HUD Manufactured Home Safety Standards Proposed Update

ohsonline.com
Aug 28, 2017
2 min read

Some might say, "it's about time", while others may find more regulations create obstacles to production. One of the biggest areas needing attention is certainly fire safety. Every week as we scan the news the number of manufactured homes that ignite and are gobbled rapidly by flames, and lives lost to it, is staggering. When manufactured homes provide such an important and widely used form of housing for millions, and they keep getting nicer (have you seen some of the new models lately?), even luxurious, the fire safety issue has to be addressed.

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Occupational Health & Safety's website summarized the key areas of the proposal nicely:

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development apparently is about to publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that would update the Federal Manufactured Home Construction and Safety Standards by adopting certain recommendations made to HUD by the Manufactured Housing Consensus Committee, known as MHCC. The agency has a proposed rule currently under OIRA review, with an NPRM to be published in September 2017.

According to the reginfo.gov website, the proposed rule is based on the third set of MHCC recommendations to update and improve various aspects of the Manufactured Housing Construction and Safety Standards. It would add new standards that would establish requirements for carbon monoxide detection, stairways, fire safety considerations for attached garages, and for draftstops when there is a usable space above and below the concealed space of a floor/ceiling assembly, and it also would establish requirements for venting systems to ensure that proper separation is maintained between the air intake and exhaust systems.

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