DSS 139: Canadian Building Codes & the Kilo Lima Community with Kelsey Longmoore

In today’s episode of the Dust Safety Science podcast, Kelsey Longmoore, Senior Building Code Consultant with Celerity Engineering and co-founder of the Kilo Lima Code Community talks about Canadian Building Codes.

Kelsey, who lives in Regina, Saskatchewan, started working for the city after she graduated from university. When an opening appeared in the Building Code Department, she became a plan reviewer for Regina’s protection and life safety. Today, she works as a Building Code consultant at Celerity Engineering.

Kelsey is also co-founder of the Kilo Lima Code Community, which is focused on Canadian building and Fire Code education. It’s a place where those who work with building and Fire Codes can be educated, ask questions, and improve their understanding. The name comes from Kelsey’s initials in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

The Kilo Lima Community Seeks to Improve Building Code Compliance Through Information Exchange.

“What we’re really trying to achieve is to demystify Building Codes and ensure that these critical messages can be understood correctly because at the end of the day, it’s life safety,” she says. “[Building codes are] way too complicated and should be simplified.”

The Kilo Lima Code Community strives to get members up to speed on the basics before moving on to more advanced topics. Kelsey says she has seen so much non-compliance due to lack of understanding.

“People don’t know what they don’t know,” she says.

Being mostly self-taught, Kelsey understands how difficult these codes can be to learn. In the Kilo Lima Code Community, members can learn from those who have acquired experience in the field.

Building Codes Play a Key Role in Industrial and Commercial Settings.

The National Research Council publishes five National Model Codes:

Building Code
Fire Code
Plumbing Code
Energy Code
Farm Building Code

The Building and Fire Codes are sister documents that reference each other. The first is applied when a building is designed or constructed or whenever there are alterations, renovations, or occupancy changes. The Fire Code relates to the operational side. Both are occupancy-based, meaning that different occupancies have different rules associated with them.

There are subcategories for buildings where people gather (assemble):

Care, treatment and detention
Residential
Business and personal services
Mercantile: retail, commercial and industrial.

Industrial buildings have three subcategories:

High hazard
Medium hazard
Low hazard

These classifications determine the construction requirements, such as sprinklers, floor ratings, and whether combustible or noncombustible construction can be used. If a building was designed as a medium hazard industrial and the owner wants to change it to high hazard, significant upgrades may be involved as well as restrictions on how the building is used.

Building and Fire Codes Don’t Always ‘Talk’ to Each Other Properly.

Building designers like architects and engineers should look at their local Building Code, but there are some Fire Code requirements that need to be considered during the design stage. According to Kelsey, this is where difficulties can arise.

“The documents don’t really talk to each other properly,” she admits. “A lot of times, there are really significant Fire Code requirements that aren’t considered when the building is constructed, such as the requirement for a standpipe in a distillery. Then the owner finds out when a fire official becomes involved after occupancy.”

Another challenge with Building and Fire Codes is that they vary from province to province. Once the province adopts them, municipalities or regulatory authorities need to enforce them. This is another area where disconnects can happen.

When someone applies for a building permit, they send drawings to the city so that officials can review them for Building Code compliance. Once the permit is issued and construction starts, building inspections take place at various stages of the process to ensure that it is being built as designed. Fire official and Fire Marshal engagement will vary depending on jurisdiction.

“In big jurisdictions, you get the different silos of different groups where maybe the Building Department and Fire Department don’t really talk, so that the Building Department may review a building, inspect it and then hand it over to occupancy,” Kelsey says. “Now it’s under the lens of the Fire Marshal, who sees a Fire Code problem or an issue from the Building Code. But now there’s occupancy given and it’s a huge headache for owners and the Fire Department to deal with things, because typically after occupancy is given, the developers and contractors wash their hands of it and it’s everything’s up to the owner.”

Once Occupancy is Granted, Further Changes Can Be Detrimental to a Business.

She pointed out that once occupancy is granted and a building is in use, it’s extremely challenging for the Fire Department to rectify issues, such as the results of a dust hazard analysis. If a fire official shuts the building down until the problems are addressed, there will be complaints to the mayor about local businesses being hurt.

“I’m actually working on putting together a very basic course right now for commercial realtors and prospective tenants on what to consider before leasing a space,” Kelsey says. “When I worked for the City of Regina, I saw people renting these spaces and then not actually being able to operate in them. It happens all the time and businesses can fold because of it.”

The Kilo Lima Code Community Features Blogs, Q&As, and a Code School.

The Kilo Lima Code Community has a weekly blog featuring contributors from across the country and different industries. They include Code inspectors, a fire inspector, architects, and a few engineers. There is also a Community Q&A and code articles available for research and reference purposes.

“And then we have our Code School,” Kelsey says. “I’ve put together a Building Code Fundamentals Course and we have two other courses right now by other instructors. The goal is to host other courses to start conversations on issues. Our focus for our courses right now is really the architects and the building and fire officials because you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Conclusion

Kelsey says that the next step for the Kilo Lima Code Community is to let more potential users know that it exists. She also wants to put together a site database that pulls together important Building Code information, including ‘grey’ areas.

“These include interpretations on specific code articles from different associations across the country. If a code user reads something and it could be interpreted different ways, they do a Google search to find out how other cities interpret it or if there have been Building Code rulings on it. If we had one central location [for this information] it would save time. That’s my next big dream for Kilo Lima. Just trying to figure out how to make that happen!”

If you would like to discuss further, leave your thoughts in the comments section below. You can also reach Kelsey Longmoore directly:

Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelsey-longmoore-p-eng-c-p-b0483b128/

If you have questions about the contents of this or any other podcast episode, you can go to our ‘Questions from the Community’ page and submit a text message or video recording. We will then bring someone on to answer these questions in a future episode.