When the International Building Code (IBC) was introduced in 2000, it gave design and building professionals a much greater range of options for wood-frame commercial buildings.
For example, the new IBC:
- Includes new definitions of some use groups and types of construction (e.g. Type III), which allow more wood construction.
- Allows sprinklered buildings with NFPA 13 systems to contain one additional story, and to be increased in height 20 feet.
- Permits fire walls of combustible material in buildings of Type V construction, which allows the structure to be divided into separate buildings, each subject to its own height and area limits. (In a parallel development, the latest edition of NFPA 221, the standard for fire walls and fire barrier walls, includes a provision for a two-hour fire resistance rated fire wall built using two contiguous one-hour fire resistance rated assemblies. Many wood-frame assemblies can achieve the one-hour rating.)
- Allows the area for single-story buildings that are sprinklered to be increased to 300 percent of the tabular area.
- Permits asymmetric testing for fire resistance rating (testing from the inside only) where the distance to the property line is at least five feet. This creates new possibilities in the west and parts of the midwest for both exterior cladding and interior finish work.
In addition to the convenience of a single code, the IBC has created a much more favorable environment for designing wood-frame commercial buildings. For more examples, the American Wood Council offers a range of free downloadable documents on wood design in the context of the IBC, including publications aimed at designing for code acceptance and allowable heights and areas calculators. See the links below for a list of publications.
Source: The International Building Code: More Options with Greater Opportunity for Wood-Frame Design – American Wood Council, 5 pages ( 164KB PDF)
More Information
IBC and Wood Design
Fire
|
