Part of Ontario’s plan to promote conservation, the 2006 Building Code—which carries new requirements for energy efficiency—came into effect last week.
But Rick Hallam, the town’s chief building official, said he and his counterparts elsewhere in Ontario likely will be sticking to the 1997 Building Code until the province can provide a finalized version of the new one, along with training on how to use the code, which includes more than 700 changes.
“I can’t tell you a lot and the reason is because the Government of Ontario has not produced an official publication,” said Hallam. “They’re probably three or four months behind in getting that publication out.”
Hallam added he spoke to the company printing the code in late December, and was told not to expect the document until the end of this month at the earliest.
“Right now, I do not have a copy of it,” he stressed. “I know it is available online. You can go the ministry website and find an unofficial version of the new code.
“But as far as I’m concerned, I, along with a lot of other building officials across Ontario, will probably stay with the 1997 prescriptive format until the government gets their act together and provides us with proper training so we can administer it properly.”
Hallam stressed the new document includes roughly 700 changes to the Ontario Building Code, and that all building officials across the province will be required to be knowledgeable and enforce these new regulations.
“The province is responsible to ensure that building officials are properly trained in the use of the new building code and they, to my knowledge, now I could be corrected here, but I do not believe they are offering any formalized training in the use of the new code,” he noted.
Hallam, chairman of the local chapter of the Ontario Building Officials Association, said the group has been working towards providing training for its 20 members in the district, which stretches from Pickle Lake to Red Lake and east as far as Atikokan.
Training could last anywhere from three-five days in length, depending on the complexity of the course that’s put together.
“But it would be up to the ministry to provide training to the training facilitators, and, of course, they would deliver it across the province,” added Hallam. “We’re waiting on that.”
Hallam said the new code is significantly different from the 1997 version in that it introduces “an objective-base format,” and allows for more alternative solutions to building construction issues.
“Right now, the building code as it sits, the 1997 Building Code and all its amendments, is known as a ‘prescriptive code.’
‘Just like a doctor who gives you a prescription and says take this pill on a regular basis until it’s used up, the building code is very similar. It says, ‘Thou shalt do this, this, and this,’” he explained.
“The new code has merged or melded the prescriptive format with a complementary format, being ‘objective-based.’
“That opens the doors for designers primarily, and people who have innovative products, bringing them forward and offering them as alternative solutions to construction issues,” added Hallam.
He noted this means it will be up to individual building officials to review these alternative solutions on a basis of whether they think they will work or not.
“One of the concerns that building officials across the province have in this regard is that we, as building officials, have to be very cognizant of the legal responsibilities we have and the liabilities that can be brought to bear on a municipality or a building officials should an innovative system fail,” Hallam stressed.
“So we have to take that into account when we’re evaluating a proposed system or a change from the prescriptive-based elements of the code to an alternative solution.
“Will this work in perpetuity or will it bring a liability back upon the municipality, or possibly themselves, in case of failure?”
Hallam said this point-of-view also is being expressed by many other building officials in the province, including Richard Ashe, chair of the Ontario Building Officials Association.
In an editorial in the December, 2006 edition of the OBOA Journal, Ashe wrote he understands it will be “at least a couple of years” before the province provides “application and intent statements that clearly describe the situations to which each code provision applies and verify reasons for those provisions.”
These applications and intent statements would provide a clarity to “help achieve a common understanding and consistent application of the code.”
“This situation presents a difficult and foreseeable problem for the industry and municipalities,” wrote Ashe. “Designers and building officials are being asked to evaluate the performance of alternative solutions through the use of a number of tools, specifically objective, functional, application, and intent statements.
“With an incomplete document, users will be left to continue to interpret the intent of the code, which will lead to an inconsistent application and increased exposure to liability, particularly for municipalities,” he added.
“What happens to the decisions made on alternative solutions on an interpreted intent when, after two years, the ministry releases a different intent?
“This incomplete code does not bode well for its adoption,” Ashe wrote elsewhere in his editorial. “Without all the necessary tools, the decisions made on alternative solutions by chief building officials will be that much more subjective, which will lead to a loss of autonomy through political interference.
“Another foreseeable scenario will see municipalities reluctant to accept alternative solutions due to the lack of clarity and with it a heightened underlying risk of liability.
“With an early adoption by code users, the whole concept of an objective-based code may be lost indefinitely.”
Much of the thrust of the new building code by the province has been to increase energy efficiency and accessibility.
For instance, new provisions are expected to boost the energy efficiency of a new home by 21.5 percent through better standards for wall and ceiling insulation, high-efficiency furnaces, and energy-efficient windows.
The code sets even higher standards for homes with electrical heating, and also will require buildings be more accessible to people of all ages and abilities.
New standards will make public corridors wide enough for modern wheelchairs while tactile signs will help those with visual impairments better navigate through buildings.
Further energy efficiency requirements are expected to come into effect in 2009 and again in 2012.
Fort Frances Times
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