A ward of the hospital at Scutari where Florence Nightingale worked and helped to restructure the modern hospital
The American Society for Healthcare Engineering is funding a second phase of an NFPA Fire Protection Research Foundation project to support development of future revisions to the National Electrical Code. The first phase of this project, titled Evaluation of Electrical Feeder and Branch Circuit Loading Study, was completed in 2017 and has been covered in previous posts (CLICK HERE).
Even though the results of the Phase 2 will not be available until after the 2020 NEC is published, the results of the Phase I study have already put NFPA 70 committees on notice that closing the divergence between observed electrical loading and the loading required by the NEC for fire safety reasons must narrow — for both safety and sustainability reasons — in future revisions; with healthcare facilities among the highest priority facility class.
For more specific information about how to contribute to the Electrical Safety Research Advisory Committee, or to participate, please feel free to communicate directly with Casey Grant (cgrant@nfpa.org).
We coordinate our advocacy in each of the NFPA 70-series of documents with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets 4 times per month in European and American time zones. We also devote an two hours every month to sweep through the status of all Electrical Power and Telecomunications codes and standards. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [16-111]
Category: Electrical, Public Safety, Risk Management
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Larry Ayers, Chad Beebe, Jonathan Flannery, Casey Grant, Jim Harvey, Christel Hunter, David Hittinger, Daleep Mohla, Dev Paul
“Commedia dell’arte Troupe on a Wagon in a Town Square” 1640 Jan Miel
Last update: March 19, 2021
Education communities are one of the settings for digital media production centers that service massive open online curricula and cultural performance facilities for teaching and entertainment. On many campuses now, reading rooms and libraries have been replaced with spaces that are dense with electro-technologies that require attention to sound, lighting, heat generation and shock prevention.
For the people responsible for creating a satisfactory experience for education industry “customers”, the art of electrical grounding at lower voltages is subtle and often vexing. One would imagine that after more than 100 years of commercial electrical power that the problem of grounding has been solved; but you would be mistaken. Innovation streams in electro-technology; presenting technicians renewed challenges as these systems — which we broadly call Digital Content Production Facilities — evolve to meet the challenges of merging teaching with entertainment; on-campus or on the internet. There are several consensus and open-source safety standards developers in the space; all of whom claim some part of it.
Montana State University
Accredited standards developers who claim to set the standard of care for some part of this facility class are as follows::
National Fire Protection Association; fire safety
Article 520 Theaters Audience Areas of Motion Picture and Television Studios, Performance Areas and Similar Locations Article 522 Control Systems for Permanent Amusement Attractions Article 525 Carnivals, Circuses, Fairs and Similar Events Article 530 Motion Picture and Television Studios and Similar Locations
International Code Council; means of egress
American Society of Heating and Refrigeration Engineers; indoor air quality
Institution of Electrical and Electronic Engineers Industrial Applications Society; building premise electrical safety
Underwriters Laboratories; audio-visual products and accessories
There are other consortia and open source standards in this domain.
Mid-America Technology Center | Wayne, Oklahoma
CLICK HERE for free access to the 2020 National Electrical Code. We focus our concern on event definitions, temporary power cords, specialty connecting devices, arc fault circuit interrupters and grounding. Comparatively speaking, these technical specifics have stabilized in recent revision cycles.
Public input for the 2023 revision of the so-called “song-and-dance” (lively art) part of the NEC is linked below:
A simple search on “Standards Michigan” in this transcript will reveal that the lively art parts of the NEC are stable. Because the song-and-dance CMP-15 is also charged with a similarly risky occupancy — healthcare facilities — we limited our advocacy resources to healthcare facilities in this cycle.
The Joint IEEE Committee has been meeting this week (March 18-19) on preparing IEEE responses to proposed revisions for the 2023 NEC.
Consultation on proposed revisions for the 2023 NEC is due September 10th.
Standards Michigan collaborates closely with IEEE committees that do most of the heavy-lifting for the user-interest in the education industry in the NFPA suite. While we are happy to drill into the details any day at 11 AM Eastern time more enlightened discussion occurs during collaborations with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets again twice monthly. Coordination of IEEE and NFPA consensus documents have been permanent items on the standing agenda but we find, on a near-weekly basis, new organizations entering the digital content space.
University of Southern California | Glory Kaufman School of Dance
Issue: [99-3, 7-6, 12-80, 16-138, 19-154, 20-6]
Category: Electrical, Telecommunications, Fire Protection, Arts & Entertainment Facilities, Lecture Halls
LEARN MORE: This occupancy class in the education industry has been growing for the better part of twenty years now. Links to some examples are listed below:
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Fine art materials, found in creative programs at all levels in education communities, are continually evolving; often ahead of fire safety legislation. This standard establishes test methods to assess the propagation of flame of various textiles and films under specified fire test conditions.
NFPA´s regional offices promote and support the use of NFPA tools and resources, including NFPA codes and standards, training, certification, public education, Fire Prevention Week, Fire Sprinkler Initiatives, membership, research, and other key NFPA programs. The regional offices are interested to identify ways NFPA services can improve fire, building, and life safety across North America.
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This content is accessible to paid subscribers. To view it please enter your password below or send mike@standardsmichigan.com a request for subscription details.
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The Life Safety Code addresses those construction, protection, and occupancy features necessary to minimize danger to life from the effects of fire, including smoke, heat, and toxic gases created during a fire. It is widely incorporated by reference into public safety statutes; typically coupled with the consensus products of the International Code Council. It is a mighty document — one of the NFPA’s leading titles — so we deal with it in pieces; consulting it for decisions to be made for the following:
(1) Determination of the occupancy classification in Chapters 12 through 42.
(2) Determination of whether a building or structure is new or existing.
(3) Determination of the occupant load.
(4) Determination of the hazard of contents.
There are emergent issues — such as active shooter response, integration of life and fire safety systems on the internet of small things — and recurrent issues such as excessive rehabilitation and conformity criteria and the ever-expanding requirements for sprinklers with which to reckon. It is never easy telling a safety professional paid to make a market for his product or service that it is impossible to be alive and safe. It is even harder telling the dean of a department how much it will cost to bring the square-footage under his stewardship up to current code.
The 2018 edition is the current edition and is accessible below:
The original University of Michigan codes and standards advocacy enterprise has been advocating in NFPA 101 since the early 2000’s. Since late 2016 most of the expertise remains with the reconstructed enterprise described in our ABOUT.
Since the Life Safety Code is one of the most “living” of living documents — the International Building Code and the National Electric Code are also moving continuously — we can practically start anywhere and anytime and still make meaningful contributions to it. Sample transcripts of activity relevant to education communities are linked below:
This is just one chapter. Note the concern for classroom door locking systems. Chapters involving daycare, places of assembly, healthcare and laboratory settings. All of these occupancy classes are common in education communities. Titles developed to meet market demand for building safety at the international level originate from ISO Technical Committee 92 Fire Safety.
We are neither primarily code instructors nor code evangelists so we place NFPA 101 farther down our priority ranking until the beginning of the 2024 revision cycle; sometime early in 2021. The best time to prepare suggestions for improvement, however, are at the end of a revision cycle such as we are now. Until then we deal with it in pieces by maintaining live public consultation notices on the standing agendas of our Housing, Prometheus and Security teleconferences. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
University of California San Diego Living & Learning Neighborhood | CLICK ON IMAGE TO LAUNCH VIDEO
Posted April 15, 2019
As described in previous posts, the first stage of Life Safety Code development was completed on June 26th. The second stage begins on February 27, 2019with the formal release of the First Draft Report on February 27, 2019; according to the developmental schedule linked below:
We have been following the flow of concepts and have identified several from Chapter 14 (New Education Facilities) that should be high on the agenda of the education facilities industry. Note that most of them propose preventive remedies for active shooter casualties.
There are others. Note that most of the public input in related Chapter 15 (Existing Education Facilities) track the concepts that appear in Chapter 14. Comments are due May 8, 2019.
The original University of Michigan standards advocacy enterprise began leading advocacy in NFPA 101 in the 2009 revision cycle. Tenure in the standards space is significant because many life safety concepts, even when original, take 6 to 9 years to be accepted and, in many states, take another 3 to 12 years to become incorporated by reference into enforceable public safety law in all 50 states. We advocate in nearly 100 standards suites and in 1000 individual documents developing globally and we find NFPA 101 among those standards that are remarkable for the “long runway” of its safety concepts.
It is worthwhile noting the breakdown of education industry presence on NFPA 101 technical committees (i.e. individuals who are on the direct payroll of a school district, college or university):
University of Texas at Austin (User)
Drexel University (Enforcement)
University of Maryland (Enforcement & Special Expert)
Oklahoma State University (Special Expert).
University of Kentucky (User)
John Jay College of Criminal Justice (Special Expert)
University of Michigan (User)
Indiana University (User)
Emory University (Enforcement)
Some universities are large enough that they have both a User Interest and an Enforcement interest which can lead to challenges in reconciling safety and cost issues within the same university. In any case, investment in expertise in contributes to the long term safety and sustainability goals of the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States — the US education industry.
Because of the sudden disruption of the standards advocacy enterprise in July 2016 (See ABOUT), we were only able to a limited number of proposals; most of which focused on structural changed to the Education Facility chapters. Access to the Standards Michigan NFPA workspace is available to subscribers. (Contact bella@standardsmichigan.com). We are happy to share these proposals online any day during our standing 11 AM live access teleconference, or again during our monthly fire protection meeting, See our CALENDAR for the next teleconference; always at the same time (11:00 AM Eastern Time); always with the same login credentials at the upper right of our home page; and always open to everyone.
The education industry is the largest non-residential building construction market in the United States (LEARN MORE HERE) — logging in about $80 billion annually in construction spend; a number that may be confirmed anecdotally with the unending presence of cranes and construction crews on US campuses all year long.
With our tenure in education facility codes and standards advocacy for over 20 years (see ABOUT) we continue to advocate in both the ICC and NFPA standards suites. We encourage all other education industry trade associations to support subject matter experts (front line working point professionals in the life safety disciplines) to contribute.
We have been advocating in this document since the 2003 edition in which we submitted candidate code changes such as the following:
• Student residence facility life safety crosswalk between NFPA 101 and IBC
• Refinements to Chapters 14 and 15 covering education facilities
• Identification of an ingress path for rescue and recovery personnel toward electric service equipment installations.
• Risk-informed requirement for installation of grab bars in bathing areas
• Modification of the 90 minute emergency lighting requirements rule for small buildings and for fixed interval testing
• Modification of emergency illumination fixed interval testing
• Table 7.3.1 Occupant Load revisions
• Harmonization of egress path width with European building codes
There are others. It is typically difficult to make changes to any consensus standard though some of the concepts were integrated by the committee into other parts of the NFPA 101 in unexpected, though productive, ways.
Public input is due June 27, 2018. We reach out to facility managers, subject matter experts and trade associations — collaborating where possible – but at least reporting on the progress made on behalf of the user/owner/final fiduciary in this industry. This document is a standing item on our weekly (Wednesday 11 AM Eastern) Open Door teleconference to which everyone is welcomed. Click here to log in.
Issue: [18-90]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier
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
