn't work in the real world. So it was always necessary to double-check the design drawings.
And, when he dismissed building codes, it was only because he thought they were so inadequate. He wanted to build good homes that would last a long time. Building codes, he understood, established minimal standards. They did not necessarily define "best practices."
I was reminded of this carpenter and his rules while reading about some houses in Kansas that were built to code, on soil that was sketchy and with slab foundations that were too weak. (See Building Codes and Concrete Slab Foundations.) When those foundations began to fail, the homeowners were stuck with some big repair bills.
I'm pretty sure my old friend would not have built those houses as they were built. And that's why his rules really mattered to people who hired him, whether they knew about them or not.
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