Many land grant colleges and universities are stewards of agricultural facilities that require reliable electrical power that is safe and sustainable for livestock well off the core campus distribution grid. Today we examine the 2026 National Electrical Code safe electric service rules with an eye toward the close date of April 6th for public input on the 2029 NEC.
Many land grant colleges and universities are stewards of agricultural facilities that require reliable electrical power that is safe and sustainable for livestock and animal habitat for sporting.
The premise wiring rules for hazardous university owned buildings have been relatively stable. Electrical professionals are guided by:
Farm Load Calculations of Part V of Article 220,
Corrosion mitigation with appropriate specification of power chain wiring
Stray voltage and the equipotential plane
Interactivity with regulated utility power sources.
Public response to the First Draft of the 2026 National Electrical Code will be received until August 28, 2024. We coordinate our approach to the entire NFPA electrical suite with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets 4 times monthly. We typically refer to previous transcripts of technical committee actions to inform any changes (improvements) that we propose, if any.
We maintain this issue on the standing agenda of our Power and Nourriture (Food) colloquia. Feel free to join us with the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
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Building commissioning is a systematic quality assurance process that ensures a building and its systems (HVAC, lighting, plumbing, controls, etc.) are designed, installed, tested, and operated exactly as intended by the owner and designers.
It begins early in planning, continues through construction, and includes:
thorough testing
correcting deficiencies
complete documentation
training of operations staff
The goal is to deliver an efficient, comfortable, safe, and energy-saving building from day one — while minimizing future operational problems and costs.
Today at 16:00 UTC we pull together the relevant standards and our influence in writing them over the past 30-odd years. Use the login credentials at the upper right our home page.
The National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization bringing together representatives of government, the professions, industry, labor and consumer interests to focus on the identification and resolution of problems and potential problems that hamper the construction of safe, affordable structures for housing, commerce and industry throughout the United States. The National Institute of Building Sciences was authorized by the U.S. Congress in the Housing and Community Development Act of 1974, Public Law 93-383.
As the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States — and one that is largely financed with public money — the education industry is a major stakeholder in NIBS leading practice discovery and promulgation. Best practice in education facility construction is informed by best practices in other federal agencies with significant construction spend
We track development and commenting opportunities on NIBS consensus products linked below:
It is remarkable how much standards action happens in the drearier (boilerplate) — General Conditions — part of a construction contract. Admittedly, you must have an interest in the fine points of the building construction disciplines.
As of today’s posting we do not find any NIBS titles released for public consultation in the Federal Register. We do, however, keep NIBS products on our periodic Ædificare c0lloquium; open to everyone. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
ASHRAE Standard 202 provides procedures, methods, and documentation for project delivery from predesign through occupancy/operations, ensuring buildings and new systems meet the Owner’s Project Requirements. The standard promotes a uniform, integrated approach to verify performance, deliver quality facilities, and support ongoing successful operation.
Key related titles frequently referenced or forming the broader commissioning framework include:
ASHRAE Guideline 0 — The Commissioning Process (core foundational guideline harmonized with Standard 202 for whole-building commissioning)
ASHRAE Guideline 1.1 — The HVAC Commissioning Process (detailed technical guidance for HVAC systems)
Following the ICC Group A revision cycle public consultation on the 2024 International Fire Code will begin. The ICC will announce the development schedule sometime in 2022.
We limit our resources simply tracking the proposals that run through Group E (Educational) and Group I (Institutional) occupancies in the Group A suite with closer attention to the state they are adopted whole cloth or with local exceptions. In many cases, IFC adoption by state and local authorities is delayed by one or more previous code revisions. This delay in adoption may be necessary in order for jurisdictions to evaluate the impact of changes upon the region under their authority.
Public safety budgets historically support the local and state fire marshal and his or her staff. The revenue stream of many trade associations originates from membership, conference attendance, training and certification enterprises that service the public sector stakeholder. Manufacturer sponsorship of trade association conferences is noteworthy.
Unless there is an idea, or proposed regulation that has run off the rails (either in terms of rigor or cost increase) — we place fire safety in the middle of our ranking of priorities. With gathering pace, we find many fires safety goals being met with electrotechnologies where we place our highest priority.
Click on image for more information. The map is updated by expert agencies frequently so we recommend a web search for an update.
Significant code changes rarely happen within a 3-year cycle so it is wise to follow ideas as they travel through the agendas of technical committees through several cycles as administered by the Fire Code Action Committee.
The ICC posts the transcripts of public proposals, technical committee responses to public proposals, public response to the technical committee response and the final balloting in a fair and reasonable fashion as can be seen in the transcripts linked below:
A search on the terms “classroom” or “school” in any of the documents above offers granular insight into the trend of current thinking. We find fire extinguishers placement a perennial concern across several standards suites. You will note the careful consideration of proposals for use of the mass notification systems, now integrated into fire alarm systems and their deployment in active shooter situations.
The transcripts reveal detailed understanding and subtlety.
“The Country School” | Winslow Homer
There are many issues affecting the safety and sustainability of the education facility industry. We add value to the industry because of our cross-cutting perspective on the hundreds of “silos”created by the competition (and sometimes cooperation) among accredited, consortia and open-source standards developers. We have the door open every day at 11 AM Eastern time to enlighten understanding of them all. We also host a breakout teleconference every month to drill into the specifics of standards action on fire safety for the real assets of school districts, colleges and universities. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting.
Finally, we persist in encouraging education industry facility managers (especially those with operations and maintenance data) to participate in the ICC code development process. You may do so by CLICKING HERE.
The ICC Group B Code Meetings will be hosted soon and open to the public:
The Group B tranche is largely focused on energy, structural, residential and existing building concepts but all of the titles cross-reference the IFC in some way so it is wise to follow how the concepts re-arrange and cross-reference themselves with each cycle.
Issue: [16-169]
Category: Architectural, Facility Asset Management, Space Planning
Our engagement with the ISO catalog began in 2008 at the University of Michigan and, after the 2016 reorganization, was transferred to Standards Michigan, LLC. We start the year reviewing where our voice was heard (with attendance at meetings in Europe) and in written response to calls for public comment. With link to research grant applications for faculty and students.
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwBpic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
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