Lee Schwartz, MAHB, Checks in From ICC Hearings
Don Pratt, Roger Papineau and I are on hour 28 of the hearings. It’s already been an interesting morning as the fire alarm went off in our hotel at 6:10 am with a subsequent evacuation. It was a false alarm.

Debate and voting has been completed on the Wildlife/Urban Interface Code, the International Fire Code, and the International Building Code Fire Safety provisions. We are now on the International Building Code General provisions. The Residential Code and Energy Code changes won’t start before 6:00 PM tomorrow.

As of this moment,two hundred and forty-one code changes have been voted on, most of them non-controversial. Just 580 more to go. It’s already been announced we will go AT LEAST until midnight tonight and probably longer. Sessions start at 7:00 AM.

Voting over the last two 1/4 days has been fairly steady, usually around 250 to 300 votes being cast on each proposal with the highest number of votes cast at 388 and the lowest at 163. Voters have electronic voting machines the size of a credit card. Most voting is done by a show of hands but the cards are used on close votes. We’ve been tracking both the number of votes cast and the time the vote took place.

Given the importance of the International Fire Code to fire services, it speaks volumes that the highest number of voters on this code was 388. Fire service voters were not here in large numbers to vote on the Fire Code or the Fire Safety provisions of the International Building Code.

Rumor and supposition abound here. While ICC hasn’t announced the total number of qualified voters for the hearing, the word has gotten out that total registration is hovering in the area of 2,300 to 2,600 registrants. Not all registrants are eligible to vote. We expect the number of qualified voters in the hall to dramatically increase as we draw closer to the sprinkler vote.

American Airlines was the “official” airline for this conference. The sprinkler advocates bought advertising on these flights both on the audio and visual in-flight entertainment. They are also running pro-sprinkler videos on the in-hotel TV channels at the major conference hotels.

The Energy Efficient Codes Coalition paid for redoing the magnetic hotel keycards at the major conference hotels. The name of the hotel on the front of the card has the been replaced by the logo of the coalition along with the address of their website.

I guess when approval of a code change or several code changes means billions of dollars more in income, you can spend a few dollars on frills.

What kind of dollars are we talking about?

The NAHB estimates had a residential sprinkler system been required in every residential dwelling in 2005, the sprinkler industry would have benefited to the tune of $5,787,990,000. Yes, that’s five billion, seven hundred and eighty-seven million, nine hundred and ninety thousands dollars in just one year. While the roughly $185 million dollars the sprinkler industry did make by sprinkling 52,664 homes that year is an impressive chunk of cash, it’s just pocket change from a child’s piggy bank compared to what they could force consumers to cough up if sprinklers are mandated in all new homes.

Well, that’s about it right now. I’ll be sending these updates out on an irregular basis as events warrant.

And, for those of you who suffer from insomnia, the ICC is webcasting the hearings. To watch go to:

http://www.iccsafe.org/cs/codes/webcast/index.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122170150213450731.html

Well done article.