The Overbeck Fund

Overbeck Law

Advancing our mission...

       Steve Biggs, Chairman of Town & Country Cedar Homes and homebuilder since 1947 in Michigan, have combined with the Overbeck Foundation to pursue legislation requiring CO monitors be installed near sleeping areas in all new residential construction in Michigan. As a leading producer of handcrafted log homes, Town & Country Cedar Homes  [www.cedarhomes.com] encourages all homeowners to protect themselves against the dangers of possible carbon monoxide poisoning by supporting the Overbeck Foundation. This foundation displays additional information through out the state at fairs, building association meetings, and fire department open houses. 

     Working with the lobbying firm GCSI in Lansing, and Representative Gary McDowell (D- Petoskey District), Town & Country Cedar Homes is promoting the Overbeck Bill which asks for a change in the Michigan Residential Building Code to require CO detectors outside each sleeping area or bedroom. This initiative has grown out of the fact that high quality construction standards of today are creating tight, leak-proof homes without the typical infiltration found in lesser quality or older homes. This quality standard now creates a safety issue that must be addressed by CO detectors being mandated in all homes.

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The OVERBECK LAW is proposed Michigan legislation requiring carbon monoxide detector/alarms in new residential construction.

  * Carbon monoxide is a killer, and a stealthy one. It is silent and odorless. Yet this killer can be detected with a CO monitor/alarm installed near sleeping areas. In Michigan the danger is very real -- particularly where homes are tightly closed and heated in the winters and where homeowners are putting natural gas fireplaces in their dwellings.
 * Michigan’s construction codes currently requires new homes to have fire alarms. Codes also require homes to be built to provide energy efficiency by creating a very tight, non-breathable “envelope”. This goal has the unintended consequence of making any home with a CO leak far more threatening than in the past when construction was much looser and there were drafts through doors, windows and sometimes, walls.
 * When CO strikes, those who survive often suffer long-term, irreparable damage to their health.
 * The cost of one life saved and/or saved from being compromised is well worth the relatively small cost (starting about $20 per unit) of these alarms.
 * The Home Builders say the answer is education.