As much we who live here would like to think, Rhode Island is not always a forward thinking state.  Local law is made in a knee-jerk fashion, usually in reaction to a major tragedy or during an election year.  The resulting legislation is generally so over the top, so severe, so extreme, as to become economically crippling.  A few years will then pass, enforcement will wane, and the cycle will repeat.  We do not learn from history.  We do not learn from our mistakes.

 

On February 20th, 2003, the Station nightclub burned down, killing 100 people.  Rhode Island made the national news, and all agreed that it was a tragedy.  And it was.  The entire club was engulfed in flame in less than three minutes.  This horrible fire was caused my numerous factors, which I will not get into here.  Let’s all just agree that the system failed.

 

Immediately, fingers were pointed, blame was placed, and everyone sued everyone else.  Unfortunately, 79% of the R.I. population is composed of a sub breed of man, known as the personal injury lawyer.  These wily creatures use their tentacled appendages to suck the life, money, and humanity out of any situation.  This is how things work in America - people here believe that suing fo’ mo’ money will bring back their loved ones.  Oh, and a 7-series beemer, ‘cause their loved one would want them to have that.

 

I bought the 454 square feet of squalor love palace in Nov, 2004 - approximately 1 1/2 years after the nightclub fire.  This coincided perfectly with the new, most-stringent-in-the-nation fire code regulations, designed to cover the ass of legislators.  And save lives on the side.

 

Fire code affected every aspect of the renovation.  For starters, I had to use 1-hour fire rated, 5/8th inch sheetrock, rather than the more traditional 1/2”.  Before the sheetrock was screwed to the wall, we needed to add firestops along the floor.  Interestingly enough, this house was built in the “balloon framing” style, which means the outside shell was put up before the inside floors.  Modern framing technique builds one floor on top of another.   The problem with balloon framing is that there is a continuous cavity between the wall posts that runs from the basement to the attic.  If a fire starts in the basement, it can run up between the walls and into the attic in a matter of seconds, engulfing the entire house in flame rather quickly.  Fires in modern houses have to burn through the fire stops at each floor, thus slowing its spread, giving tenants time to evacuate.  So, putting in fire stops was a pretty good idea.