During the International Code Council’s (ICC) Code Development Hearings in Baltimore last month, the ICC’s Residential Building and Energy Committee voted to retain a new mandate for residential fire sprinklers that was approved for the 2009 and 2012 versions of the International Residential Code (IRC) in September 2008.
The vote shot down a proposal by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) to strike the fire sprinkler mandate from the IRC. (We wrote about the new mandate here and covered the debate as it continued through 2009 here). The mandate, which will require fire sprinklers to be installed in all one- and two-family homes and townhouses, is scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2011, unless it is rejected in a final vote during the ICC’s conference in May 2010.
Read NAHB’s take on the committee voting proceedings in the latest edition of Nation’s Building News. The International Residential Code Fire Sprinkler Coalition, a non-profit supporting installation of fire sprinklers in residences, released a statement expressing its satisfaction with the voting outcome.
BaltimoreSun.com covered the committee proceedings; read the story here.
