You build a house, and hired a brigade (the budget is not very big, firms with offices and accountants do not fit into it). Between the team and you – no one who could oversee the construction, you have to check their work on the advice from the forums. This is better than nothing, and soon you already know that the laying of walls must be carried out according to certain rules – building codes. But suddenly it turns out that sending to them does not make the proper impression. “The masonry seam should be from 8 to 13 mm” – you quote, and you hear in response, “These norms are outdated ….”, “we have built so many houses in Poland” – and most importantly – “And what will happen if the seam will be a little less? Or more? If 30 mm, then what? ”To which they themselves answer,“ That nichevo … that it will withstand the elephant ”. It beats your trumps outright.
Indeed, after all, norms do not say what will happen if you break. So, you seem to have a room for maneuver, you can slightly (just a little) expand the range of permissible – you don’t build a skyscraper, right?
Why are there no signs in the norms “list of permissible deviations” and “possible consequences of deviations” with numbers?
The fact is that part of the norms is analytical (calculation of metal structures and half of reinforced concrete and masonry), and obtained by calculation, and part (of masonry and concrete structures) is empirical, from experience.
Well, for example, in the eighth century, it became clear that the foundations for heavy buildings should still be laid below the depth of frost penetration, otherwise they would be torn by the forces of frost heaving.
In the sixteenth century – that putting a heavy building near the edge of the slope is dangerous: it can slide after long rains (at that time in the church of the Archangel Michael, which is on the Vydubichy, the eastern side of the building that had been standing for that year) collapsed.
At the beginning of the twentieth – that the reinforcement in reinforced concrete works in the upper and lower zones of it, and in the middle it is useless.
At first, someone did something different, got the destruction of the structure, and all this was brought into the collective memory. Then – in the norms of the time.

When new building technologies appeared, weak spots were found and solutions were found – in the middle of the twentieth century aerated concrete appeared, and thirty years later they came to the reinforcement of masonry (otherwise it is covered with many hairline cracks).

The norms were only those cases when the design was made wrong. When the construction was done wrong, but it still survived and was preserved (which, of course, also happened), history did not keep these exceptions to the rules. Therefore, there is no alternative in the norms – “it is necessary like this, but it can be done differently, at your own risk.”

Of course, you can do what your workers suggest, and it’s likely that nothing bad will happen. It’s just that you and your house will become participants in the experiment – can you do this, or is it not?
Building codes can not be interpreted as a list of prohibitions, but as advice to make sure that the result is guaranteed. At 100. Well, it’s up to you.