Public hearing is next step for new Hawaii building code - Pacific Business News (Honolulu):

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The state Building Code Council is awaiting approvalofrom Gov. Linda Lingle to hold a statewide hearintg where the public can comment on the plansx for the state to go to the 2006 versio of the InternationalBuilding Code, said stat Comptroller Russ Saito, a nonvoting membe of the council. The council also will recommenc upgrading thestate fire, plumbing and electrical codes, as well as the states energy-conservation code, which replaces the state energy he said. After the comments are the code will be implemented if theree are no major changes to what already hasbeen proposed. If therr are major changes, it must go through the publicf hearingprocess again, Saito said.
The stat e will begin using the new codes for state agency The counties then will have two years to amendc their codes or follow the statemodeo code. “I think it’s good because in the buildingcode we’rs including the hurricane-resistant criteria that was developed a couple of yeards ago,” said Saito, who is in charg e of the Department of Accounting and General which oversees the state’s buildings. “It gives a consistenc in the way we designour buildings.
The whole idea is to be consistent among all the counties or as consistent as we can The energy-conservation code, based on the International Energuy Conservation Code, aims to make buildings more energy-efficient through insulation and other heat-deflecting devices. It initially will apply to allstatd buildings, including schools, and eventually all commercial and residentia buildings in the state.
“When we had our hearingas on the IECC we Hawaiianized quite a bitof it, becausw it’s a Mainland code, especially a lot of the insulatiob provisions, because they don’t apply here,” said Howard an energy analyst in the statee Department of Business, Economivc Development & Tourism’s energy office. For example, the Hawaiio group struck a provision from the Mainlaned code that exempts commercial and residential buildings withoutt heating and cooling systems from having to have That means insulation will be requirex even in buildings that do nothave air-conditioning he said.
“The real idea behind the ideal, would be to insulate the building such thatit doesn’ft need air conditioning,” he said. Windowsd will have to have a solar heat gainof 40, whicbh means they reflect back 60 percenf of the sun’s heat, said Wiig, who was recently appointes to the IECC’s national committee on energy as the tropical representative. One major provisiojn in the energy-conservation code that will impacr Hawaii’s commercial building industrhmandates commissioning.
That means a third-party inspector will be requiree to check the building three times durinfg the constructionprocess — during the blueprint in the middle of the constructioj phase, and just before the walls are closedx in to test for energy leakage, Wiig said. Althoughn this type of inspection has gone on for yearsa onthe Mainland, especially in California, it will be new to and could mean new jobs. “This is a new cottage industry,” Wiig said. “This is a new green job that’s beingy created.
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