What we're reading, following & covering

Future K-12 schools in Ohio will include large storm shelters

April 4|WLWT5

As the mom of a tenth-grade student who attends Winton Woods High School, Alicia Whitaker is eagerly awaiting the new building that will eventually replace the school, which was built in 1968. "I am enthused that we're going to have new buildings," Whitaker said. "Our buildings are quite old." In 2016, voters in the district approved a levy to let Winton Woods go from six schools to two. One of the new campuses will be for students grades K-6. The other campus will be home to students in grades 7-12. "It's a big project," said Steve Denny, Winton Woods School District's director of business affairs. "We're very excited about it." Read more.

Houston City Council adopts stricter building codes for future floodplain construction

April 4|NewsFix

Houston City Council has been flooded with debate on whether they should strengthen building codes in the floodplain, and by a slim margin of 9 to 7, the new ordinance has passed. "And we recognize in our city that we have to build a stronger, more resilient city," Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters following the announcement. The overall goal of the new regulations are to minimize flood risks in the future. After flooding during Harvey, the new ordinance will revise certain building codes and management of what is known as a 100-year floodplain, as well as a 500-year floodplain. Read more.

Seattle may be the first city in the U.S. to put a toll on downtown streets

April 4|Circa

Seattle City Mayor Jenny Durkan on Wednesday announced a series of creative and innovative environmental initiatives the city of Seattle is studying, including a controversial proposal to charge a toll for driving in some parts of the inner city. The toll would be an effective way to reduce the number of single-occupancy vehicles clogging downtown streets while reducing carbon dioxide emissions, Durkan said. She referred to the tolls as congestion pricing and said it would work like this: "If you drive in there, you've got to pay more money." Read more.

Earthquakes: A fight to protect infrastructure

April 4|Capitol Weekly

The images of California's powerful earthquakes over the years have been vivid: the shattered buildings, the collapsed bridges, the buckled highways. A Los Angeles lawmaker is proposing updated earthquake legislation geared toward saving infrastructure, noting that modern building codes are designed to save lives but not necessarily preserve the physical structures. "We deserve a stronger, safer California that can bounce back quickly after the big one hits," Assemblyman Adrin Nazarian said in a written statement. "We are already dealing with a severe housing crisis," he added. Nazarian, D-North Hollywood, contends his Assembly Bills 1857 and 2681 will help communities after they are affected by earthquakes. Read more.

Pekin residential roofing permit change wards off scams in first year

April 4|Pekin Daily Times

It has been almost a year since the city of Pekin started requiring permits for all roof replacements; a change that Pekin Building Inspections/Development Director John Lebegue says has saved some Pekin residents some heartaches. Prior to May 1, 2017, a residential roofing permit was only required if the wood sheathing beneath the shingles was replaced, or a complete tearoff. Residents simply adding a second layer of shingles or patching an area did not have to get a permit. "We have weeded out a lot of really bad eggs preying on our residents," said Lebegue. "We found that some had no license." Read more.

The Climate Is Changing. So Why Aren't State Building Codes

April 4|NRDC

From dramatic wildfires in the west to devastating hurricanes in Texas, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere, once-in-a-lifetime storms are becoming the new normal. We need to have strong and resilient communities, especially buildings, that can weather the increasing number of climate-related storms, fires, floods, and extreme heat and cold temperatures we fear will keep coming. A key part of that equation is a strong building code, one that requires construction practices that help ensure that new buildings are resilient in the face of these events. Read more.

Updated state building codes to increase fire safety, gender-neutral bathrooms

April 3|Newstimes

To answer that question, architects and city officials turn to State Building, Fire Safety and Fire Prevention Codes, which detail construction requirements from the number of bathrooms a building needs to how fire-resistant the materials must be. Currently, Connecticut is looking over its codes for the first time in two years. The changes include necessitating an automatic fire sprinkler system in townhouses and making it easier for buildings to designate bathrooms gender-neutral. Read more.

Man dies after being struck by makeshift elevator in Brooklyn food market

April 2|New York Daily News

A 62-year-old man was killed when an illegal makeshift hoist at a Brooklyn food market landed on top of him Monday, police said. The accident happened about 11:50 a.m. at the KP Farm Market, on Nostrand Ave. in Flatbush. The Department of Buildings said the platform of the hoist landed on the man, who was in the basement at the time. The victim was rushed to Kings County Hospital, where he died. Read more.

Deaths of mom, son at Tahoe's Kirkwood ski resort emphasize deadly mountain hazard

April 2|Reno Gazette Journal

During the late afternoon hours of March 4 there was no reason to think Olga Perkovic and her son, Aaron, were in any danger. Perkovic, 50, a lifelong skier, and Aaron, 10, a member of the Kirkwood JETS ski team, had just spent the day doing what they loved at Kirkwood Mountain Resort. At 4:27 p.m. they loaded onto the TC Express chairlift to make one last run before skiing back to their condominium to join Olga's mother, Radmila, 80, and daughter, Sophie, 8, to watch the Academy Awards. Read more.

Three Reasons Why Solar Designs Fall Short

April 2|Solar Power World

Designing the optimal solar PV system is no easy task. There are a vast number of variables to take into account, from deciding which components to use to determining the best stringing configuration. But there are a few commonly overlooked considerations that can be particularly devastating. We spoke with experienced solar designers to understand some of the most problematic solar design pitfalls. Failing to account for these factors in the design phase can have a dramatic impact on the quality of the installation and damage your credibility with clients (not to mention your bottom line). Read more.

Designing Destruction

April 1|Structure Magazine

Scarcity of buildable land, aging infrastructure, and changes in urban environments create an increasing demand for the demolition of existing structures. Often, demolition is planned and executed by a demolition contractor relying on experience and judgment for techniques and sequencing. Appropriate for some types of structures, such as small residential buildings with large offsets from surrounding structures, demolition plans not prepared by an engineer may not be appropriate for larger and more complex structures, where the consequences of unforeseen structural behavior during demolition can be dramatic or even fatal. Read more.

Chris Walters: Commercial Building Code a Mixed Bag

April 1|La Crosse Tribune

Those planning commercial building projects may want to acquaint themselves with Wisconsin's new commercial building code, which applies to commercial projects submitted to the Wisconsin Department of Safety and Professional Services on or after May 1. When Wisconsin's new commercial building codes take effect, it will require all municipalities to adopt the 2015 International Code Council building codes. The new code means many changes for commercial property owners planning for building improvements, in some cases easing restrictions while complicating others. Read more.

Supplement: Now is the time for change

April 1|Firehouse

While there have been local and state incentives for improving built-in fire protection within communities, there has never been a federal tax incentive to improve built-in fire protection, until now. Now is the time to utilize the benefits of the provisions included within the Tax Reform and Jobs Act that allow for accelerated depreciation of fire protection improvement, including fire sprinkler and fire alarm system improvements and retrofits. The IRS is writing the regulations that determine how all this will be applied within Section 179 of the IRS Regulations, but the key is for the fire service community to encourage business owners to check with their tax professionals about how they can benefit from these new tax incentives. Read more.

Supplement: Codes for Retrofitting

April 1|Fire House

Retrofitting a new automatic sprinkler system into an existing building increases the fire protection and life safety of that building for the occupants and businesses. Many new buildings today, residential, institutional and high-hazard occupancies, are mandated to have fire sprinkler systems or have occupant load (assembly) or fire area threshold (assembly, educational, factory, mercantile, storage) triggers to install fire sprinkler systems. Today's building codes allow more than 125 height, area and material tradeoffs when sprinklers are installed, encouraging safer buildings while cutting installation and material costs. All of these fire sprinkler tradeoffs for new buildings have evolved and grown over the past 40 years. Read more.

Improving water quality in schools and beyond

March 13|Plumbing & Mechanical

When news of the drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan, broke nearly four years ago, the outrage was instant and the blame swift. But the response from the plumbing industry was just as fast. Local plumbers and pipefitters went to work fixing water supply lines that were leaching dangerous amounts of lead into residents’ drinking water. Manufacturers and associations stepped up to partner with local authorities, and communities and businesses donated countless bottles of clean drinking water in the meantime. Read more.

What You Need to Know About APSP-15 and VGB

March 2018|Aqua

The Association of Pool and Spa Professionals is preparing an updated version of the ANSI/APSP-16 standard, a key provision in the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act that deals with the testing, installation and performance of pool and spa drain covers. The changes were prompted by an APSP-16 committee review of the standard to primarily review and update the testing and performance protocols. "We were talking through the various testing steps, when one test lab said, 'We do it this way, ' and another said, 'We do it that way, '" says Carvin DiGiovanni, APSP vice president of technical and standards. Read more.