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| Photo from the Forum |
When state Sen. Joe Addabbo’s (D-Howard Beach) plan to give tax credits to property owners who seal off cocklofts passed the state Senate on June 18, he grabbed the bill and ran to Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Brooklyn), who was sponsoring the legislation in the lower chamber.
“I said ‘Joe, it just passed the Senate we got to get it passed,’” Addabbo told the Queens Chronicle in a telephone interview last Friday.
But the bill sat in the Ways and Means Committee, of which Lentol is a member, as the legislative session in Albany came to an end on June 25.
10 comments:
Democrats run the Assembly, I guess Addabbo has no juice in his own party. That and Assembly members must not live in row houses.
Preventing the spread of fire via cocklofts is easier said than done.
These ancient structures are not strong enough to sustain actual cinderblock or brick to separate them, so you are left with layers of Sheetrock separated by "Chicago Bar" (a type of spacer that reduces thermal transmission.
All that does is hopefully delay the spread long enough for the FDNY to get it under control.
When you add the decades of DIY wiring and halfassed repairs (newspapers as insulation) and questionable gas piping, the only real solution is demolition of these firetraps and replacement with modern, fireproof construction.
What's a cockloft?
The common attic atop row houses. Article should have said so. Even crapicle was smart enough to define it.
A sprinkler system, retrofitted in these lofts can solve the problem without masonry blocks.
Use you head #2.
"A sprinkler system, retrofitted in these lofts can solve the problem without masonry blocks.
Use you head #2."
A sprinkler would be a big help, it has several flaws -which is why I didn't mention it.
1) Temperatures vary widely in a home. If the heating system goes out during a cold period it is possible for the pipes in a sprinkler to freeze. A "dry" system using a compressor to displace water from the pipes is not practical here.
2) Any leak will result in the sprinkler supply being turned off...and probably staying off.
3) Many of these old homes have poor water pressure from sediment in the street service and home branch. I helped a friend buy a two-family in Sunny Side back in 2001. You could not take a shower upstairs if any other faucet was running. I lent him money to get new street branch into his home. The original pipe was so clogged, it was barely the size of a straw inside. That work alone cost $7400.
4) We can't even get people to keep a good battery in their smoke detectors. They would not maintain a sprinkler.
I'm confused (not the first time)-- how are these any different than the attic in any 1920s-1940s wood-framed Queens home? Its an attic, right?
There are no walls between the houses in the attics, it's a common space.
This explains it.
you said loft.......
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