Building code officials are our security for ensuring safe building construction and they need to know a lot of information. The American Wood Council (AWC) aims to make the job of building code official a little easier when it comes to knowing about wood products and the latest wood-related code provisions.
May is the International Code Council’s (ICC) Building Safety Month and AWC is a proud sponsor of week one, with the theme “Partnering with Code Officials to Build Stronger, Safer Communities.”
One of the vehicles we use to help code officials stay up-to-date is a free membership program in AWC called Code Official Connections. A benefit of that program is an e-newsletter published every other week called WoodPost, written specifically for U.S. building and fire code officials. The most recent issue, for example, included information on the highly-anticipated tall mass timber building code changes that recently passed their first hurdle with approval by several ICC code-change committees.
The ICC Committee Action Hearings for the 2021 codes taking place this year brought together code and fire officials, engineers, architects, builders, and other construction professionals as part of the first public step in approving code change proposals. Key to industry interests were 14 proposals from the ICC Ad Hoc Committee on Tall Wood Buildings that, once officially approved by year-end, would allow some mass timber buildings to be constructed up to 18 stories in height.
The American Wood Council salutes code officials who are doing the important work of code enforcement every day and additionally code development at the International Code Council Committee Action Hearings.
If you have a relationship with your local building or fire official, please thank them for their efforts to keep us safe, and if you think they might benefit from more information on wood that has been specifically designed for them, please share information about the AWC program that is available at: www.awc.org/codeconnections.