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By Ronald L. Geren, CSI, CCS, CCCA, AIA, SCIP
Where Have All The Specifiers Gone?
In 1961, folk singer and political activist Pete Seeger along with folk singer Joe Hickerson, adapted the words of a Ukrainian folk song to the tune of an old lumberjack song to create “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” The cyclic lyrics lead to the death of soldiers in combat, and individual recordings of the song by the Kingston Trio and Peter, Paul, and Mary made it a popular anti-war song later in the same decade. But this article isn’t about the politics of war, or even music for that matter. This article is about the apparent, and somewhat disturbing, decline in the number of experienced construction specifiers.
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By Ronald L. Geren, AIA, CSI, CCS, CCCA, SCIP
Exterior Walls
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow proposed his “Hierarchy of Needs” motivational model. At the base of the five-stage model are the biological and physiological needs, or, in other terms, the basic life needs; and found within that first stage is the need for shelter.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
"The inability of the exits to handle all of the occupants in the short time available for this fast growing fire contributed directly to the large loss of life.”
That is a quote from the NIST's (National Institute of Standards and Technology) 2005 final report on The Station Nightclub fire that occurred on February 20, 2003, killing 100 people. Although the estimated 458 occupants within the building that night did not exceed the calculated maximum occupant load of 585 based on floor area per the 2003 International Building Code (IBC), the one of the most significant limiting factor was the lack of capacity of the egress system, and the improper distribution of exit width.
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If you thought designing a new building to comply with the building code was a difficult task, try applying the building code to an existing building. In many cases, it is impossible, either financially or physically, to bring an existing building into full compliance with the current, adopted building code.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Dictionaries: I would venture to say that every adult and school student owns at least one of these books. The earliest form of dictionary can be traced back as far as the 7th century B.C. The library of Ashurbanipal, the king of Assyria, Nineveh (near modern day Mosul, Iraq), included clay tablets with cuneiform (wedge-shaped) inscriptions, or symbols, that represented words, sounds, and numbers.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
If you've ever worked on or with construction documents that involve fire-resistive construction, you"re probably familiar with UL design numbers, GA file numbers, or building code prescriptive item numbers. These numbers identify construction assemblies that have been specifically tested for fire resistance. In order to be approved, an assembly must be installed as tested; any modification will likely be disapproved by the building official. However, in today’s construction, some unique assemblies can’t be identified using a previously tested assembly number; and having a special test performed for a project-specific assembly may break the budget. Fortunately, there are other methods to determine the fire resistance of an assembly without the financial impact and still comply with the building code.
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Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Gould Evans Associates LC
This year marks the 200th anniversary of the automatic fire sprinkler system. In 1806, an Englishman by the name of John Carey, developed the first automatic fire sprinkler system by connecting a series of perforated pipes to an elevated water tank. The water, under pressure due to the tank elevation, was held in place by closed valves. Combustible cords connected to weights held the valves closed. When a fire would burn through the cords, the weights would drop, opening the valves, thereby allowing water to enter the perforated pipes and extinguishing the fire. Crude, but it was only the beginning.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Last month we discussed the intricacies of calculating allowable floor area for buildings under the International Building Code (IBC) using the "nonseparated use” method. But, if using the nonseparated use method is too restrictive for your building, you can always revert to the “separated use” method.
The separated use method has been in the building codes for many years, and it requires that the various occupancy groups within a building be separated from each other by fire-resistance-rated assemblies. As a benefit of this “compartmentation,” the building code allows a building floor area to be determined based on the sum of the ratios of actual floor areas to allowable floor areas. In all cases, this sum of ratios cannot exceed 1.0.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
Imagine taking a project into the building department for plan review, and when you get the comments back (there are always comments), the first comment you read hits you like a ton of code books: “Building exceeds allowable area for occupancy and construction type.” Nothing says “design changes” more that exceeding the allowable floor area. Even a missing fire partition or having to add some fire-resistive-rated windows and doors (although annoying and costly) won't equal the modifications necessary to make a project compliant with the allowable area of the building code.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
In my last article, I discussed the first of two types of building classifications used in the building code: Occupancies. The second, which is frequently misunderstood by new users of the building code, is the Construction Type classification. The Construction Type has little to nothing to do with the Occupancy classification. But, like the two towers of the Golden Gate suspension bridge, without both, the whole thing wouldn't hold together.
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By Ronald L. Geren, RA, CSI, CCS, CCCA
In life, most everything is given some type classification whether it's objective, such as drivers' licenses, or subjective, such as social status. Then there're those people who're in "a class all by themselves." Buildings, like much of everything else, are classified, as well.
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