Madison, WI— In what is a very significant action by the U.S. and Canadian lumber industry, through a code change initiative advocated by their trade association AF&PA’s American Wood Council, the lumber industry has developed an IRC code change proposal that provides a substantial competitive advantage to solid sawn floor joist applications when compared to all wood and steel engineered floor applications. If enacted, this code change will negatively impact the competitiveness of U.S. and Canadian structural building component (SBC) and I-joist manufacturers and distributors, who represent, at the market’s peak in 2006, $15 billion worth of lumber and engineered wood products purchases and $1 billion in galvanized sheet steel purchases.

The code change will cause a large increase in the cost of all floor systems that use anything other than 2x8, 2x10 or 2x12 floor joists. In summary, this code change states:

1. Floor trusses, I-joists and steel joists of all types will be required to have a minimum ½” gypsum wallboard membrane applied to them in all basement applications.
2. 2x8s and deeper solid wood floor joists will be allowed to bypass this requirement through an exception.
3. 2x8s and deeper composite lumber joists such as LVL and PSL will be allowed to bypass this requirement through an exception.
4. Other exceptions to the need for a minimum ½” gypsum wallboard membrane include:
   1. The floor is over a crawl space
   2. Sprinklers are installed,
   3. The floor system is tested using ASTM E119 and provides a minimum 15 minute fire resistance rating.
   4. A portion of the floor is not greater than a 10’ by 10’ room size.

SBCA President Ben Hershey expressed his concerns. “Never before have we seen such an onerous code change proposal. This directly affects not only the membership of SBCA, but other suppliers of engineering components. Without the support of test data, nor an evaluation of the cost impact to a residential home, AF&PA has proposed a change that only benefits lumber producers. This change is certainly not supportive of the efforts toward green building and the efficient use of raw materials in a home.”

The SBC industry hopes that future actions by lumber suppliers in this matter speak loudly in support of the potential lumber sales that exist by supporting SBC manufacturers.

Click here to view the code change.

Source: www.sbcindustry.com, August 24, 2009