case of a fire and an emergency. that's like what we are headed for. preservation of property in many cases in the code takeses second fiddle to making sure everybody is safe ask out of the property. safety is number one. >> fire escapes are used in san francisco under the california building code. they are not typically allowed in new buildings. most of san francisco is older buildings. because we have such tight lines 0 lot lines on the side and often a rear yard where you can't get from the rear yard to the street. we see all over san francisco fire escapes and allow new fire escapes on existing buildings where you can't build a fully complies stairway. we came up with rules about fire escapes that require them to be

e illuminated and they need to be maintained. some are difficult to maintain they have a moving part and a crank ladder. hauven to people have to maintain their fire escapes. >> they need to always have them maintained. we ask the property owner at the time of the inspection to demonstrate that the fire escapes are in good working condition. >> we changed the code? >> 4 or 5 years ago. >> you have to demonstrate that it works you pull the lever and pull it. >> absolutely. >> there are companies in the city that go out and will contract with the building owner to do regular maintenance of fire escapes and a good thing. lubricate, make sure they are not rusty. >> there is a certification program. those of you who are property owners will get a mailing from

us with an affidavit and explaining this process in which every 5 yearses the property has to have a license to take a look at it and make sure it's save. beyond that there is no an expressed provision instead housing code. the most important thing to get out is that we want property owners to look at the buildings on a periodic basis depending of the design of the building, the construction, the wear and tear it could be for frequently for some than others much if it's a residential hotel they need to look at that building daily. they need to look at the systems more often than not because things could be created that are hazard ouz such as shutting or blocking a door that goes to a

secondary stairway system or putting storage on a fire escape, et cetera, or having damage or alteration to the devices could create a serious situation. >> buildings are only required to meet the code that was in effect that the time the building was built or remodeled. there are few retroactive laws that you have to go back and upgrade. if you live in the sunset built in the 30's you meet the code of 30's. when people say is my building up to code, they may think does it meet today's code. yes, it's up to the code but up to the code it was in effect in 1908 or the 30's. smoke detectors and fire alarms what do we expect in housing >> this has to do with code sections at the board of supervisors put in the housing code in the mid 80's. depenlding upon the type of building and it's tipally in

apartment buildings with lobes and corridors requires a smoke detection system with a supervision box. a lot you see in apartment buildings you walk in and there it be a box with lights that indicate whether or not the smoke detector box is working. those are not keyed into the fire department. they are a stand alone system that have alarms if they detect fire in a common areas of the building. that's pretty much what you see typically throughout. >> for buildings of 5 units? >> well -- it's for 3 our more builds that have enclosed but for 5 units or more. apartment buildings and required exterior heat detectors with exterior situations. if there are questions regarding that call the housing division

at 558-6620. we can research the requirements for that particular building. if there are problems we are happy to look at that ask approximate do an inspection. if you walk in the building and you see the supervision box and see the trouble light flashing call us. in addition to what the housing code requires the fire department requires that system be certified on a yearly basis. >> for would aboutings that have fewer units single family hopes, the building code says any time you do work, this has been in the code for years. where the value of the work exceeds a thousand dollars that triggers the requirement for you to put detectors in your home. the building code tells you where they have to go. they are typically battery powered. i suspect most home necessary san francisco have the requirement triggered to put in

smoke detectors in. battery detectors are in the the safest because people the batteries go out or people take the batteries out because they don't like it going off with they are cooking. newer ones have sensitivity to different stuff and are so -- if you have old smoke detectors that you are unhappy with because they go off inappropriately change them to new ones. fire extinguishers. i have them in my house. my insurance reflects the fact that i fire extinguishers by having a lower rate, actually. fire extinguishers are not required in one single family and 2 unit buildings but required in apartment buildings. 3 units or more is an apartment building. what it is required.

>> it's a type 2 a 10 bc a size extinguisher that will fight the various types of fire. those are required in the common areas of the building. now, keep in mind that while they are required by the housing and fire code so you may see fire inspector asking for them and a housing inspector asking for them. in using them if a fire gets too big you want to call the fire department first they are there to fight small fires the size of a trash can. >> for 3 unit or more apartment buildings. in dwellings, having talked to the fire department they recommend you don't put it under the kitchen sink. you put it something where you can retreat from the fire, get the extinguisher out of the closet or hall way or some place

away from the kitchen and fight the fire in the kitchen. you don't want it right where you expect the fire to be much here is a fire extinguisher it has a tag it's punched march 2006 serviced by international fire company in san francisco. that tag has to be updated annualy? >> another thing to note about fire extinguishers when you purchase them if you purchase a fire extinguisher that has a plastic asem blee it cannot be reserviced. you can attempt to buy one every year but we require it be serviced every year. even though you buy a new one it doesn't mean it's workable. it needs to have a professional look at it and certify it. we look for the tag as well. >> another element has to do

with putting a property address number on your building. this has been in the code for many years. it's part of the habitability requirements because emergency services need to know where you are located. and interestingingly enough, the city of san francisco building department is the agency in the whole city that actually issues legal addresses for the city. if you want to look at the legal address of any building come here to the building department at 1616 mission on the counter on the first floor they have the paper records where they hand write the address for ever property and would abouting in the city. the official address ask if you want to change an address you make an application to them. do we have a standard how high? >> it's a 4 inches with a contrasting color background. visible for emergency vehicles when that you pull in front of the building to identify the

building. that's the purpose for it. for those that may need that service it's important especially with the type of density we have in the city buildings abut each other and sometimes it's difficult to locate in a disaster or emergency situation which building that is. that's why this is an important requirement joochlt sometimes our inspectors do an inspection and they can't find the building because there is no address eshg specially commercial buildsings where they changed tenants. must have an address on every building. the next piece is interesting has to do with what you are allowed to store in your garage. i'm glad we had the planners here to help. starting with the building department for an apartment building of 3 or more units we restrict what they can put in their garages. we we look at the garage or basement areas of a building the

rule of thumb for most apartment buildings anything in a storage or garage area, any storage area should have fire sprinklers, a sprinkler system. exception are 3 and 4 unit buildingings. in the 3 or 4 unit building if the sore acknowledges not furniture or mattresses spring herring is not required. however, the other thing we look in the garage areas is the storage not obstruct the off street parking by section 150 of the planning code if i remember, from my years of being in the code enforcement and planning department. >> craig, would you tell us, sometimes people fill their garage up with their storage and can't get a car in there is that a problem under the planingly code? >> it is if the garage is

supplying required parking. if you have a single ushg nit building you are required to have one off street parking space. if the house was built with that parking space once you require parking you can't remove it without a variance. if you are storing things in your garage so your car cannot be parked there you are vie lating the planning code it's not legal to park in the front setback, driveways. we require 180 square feet in the garage to park the car. this can't be something 1 foot wide and 180 foot long. it's got to be a configuration a car can fit in. we use an 18 to 20 foot length to get the 180 square feet. >> if you want to store in the

basement or something in a multifamily building, rosemary, you need to have sprinklers? >> again, if for a unit that has 5 units or more it requires fire sprinklers for storage. that's everything that can better than n. that situation it's more restrictive. the reason for this the reasoning is that if somebody has something in the bottom part of the building in the storage or garage and they walk away. somebody throws a cigarette that can smolder and catch fire and it can affect that building and buildings on that block, et cetera. the whole purpose is to make sure that that fire is supressed quickly. that's why it's so important while we look at storage and we all have storage, that's a big issue with the housing inspectors are looking at the common areas of an apartment

building or hotel to make sure the storage is properly containd and has the required spring hers if they are required. >> how often do the inspectors go out and look? >> we could be looking at that in several fashions. one is systematic enforcement where we are required to look at apartment buildings and hotels in particular once every 5 years. generally we are in the buildings more often we go when we get neighborhood complaints if a neighbor complains about a storage in the building. there was a complaint about an apartment building on lombard that was in the garage and storage area it was floor to ceiling with restaurant storage. we saw the storage was not indental to the use of the building it had become commercial storage. we asked the owner to remove it

because the garage was required parking under the planning code. in situations like that we got a complaint. did an investigation, saw there were problems. wrote a notice of violation to have the owner clear it out. they did so. we were able to abait the complaint. >> every 5 years at least sometimes more often we inspect the common areas of every building that has 3 or more units and on complaint if we believe there is a valid complaint we will inspect it. that's not just storage. >> keep in mind the housing inspect ors are not the only city inspect ors out in the buildings. you have planning inspect ors fire and health inspectors out there as well.

a comlant could come to all the agencies or 1 agency there are a lot of different inspections going on. at times it can be confusing, someone says i had an inspection but it could be someone looking at a different aspect much there are different inspections going on because we have a city of residential units that are older. a higher density. as laurence said, they are not necessarily built to what the code requirements would be if they were built today. >> talk about trash and garbage rierms in in your 1 family home irresponsible to get the cans out off the street. i know there was city legislation that said you had to remove it from the street in 24 hours after the trash pick up. you can't leave it in the public right-of-way. and i think you can't leave it visible? is that right?

there are much more restrictive and specialized requirements for apartment buildings and hotels. >> certainly. >> debris storage in apartment or hotel there had has to be sufficient receptacle pick up show debris doesn't build up and create rodent and sanitation issues. here's where we have an over lap with the department of public health. if someone sees debris building up in a yard and there is no residential structures on this that's the purview of the health department. if there is a residential structure and debris there it's the department of building inspection and the health department. in addition to the amount of receptacles they are not allowed

to be under your wooden stairway system without a type of a sprinkler system. a fire could cause a problem to exit that building. in addition that that, garbage rooms have to be sprinklers and have to have door closures and lined or the interior has to be sufficient to keep them sanitized. they have to be kept clean. and those apartment buildings that have garbage hoppers or have to have sprinkler heads into the garbage chooshuts. they have to be properly closed off. those are some requirements with garbage receptacles. we are looking for debris and looking that they are covered in in the right locations. those are the things we typically look at with respect to that. usually the type of complaint we

will will get is that may be a garbage chute is clogged or there is accumulation of debris and we ask the owners to clean that up. if a garbage room has a door that is broken or it's not self closing we will ask them to make repairs to make sure that does happen. we want to make sure as that garbage is acumulating it's done inasmuch as a sanitary way as possible until the items are moved off the apartment building locations. >> a couple of related items the garbage room has to be lined with 26 gauge sheet metal it's accepted as meeting a standard equal to 1 hour fire protection. when you build a law in modern buildings it's made of sheet

rock and the assembly is plaster board. typically gives you a 1 hour protection if you had a fire it would take an hour before it burned through this. 26 gauge sheet metal is accepted as providing relatively equal to 1 hour fire protection. you could have a fire in the trash room and have it not burn through. >> there is requirements about the need to have your garbage picked up regularly. it's the property owner's respondent to have sufficient garbage pick up so the garbage doesn't build up. a new code requirement a few years old for new buildings and craig's will need to know this in the planning department it affects the amount of space the buildings provides for garbage. all new buildings have to be

prosecute vieded with sufficient space for recycle nothing the buildings. new buildings will now have a place to allow separation of the types of recycled materials. >> then a little more about trash and garbage. not really directly under the purview of the building department but if there is stuff on the sidewalk and the street or the sidewalk in front of your building who will clean that up? the property owner's respondent to keep their property clean and that includes the sidewalk in front of their building. their driveway. graffiti on the building that's part of keeping the property clean is this >> that's right. dpw has a graffiti program and has information on their website if you are interested in following up with them. if there is a question about that. they would be a good source as far as that program is concerned >> okay. maintain hot water.

hot water is a really big issue in residential buildings. really big issue and required bite housing code. it's required to be provided at a certain temperature. >> the temperature is between 105 and 120 degrees. and that is to prevent people from getting scalded. that has it's place in the housing law. it's a requirement if not within that amount then we can site the property owner. >> the provision of hot water like the provision of heat and other things like the operation of elevators is considered a priority inspection element for the building department and the housing inspection division much we have a goal of responding within 24 hours? what -- >> if we get a complaint we

consider possibly potentially life hazard we respond between twr hours. response can mean trying to set up the inspection, doing the inspection, asking for clarification. it doesn't mean we can always do the inspection at that time because we are working with the complaintant schedule to do the inspection weechl do the response within a 24 our period. all other complaints we make a similar response in 24-48 hours, 1-2 business days. >> a life safety hazard we will immediately take care thaf if we hear about it. >> we are talking about an emergency order. >> the building department has the authority to issue an emergency order. we are required to notify the property owners that something is an emnent assard and provide

a deadline we want you to fix this in 5 hour or whatever we chose. if the owner fails to do it we issue an order under the signature of the director of the building department and hire somebody who does it. and we pay for it and we bill the owner with substantial charges for our time and book keeping and we don't always hire the cheapest contractor. it's expensive for the owner if they don't fix something and we fix it for them. we do that often. >> what's the housing code section on maintaining heating and water. >> chapter 7 of the housing code. it lays out the heat requirements for all the various residential uses. basically looking at section 701 of the housing code. it's at the beginning of the

chapter. we have a brochure that talks specifically about the heat requirements in residential buildings. so we got those available, they are on the first floor and sixth floor. they are on the department's website much >> is the housing code on line? >> the housing code is on line by going to the department website or the city website going to municipal codes. tell direct you to the site for the building, plumbing. electronic housing codes. you query by chapter 7 or go to the sixth floor does we will make you a copy of the section. >> give us a call and we will fax your copy. 558-6205. okay. windows. windows are part of a larger scheme which is to preside weather protection for

buildings. all housing is required to be weather protected. that means water can't come in where it's not wanted, through the roof, walls, windows. weather protection is a major issue, if you get water in the building it has unpleasant conscience. mold and milldue. damage and rot. that's one of our regular issues in the housing inspection world where we see the building needs to be painted. paint is primarily a weather protecting material. stucco is not waterproof. stucco needs to be weather protected. roofing is a common leakage problem and we usually find the leakage for roofs not in the field the middle of the roof it primarily occurs at the flashings along the edge or

where pieces that meet or angles that meet tha that's where we see leaks. housing inspection requires all buildings be weather tight. that includes windows. if they are broken. what about a broken window where the water is not coming in? >> a broken window needs to be taken care of it's a consideration of the violation of the maintenance requirements of the housing code. we ask the property owner repair that. when you are replacing windows, it does require a permit and you need to make sure certain buildings is requirements under the planning code. certain window are escape windows that have to have certain dimensions dependoth floor they are on you have to use that the window to exit the building. be careful when you are repairing a window. >> a couple of things we will

talk about one of them is this concept that when you that you have to maintain things, like fix a broken window much the reason is the building code has a provision that says every feature that was provided in the building has to be maintained in working condition. even if you are not required to provide an elevator. say you put an elevator in but not required you have to maintain it or take it out or put it out of service. windows are part of the features that were provided in the building they must be maintained. this is an a little demonstration which is sort of complying with the code. this often around the city you see flowers and gates on windows ask buildings to keep people from breaking in the building and housing code says you need to be able to get out of your

bedroom or -- this is an emergency rescue or aggress window. the firefighters can come in through a window. if you have bars that are locked they can't come in and you can't get out. every bedroom needs one window that opens 20 inches wide by 24 inches high 5.7 square feet minimum. different standards for historic buildings. and those windows have to be available all the time. if you want to put gates and bars you have to operate them from the inside like this without a key, without special knowledge, without any unusual effort. >> one. things we see a lot that the is very dangerous are doors and windows that have, you cannot have a window -- if that window is the escape fromt