Just look at all of the money you saved on code purchases over the last 10
years living in California. You can take that money and apply it to a good
UBC detox clinic. The rest of us had to learn new codes, change practices
accordingly, and shell out big bucks. For California, structural
engineering evolution time stopped 10 years ago. The HMS Beagle of
structural engineering was banned from California.
I think that once you get into it and read the commentaries, you will see
the value and the need for the changes. The developers of the codes are
slowing down. The pace has become too fast. It needed quick changes in the
early days just to get consistency in the merging of the 3 model codes and
to incorporate the new seismic maps. Again the pace is slowing. Consider
that the next NEHRP is 2008 and the next ASCE 7 is 2010.
The code developers do not change the code just to be capricious. The
developers are very conscientious and avoid change for change's sake. But
when something is determined to be broken, it must be fixed. Granted, the
developers make mistakes. Major changes will take a while to shake out the
problems. I have every confidence that the new codes are far superior to
the old 1997 UBC.
Regards,
Harold Sprague
>From: "DBruckman" <bruckmandesign@verizon.net>
>Reply-To: <seaint@seaint.org>
>To: <seaint@seaint.org>
>Subject: Code Costs, Redux
>Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2007 14:17:41 -0700
>
>Okay.Now I think I begin to understand. Sitting innocently here in CA,
>happily wallowing in a 10 year old UBC, I had no idea what the hub-bub was
>over code costs. THEN, after code conversation here, I decided I'd get
>myself moving into the 2006 IBC in anticipation of its adoption here next
>year. What do I find?
>
>First, there are tons of references to lots and lots of OTHER codes, which
>now I see I'm going to have to go out and buy as well. Heck, the second
>paragraph of the code exempts detached single family dwellings and directs
>me to something called the International Residential Code. Cha-ching.
>There goes another $80 just to work on houses. I bet I find it identical
>to
>pertinent sections of this code, but I won't know until AFTER I fork over
>the money. Everywhere I see sly references to weird esoteric stuff like
>1612 which has references to something called Flood Insurance Rate Map, as
>well as to something called NAVD and to NGVD . Do I have to buy those x
>all
>the other obscure references found elsewhere? And what am I to make of
>stuff like Figures 1613.5(1-4) for that little commercial strip center I'm
>working on in Burbank? You can bet the CBC will have its own map.
>Cha-ching.
>
> I'm finding things that I'm sure the CA code writers will likely delete
>entirely, like probably all of Chapter 11.. Cha-ching.
>
>Anyway, you get my drift. Now I get it. I'll have to get all of it, and
>pay for it handsomely..
>
>Second, and this is really what I'm on about, I'm finding the IBC a rather
>sloppy code so far. I may be too unfamiliar with it so far, but I'm
>finding
>syntax loopholes that are sure to drive me and plan checkers crazy for
>years
>to come; I'm finding lack of direction from section to section, which
>brings
>up just what applies to what. I'm finding stuff that is more lenient than
>the CBC is now, which if adopted by CA would be the first time in my career
>I've seen something relaxed instead of strengthened. I doubt that kind
>of
>stuff will survive amendment here in CA. Now perhaps this is an
>Architect's
>nightmare more than an engineer's nightmare, since there doesn't seem to be
>much about engineering that doesn't direct you elsewhere anyway, be it
>ASCE
>7 or AITC or ASTM-(nnnn) or whatever, but overall, is anyone else finding
>this code more ambiguous than prior codes or do I just have 97UBC
>withdrawal
>symptoms?
>
>DB
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