Building Codes, Sustainability & Construction Standards Explained

welcome to the second part of our discussion for chapter one in the first part we talked a little bit about

the model building codes and we learned that the ibc is for generally for commercial buildings

or very large residential and then the irc the international residential code is for one and two family dwellings

town homes of three stories or less one thing we did not do perhaps is look at where these codes can be found right

so where where are these things at where do they live and one thing i wanted to share with the

group is uh homepage may look a little bit different than this now but

these things are linked on the home page of cad 135 course on my wdt so the international code

council is the publishing agency that writes these codes and maintains these codes and if we click on that link it

should take us to the building codes page and sometimes it's a little bit tricky to find the one we're looking for

but if you just flip through these page indicators you should eventually get to the ibc and the irc here is the ibc and

if we click on that that's going to take us into the code itself which is pretty convenient we can

get to any of the various chapters of the code in the table of contents or legend on the left and then that will

display the text of the code on the right so pretty straightforward pretty simple

we're going to go ahead and resume our discussion and briefly just review what we talked

about with occupancy groups and construction types these things are interrelated and we are going to take a

minute and just look at table 503 again just to make sure everybody understands how those things work so the occupancy

group is helping us to define the activity that's

intended to happen in a given structure or building okay and so depending on what the intent of that building is it's

going to fall into one of these occupancy groups that's pretty straightforward the

construction types define what the building can be made out of and the text and the uh even the powerpoint

to some extent does a pretty good job of defining what those actually mean what kinds of

materials can we put into those so type 1 and 2 are non-combustible only steel concrete and masonry is what that

essentially means type 3 and 4 are non-combustible exteriors and you can use combustible

materials on the interior also heavy timber which is a combustible material but it's

large enough to sort of offer its own fire resistance and then type 5 is just anything right any material permitted by

code so you can if the code says you can use it in any application you can use it in a type 5 structure

to further define the different construction types these are the hour ratings for fire resistance required for

each type so as you can see type one the structure of the building is going to be rated or

need to be rated anywhere between one and three hours what that means is it's going to have to

have sufficient fire protection so that the building structure can last

those amounts of times as it's being exposed to fire so as you get farther

down the list obviously those restrictions get less and less and this table breaks that down just a

little bit more showing each of the individual structural components within a building

and their fire resistance rating

in terms of each each construction type so obviously the occupancy groups and the construction types are intertwined

in as far as restricting the height and size or area footprint area

of a building based on the construction type that you want to use so another way to say that

is if you want to build a bigger building than what the code is allowing under a particular construction type you

need to go to the next construction type so a smaller construction type number would be more fire resistive but also

allow you to build a bigger building so may the way the main way that we're going to be able to make the

determination of exactly what construction type we need to use for a given building

is going to be referring to table 503 now there is another step in there we also have to figure out exactly what

occupancy group it is and as you can see there are multiple occupancy groups and some of them like a is going to have

subgroups in there that can be found in the code and so can the full table 503 so let's

go ahead and take a look at that so remember that on the course homepage we're going to have

a link to the uh international code council's website we will go there but also i wanted to point out that under

module 1 i do have a table 503 in there for your convenience so table 503 this is the full thing out of the

code out this is out of the 2003 ibc but i don't believe it's changed we should probably double check that

but if you zoom in on this thing you can see that there are multiple a groups it's only one b for business one

education group a couple of f's a couple of h's few h's a few eyes and so forth and so on

but this might be easier to look at when you're doing the

the exercise this week so feel free to reference that also

in the ibc chapter 3 is where we're going to find all of this information so it's actually

section 302 occupancy classification and use so you can see that right here under

section 302 we have the 10 occupancy groups and then if we scroll down a little bit you can see that each one of

those is defined more more clearly and all of the sub sections are also defined so we have the assembly group and then

all of the different subsections and their definitions underneath that so you should be able to identify

by coming here going to section 302 in the most current

version of the ibc exactly what occupancy group to use for the given scenario

so jumping over to chapter 5 now looking for table 503 it does look like the most recent

version of the ibc has done away with table 503 and replaced it with some individual

tables so this one is indicating total building height in feet above grade which isn't what we're really looking at

we're actually looking at the number of stories above grade which is a separate table now it's table

504.4 and then the number of square feet is in a separate table instead of combined like it was in 503

this one is showing the square footage per floor limitation so it's possible that you'll have to sort of bounce back

and forth now between these two tables to determine the correct answer what i'm going to ask that you do

is just use table 503 on the lms because i have not verified whether or not these numbers have changed in the

most recent version so just go ahead and use table 503 for this for the occupancy classifications however you can use

chapter 3 for that and use the definitions listed here so just as a refresher on how to use

table 503 remember that once you've identified the occupancy group we come across and we find the size

and the number of stories that falls within the ranges shown so in this case type 5b

would only allow for construction for occupancy group a1 for the building to be one story and 5500 square feet so if

we wanted to use type 5b we would have to limit the size of our building to this

that said if it's larger we have to go to the next one and we just kind of move our way to the left now i believe in the

assignment that you're going to be doing i've eliminated type 4 so if you can't find it in type 5b or a we hop over to

type 3b and then 3a and so forth and so on so remember that these are maximums we

always start on the right and we work our way left until we find one that will contain the size and the

height that we want here's an area that you can practice and i'm going to go ahead and just give you

the answers to all of these so you can refer back to them go through and make sure you understand

why each of these are the correct answer if you're not sure don't hesitate to reach out and check

with me before you plow through the assignment so like most things that you'll find in

the code there are exceptions to most of the rules so when you read something it's always a good idea to read past it

a little bit farther just to make sure that you have all the exceptions figured out and that

your situation doesn't fall into one of those categories for example you can modify what you determine on those

previous tables if you decide that for example you want to

provide greater access around the building for firefighters to put it out if it's on fire

there are also some exceptions made for adding sprinklers in situations where they're not required you may get

to build a larger building because of that so situations like that there are always going to be exceptions

to the hard and fast rules as they appear on the tables so far we've talked about zoning which

restricts and limits what you can build and then codes which sort of controls how you build it and what you build it

out of but there are other design constraints to consider

uh one of them is accessibility factors so the americans with disabilities act the ada and the fair housing act and

other regulations may apply to your given situation and those situations are they sort of vary and we're not going to

try to pick through all the different scenarios but it's important to understand if you are building a

building doesn't need to comply with one of these other laws or rules

in all cases osha will have something to say about how the building is constructed so

safety standards have to be met during construction and then the epa and other environmental

regulators are going to have certain

jurisdictions that they that you're building may fall into and you may have to

control how you're using the land emissions air and water pollutants and so forth

and then finally the building insurance industry what corner of

our society does the insurance industry not have their fingers in right this is just another one they're going to have a

say particularly when the building is built on a loan and that

loan you know is sort of underwritten by an insurance company they're going to have a say in how the

building is built as well in some cases okay so a quick commentary on the term sustainability because i know that

in some cases this this word and this movement sort of has become political it really shouldn't

be in my opinion because sustainability uh it

it really kind of comes down to economics in a lot of cases when we build sustainably typically we are also

building economically now that's not always true but when we make our buildings more

energy efficient that never should really be viewed as a bad thing unless we go overboard so in other words

if we insulate our homes well for a given region we're going to save a lot of energy if we over insulate our

homes we're wasting money right because we're not really getting the return on investment that we

would if we just insulated it enough for the region that we're building in so you can go overboard with

sustainability but there's also a lot of low hanging fruit there's also a real sweet spot a goldilocks zone if you will

for building a building so that it uses an appropriate amount of energy there's no reason to use more than we need to

we're saving money at the at the outset of the building during construction but we're losing money for

the entire life of that building so it's really not even comparable as far as the savings to the gain that

you get by building sustainably now there are other aspects than other things other than energy use right

there are other parts of sustainability that refer to you know just being sort of

good stewards of the land not polluting not using more water than we need to things that aren't really economic

factors but are more just environmental factors and those are important too

it really kind of comes down to a moral issue it comes down to ethics a little bit you

know do we want to use up as many resources as we can for our own benefit or do we want to leave

some for our children and our grandchildren to have when when they inherit the earth and in society so

sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of the present generation which is key right we have to meet our own needs

that's important without doing it though without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their needs so if we burn in pillage everything in

sight we've definitely sort of overcompensated our own needs in that but if we conserve and we take just

what we need leave some for future generations that's that's why i say i believe it's a moral issue so

off my soapbox now you could believe what you want of that sustainability regardless of your belief

is part of the building design process so we're always thinking about uh how we're building what we're putting into

our buildings and how those buildings are going to be used here are a few

statistics to think about 30 to 40 percent of the world's energy use

and associated greenhouse gases come from buildings which is another way of saying we have a

lot of uh power to influence how much energy is being used in the world and how much

greenhouse gases are being emitted into the world one third of the u.s energy use goes to buildings two-thirds of the

electricity consumption buildings and then 30 percent of u.s raw material consumption

including 25 of its harvested wood and 12 of its fresh water all used by buildings

and here's how that greenhouse gas emissions breaks down primarily

so you can see a pretty good chunk the largest the lion share of this sort of tripod of of usage

is taken up by buildings transportation of course being the second then industry third you that that may surprise some

people that industry is the is the least of the three uh polluting

so here are the major goals of the sustainable building construction initiatives

uh number one re reduce the depletion of fossil fuels so use use fewer fossil fuels and you know there's there's not a

lot we can do to move away from fossil fuels in terms of the buildings that we use because we don't we don't actually

often directly use fossil fuels we use electricity which often burns fossil fuels so we can reduce the need for

electricity that said natural gas is a fossil fuel

and so you know increasing our insulation obviously

brings the use of that particular fuel down if the building is is heated in that way

minimize the use of valuable productive land so in that case uh sprawling

large yarded tracks you know of housing those tend to use land more frivolously

and as we spread out we do two things we use up that land with our houses and our yards but then we also sort of put

things on those properties that are less sustainable like lawns and then we're also as we spread out we're farther and

farther from the places that we work so we're driving longer distances or taking trains uh into to get to where we work

and so all of these things sort of contribute to the sort of the environmental footprint that we're using

so thinking about more efficient ways to develop neighborhoods and business districts

is an important part of of the design process protect forest and forest ecosystems you

know this is just uh you know we don't want to go in and clear cut a forest we want to

take uh trees selectively so the health of the forest is maintained and then in some cases replant trees you know for

the next generation protect water sources by you know installing

uh appliances and fixtures that are that are using less water mineralize air pollution you know and again

that comes down to energy usage but also some some buildings directly create their own air pollution right

and then finally maximize the healthfulness of the interior building environment and that's one i think that

we sort of overlook sometimes when we talk about sustainability we're talking about not just

you know how hard we are in the environment but how nice we are to the people that have to live and work in the

buildings that we create right what is the lighting like what is the air quality like all of those things that

can affect the actual health of people over time

this is a definition that you should know and understand the building's life cycle sometimes we refer to this as the

cradle to grave impact of a given decision or material that we decide to use so sustainable

building construction must address all phases of the life of the building material that is

from the time that it was originally either mined or manufactured all the way to the time that its usable life is over

what happens to it at that point and then everything in between like transportation to

the factory and then to the job site how hard it is to construct how many resources it takes to actually put this

thing into use you know what is it doing during its useful life cycle is it is it putting out pollutants is it irritating

you know building occupants and things like that uh how hard is it to maintain and then finally when the building is

ultimately torn down can it be recycled or does it go into a landfill what happens if it does go into a landfill

does it does it pollute the ground so the building life cycle is cradle to grave and we can't just look at how much

something costs or how much how well it insulates we have to look at the whole thing and a lot of times the

for example the electric car industry is criticized rightly so i think for

just looking at saving fossil fuel usage right like we're we're definitely more energy

efficient by driving electric vehicles but what went into the battery how many resources did it take to build that

battery what's going to happen to that battery once its life cycle is done similar criticisms have been

levied against wind energy right because those blades those giant blades

apparently are not recyclable they're just burying those things when their life cycle is over so we have to think

about the whole thing the whole building cycle the whole cycle of any alternative energy that

we're going to employ when we talk about green buildings or green energy initiatives it's very easy

for companies or building owners to say yes we're we're very green and

the question always is what does that mean how is that defined the u.s green building council usgbc has

put together a rating system for buildings called the leadership and energy and environmental design or lead

leed is the green building rating system that has been adopted by most jurisdictions and is generally accepted

as sort of the gold standard for how green is your building really at the end of the day that's what we want to

know and so this rating system can be used formally or informally when it's used formally you actually have a usgbc

representative come to your building and evaluate all aspects of it and

through their rating system you'll get some sort of a certification for your building

and there are various levels that it could be but it'll achieve one officially

unofficially or informally it can be used just just to try to achieve or aspire to a greener building so you can

say that our we attempted and we think we achieved this rating but you don't really have it until you're certified

and that does cost money so it's a little bit of a bragging rights thing it's a little bit frivolous in my

opinion but aspiring to meet a higher rating in your building is a good thing generally

so this is essentially how that rating system breaks out and the certification is 100 base points plus 10 bonus points

available 80 or more is platinum you can also achieve a gold a silver or just a usgbc leed certified building between 40

and 49 points we also have construction standards and we have various

agencies and resources that we can refer to in terms of the products and the

materials that we're using in our buildings for example

most construction standards are developed by independent organizations such as astm and ansi so astm

and i personally get these two confused occasionally but astm

is a consensus organization for materials and methods so when we talk about

a particular construction a way to build a wall right if we're talking about plaster we're talking

about gypsum board or we're talking about concrete masonry units

that process and the materials used in it are governed and defined by astm so they're

going to have general standards and architects and engineers can refer to astm standards to define how they want a

wall built among many other building components the american national standards

institute ansi is a

an agency that certifies and defines products and systems so you can see there's

there's a fine line between the two astm is how we build and the materials we use ansi is an actual product that's been

manufactured and we're going to use or not use

any number of those in our building another way that we can sort of define how a

building needs to be built is by adding a specification

document to our construction plans so most people are pretty familiar with

blueprints and we always think of blueprints as sort of the primary construction

document the instruction book for building a building right blueprints

everybody's familiar with that but most people are less familiar with the other half

of that document which is the specification so construction specifications

accompany blueprints and they combine to create basically a contract for any particular job

so master format why i'm going into this on this particular slide master format is the preeminent the main

uh publisher of construction specification language so they have put together

a format a table of contents of sorts that you can use as the framework for your

specification so the csi and the csc joint venture between the u.s and canada

developed this format and it's used exclusively almost in construction specifications for commercial buildings

now we do see other types of specifications for residential but for the most part any major project

you're going to see the master format used there are in it there are 50 major divisions and we're not going to have

you memorize all of those but you can see here a list of some of the more common ones and it just kind of goes

through material by material so it kind of starts off with just general requirements of the project

and it starts talking about existing conditions which kind of has to do with the site

and different preparation necessary but then it just kind of moves into everything concrete so

when we put together blueprints we don't often say in those blueprints

you know what is the compressive strength required in that concrete how much reinforcing steel is needed a lot

of those details are found in the specifications not in the blueprints themselves okay so the specification is

a text book it's basically a manual looks like a phone book if you remember what those look like

uh it's bound and uh maybe three ring or in some way but uh it's a it's a physical document with just words in it

not really pictures uh and all of the details for each of these different building materials

can be defined more clearly in there so it would be really difficult to put all that text into a blueprint and make it

legible right so we have this other this whole other document that we can refer to the contractor would refer to then

and they need to follow everything in there and it's it's really it's quite an extensive book it's often times there's

going to be two volumes sometimes even three they end up getting so thick so just a lot of information in there

we can't put in the blueprint so each one of those sections that we saw on the previous page is going to have sub

sections in it and sometimes some sections under that so in this case under metals division five we might have

structural steel framing steel joist framing steel decking cold form metal and so forth and so on and then metal

fabrications may have multiple things underneath it so again i don't need to i don't mean to belabor the point but it

is just a very detailed document i do have an example of a spec book which i will try to remember to pull out in

class the next time we meet otherwise that's something that you could certainly google and look at if

you're interested so that's it for chapter one um we're gonna go ahead and just jump into the

quiz next and any other assignments you see on the lms don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions on any of that

i'm always available to answer those questions and otherwise just best of luck and we will meet again in class

next week