Maryland’s build­ing codes, enforce­ment offi­cials, and con­trac­tor licens­ing sys­tem ranks in the mid­dle of the pack among states sub­ject to hur­ri­canes, accord­ing to a study released this week by the Insur­ance Insti­tute for Busi­ness and Home Safety (IBHS), a Florida-based insur­ance industry-funded organization.

Look­ing at the build­ing codes, train­ing and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of build­ing offi­cials, and licens­ing of con­trac­tors in the 18 states along the Gulf of Mex­ico and East­ern seaboard, the insti­tute ranked Mary­land ninth, tied with Louisiana, with 73 points out of a pos­si­ble 100.

“Mary­land does very well because they adopt the lat­est model code,” says Wanda Edwards, direc­tor of code devel­op­ment for the IBHS and an author of the report. “The rub for Mary­land is they allow local juris­dic­tions to make amendments.”

That patch­work of code require­ments can allow weaker stan­dards in some area, while com­pli­cat­ing life for con­trac­tors, who then need to know the nuances of many dif­fer­ent juris­dic­tional build­ing codes.

“Mary­land also has sig­nif­i­cant defi­cien­cies in its inspec­tor cer­ti­fi­ca­tion and train­ing sys­tem,” the report says. “For exam­ple, the state does not have an inspec­tor des­ig­na­tion for res­i­den­tial inspec­tors, does not require code class prior to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion, and does not have a mech­a­nism for con­sumers to file com­plaints against inspec­tors. Con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion require­ments are 15 hours every three years.”

Mary­land also lost points for not requir­ing licensed con­trac­tors to take con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion classes, for not requir­ing any licens­ing for roof­ing con­trac­tors, and for licens­ing gen­eral con­trac­tors with­out requir­ing an exam­i­na­tion (a claim that may be in error—MHIC licenses “home improve­ment con­trac­tors” via a $54 open-book test).

States that have a state-wide build­ing code ranked higher. Florida, for exam­ple, adopted much stricter uni­form build­ing reg­u­la­tions in the wake of 1992’s Hur­ri­cane Andrew, which dev­as­tated the lower third of the state and cost more than $26 bil­lion in prop­erty dam­age. Florida and Vir­ginia tied for first with 95 points on the ranking.

The lowest-scoring states were Texas (18 points), Delaware (17 points), and Mis­sis­sippi (4 points), none of which have any statewide res­i­den­tial build­ing code—though Delaware elec­tri­cians are required to get con­tin­u­ing education.

Here’s a video of the IBHS’s new “blow yer house down” test­ing facil­ity, with Mis­sis­sippi stan­dards illus­trated on left:

High­lights of Research Cen­ter Inau­gural Test Demon­stra­tions, Fall 2010 from IBHS on Vimeo.

Tags: building codes, emergency preparedness, hurricane