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Posts Tagged ‘IRC’

While some IRC requirements are clear as day, yet still disregarded, what about the requirements that aren’t in the code at all?  I’m not referring to the local “my way or the highway” inspector…we know they are out there.  I’m talking about real codes that just aren’t in the code.  They’re called “referenced standards”.  I call them the secret codes.

The governmental membership of the International Code Council recognizes that, while composed of code professionals, their membership is not “all knowing” of all aspects of construction.  For this reason, the ICC approves other professional organizations’ standards of practice as documents to be referenced by a code user.  These standards carry the same authority as if they were written in the code itself, except they are governed and managed by other organizations.  Organizations that get to set their own prices and availability for the standards.  In the IRC there are well over 500 different referenced standards from 46 different organizations.  If you think the 2009 IRC is only 868 pages and under $100, well, think again.  I assure you there is no one that completely “knows the code”.  I doubt there is even a jurisdiction in existence that owns all the referenced standards themselves; definitely no designer or contractor would. Read the rest of this entry »

As I mentioned last month, the 2000 International Residential Code (IRC) had 578 pages, while the 2009 version boasts an excessive 868 pages!  I could discuss one of the questionable provisions in those 290 new pages, but it seems there are plenty in the first 578 that have never gotten any attention.  For these provisions, one must ask…what good is a rule that is not enforced—just ink on a page?  I guess we’ve got to get recycled hamster bedding from somewhere… Read the rest of this entry »