Industry Defeats Wood High Rise Buildings at Code Hearings

BUILDING CODES
Industry Defeats Wood High Rise Buildings at Code Hearings
NRMCA and industry allies at last week's International Code Council's (ICC) Committee Action Hearings
in Memphis helped defeat a proposal to allow building nine-story wood structures. The hearings were the
first step in hearing proposals and testimonies from the various industries and code officials that will then
be considered for a public hearing this fall. The results of the code development cycle will be the
publication of the 2018 IBC model code.
There were significant wins along with expected losses for the concrete industry. Interest in preventing
future conflagrations like the ones seen in an Edgewater, NJ, multifamily fire brought the general public
and fire chiefs out to support limits to combustible wood construction. PCA, the Masonry Alliance for
Codes and Standards and Tien Peng of NRMCA delivered testimony with the following successful results:
Nine story Type IV NOT allowed;
Firewalls constructed by cross-laminated timber CLT protected by gypsum board NOT allowed;
Type III and V parking garages NOT allowed;
Occupied roofs NOT excluded as a story;
Combustible construction NOT allowed in Type III;
Limiting allowable areas in disaster prone areas disapproved;
Increasing Fire resistance rating in disaster prone areas disapproved;
Fire watch for 40-foot Type V construction belongs in Fire Code, not IBC; and
Enhanced resiliency measures in appendix disapproved.
Unfortunately, the committee did not take action on some proposals which supported increased fire
robustness or resiliency. NRMCA will continue its advocacy efforts with the International Building Code in
the next building code cycle.