Construction Documents

[aaronm]

I understand IRC 106.3.1 to say that the construction documents must remain on the construction site from the beginning of the project to the end. Is this your understanding?

Thanks,

Aaron

[Jerry Peck - Codeman]

Hi Aaron,

"I understand IRC 106.3.1 to say that the construction documents must remain on the construction site from the beginning of the project to the end. Is this your understanding?"

Yes ... but ...

R104.1 says that "The building official shall have the authority to render interpretations of this code and to adopt policies and procedures in order to clarify the application of its provisions. Such interpretations, policies and procedures shall be in conformance with the intent and purpose of this code.[/quote]

Which allows the building official to create policies which allow the construction documents to not be kept on the work site, to only require the construction documents to be present and available for and at the time of inspection.

That said, a typical example the construction documents not being on the work site can lead to what happened yesterday at an inspection - I had a copy of the UL design for the firestopping which was submitted and approved for a project, two 7 story towers which had no firestopping where the refrigerant piping, wiring, and condensate piping for the mechanical units penetrated through openings in the floors. I was doing some mechanical inspections a couple of weeks ago on replacement mechanical units and noticed that the openings were "open" from the first floor to the seventh floor - not good and a fire hazard, among other things which were non-compliant (i.e., air from every unit in the stack was being drawn into every other unit in the stack).

Long story short, the contractor in charge of the renovations had their engineer submit a design for retrofitting the firestopping - when I went to inspect the first unit where the firestopping was being installed, I asked the installers if they were installing the firestopping as shown in the UL design, they said ... 'What UL design, we don't have anything showing us how it is to be installed, we are just installing it as we were told to install it.'

Obviously, the installation was nothing like it was supposed to be, and it turned out to be impractical to use that firestopping system. Their engineer went back to the drawing board, they contacted firestopping system manufacturers, and everyone is putting their heads together to find a system which will work in the retrofit with the limited working conditions which exist.

Yes, by not requiring the construction documents to be on the work site at all times, that allows workers to proceed with installing work in a manner which is non-compliant with what has been submitted and approved.

Building officials almost always only require the construction documents to be available at the work site at the time of their inspections ... and the above is only one example of what results from that all too common practice.

Yes, I know the IRC also says:

Such policies and procedures shall not have the effect of waiving requirements specifically provided for in this code.

I know that not requiring the construction documents to be at the work site at all times (when workers are present, no need to have the construction documents there when no work is being done) is directly contradictory to the above statement ... however, it is common practice and building officials deem that policy to be within the scope of Section R104 Duties and Powers of the Building Official.

That is just one example of conflicts which the code creates with contradictory requirements and allowances, and which the code tries to overcome by inserting statements such as "Such policies and procedures shall not have the effect of waiving requirements specifically provided for in this code."

Once one section gives power to the building official, the building official is not going to relinquish that power without a fight just because another section says differently.

I believe the construction documents should be on the work site at all times that work is being done - how else are the workers to know what was approved and what needs to be done?

[aaronm]

Codeman:

As usual, thank you for you perspicacious comments.

Aaron