Noncompliant Brian

From Brian

Webinar 3 - Single Exit Stair Provisions and Adaptable Dwelling Requirements

On December 3th at noon, Celerity Engineering in conjunction with Nick Bray Architecture is holding a webinar on the new BCBC Single Exit Stair Provisions and an update on the Adaptable Dwelling requirements that will start to be enforced in March of 2025.

Marc Showers, P.Eng., C.P., in our Victoria Office, will present on the new BCBC Single Exit Stair provisions and discuss some the challenges and opportunities he sees with these new provisions.

Corie Luben, EIT, RHFAC Professional, in out Victoria Office, will present an update on the BCBC adaptable dwelling requirements that will start to come into force in March of 2025, and the exceptions to the March 2025 enforcement date that were added in the recent amendment to the Order In Council that created the 2024 British Columbia Building Code.

The webinar is approved for 1 hour of AIBC learning units. Attendees wanting to receive the learning units must complete the attendance form provided during the webinar.

You can sign-up for this free webinar here.

See you on the call!

Intel

BCAB #1880 - Sloped Roof as a Guard?

Roof decks have become more popular in recent years as density in our towns and cities has increased. Guarding, storage, roofs, and similar features for these great amenities, can have unintended Building Code consequences for the design of these amenities.

This BC Appeal #1880 contemplates if a sloped roof adjacent to a roof deck or balcony can be considered as meeting the guard requirements around the roof deck or balcony. In the specific case described in the appeal, the roof does meet the height requirement for a guard, and therefore a guard is required between the deck or balcony and the roof.

Lore

Co-Working, Gives way to Co-Living

The re-purposing of unused office buildings to create dwellings is not a new idea, but the challenges with housing in countries around the world has brought it back to the forefront in the minds of many.

Now, how about combining the ideas of co-working with co-living, and re-purposing an existing office building to achieve this? This is exactly what the French architecture studios Calq and Bond Society have done in Paris called the Pong.

Is this an approach that could work here in Canada? From a Building Code perspective, I think it has potential to work without too many headaches.

What do you think? Would this be the ultimate commute? Maybe you have a client that would consider such a project? Email me your thoughts at bfraser@celerity.ca.

Wisdom

Open Mezzanine - Full Height Glass Partition

Occasionally we have questions come up with regards to the permitted guards of open mezzanines, and if these guards can having glazing above the 1070 mm height as this would suggest that visual communications can still be met with areas the mezzanine overlooks. This particularly comes up when a tenant or owner wishes to "enclose" or separate the mezzanine from the space that it overlooks - or often, has already installed the glazing and is trying to legalize the mezzanine construction.

This interpretation from the BCBC Interpretation Committee considers the installation of full height glazed partitions on an open mezzanine, and helps clarify that glazing above the 1070 mm guard height is indeed not permitted where the partition height is restricted to 1070 mm.

The wording for this mezzanine requirement has changed over the code cycles, with the various versions of the building code committees tweaking the wording and even the Province tweaking the wording. There was a time when full height glazing could have been considered acceptable. Today, however, full height glazing or glazing above the guard is not considered acceptable.

About

Happy mid-November! Fall is upon us, with the cooler nights, colourful trees, and thoughts about what the heck to buy your spouse for Christmas?!

Thanks for reading today. It is wonderful that you have taken time out of your busy day to educate yourself on some of the current issues in our industry.

I appreciate your support and if you found this information useful, please forward this newsletter to a colleague!

If you have any comments, please let me know by emailing me at bfraser@celerity.ca.