Multi-Hazard Resiliency for Residential Construction Committee update

The ICC Multi-Hazard Resiliency for Residential Construction Committee (IS-MHRRC) held its second in-person, public meeting on Dec. 2–4, 2019, at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety research facility in Richburg, S.C. The meeting was well-attended by the committee members as well as interested parties and included a tour of the research facility, highlighting the impressive capabilities related to high-wind testing of full-scale buildings.

A work plan was presented to the committee outlining the goals and time frames for the tasks needed to update the 2014 edition of ICC 600 — Standard for Residential Construction in High-Wind Regions, which is the primary duty of the committee.

The ICC 600 standard is based on content from SSTD 10 (Hurricane Resistant Construction Standard) and material standards’ and is to specify prescriptive methods to provide wind-resistant designs and construction details for residential buildings of masonry; concrete; wood-framed; or cold-formed, steel-framed construction sited in high-wind regions where design wind speeds are 120 to 180 mph. The purpose of this standard is to improve building resiliency by providing prescriptive requirements based on the latest engineering knowledge and to provide minimum requirements to improve structural integrity and improve building envelope performance within the limitations in building geometry, materials, and wind climate specified.

The 2014 standard is referenced in the 2015 International Codes. The 2019 update of the standard was submitted to code development for reference in the 2021 International Codes. The publication deadline for the update is Dec. 1, 2020.

The committee is also slated to develop new Code Council standards related to mitigating other hazards such as wildfires, seismic events and tsunamis. These standards are intended to specify enhanced prescriptive methodologies that affected municipalities can adopt for each hazard they address. The new standards to be developed are:

ICC 605: Standard for Residential Construction in Regions with Wildfire Hazard
ICC 610: Standard for Residential Construction in Regions with Seismic Hazard
ICC 615: Standard for Residential Construction in Regions with Tsunami Hazard

The committee has organized workgroups consisting of committee members and interested parties to focus on areas of expertise in addressing the update of ICC 600. Regular updates of Code Council standards are required to maintain American National Standards Institute approval as American National Standards.

“Everyone is actively participating to achieve the meeting goals,” said Larry Novak, a chief structural engineer at the International Code Council and secretariat for the IS-MHRRC. Interested parties may participate in the development process by attending the public meetings both in-person and by remote teleconference and may participate in the works groups as well. Please contact Larry Novak at 888-422-7233, ext. 4405 to request inclusion as an interested party.

Formerly the Residential High-Wind Construction (IS-RHW) Committee, the committee has been re-designated as the IS-MHRRC and a new standards webpage for the IS-MHRRC has been created to aid the committee and the public in keeping up-to-date with news, meeting notices, committee actions, etc. This new IS-MHRRC webpage has replaced the former IS-RHW webpage.

The 2014 edition of ICC 600 is available online and in the Code Council store.