Florida Building Commission (FBC) Approaching Completion of the First Draft of the Florida Building Code 7th Edition (2020)

The Florida Home Builders Association established a great track record over the last 18 months of the code change process. The process entailed at least thirty-three TAC meetings, more than 1200 proposed code modifications,  and approximately 352 public comments. Those supporting adoption of all the I-codes filed amendments ranging from snow loads to mandatory solar infrastructure.  Others sought to use the code to mandate new products which offered little, if any, benefit to Florida Consumers. Some of the submitted costs estimates included vague statements such as marginal and none-unless costs are passed onto the consumer. We are pleased to announce that the FHBA successfully fought-off these and other misguided amendments.

FHBA lauds the hard work of FHBA members of the FBC (Richard Goff, Drew M. Smith, John Wiseman, Oscar L. Calleja, and not to be forgotten Jay Carlson) and the members of the Residential Construction­ Cost Impact Work Group (all members of FHBA) created at the request of FHBA. The Commission is on the verge of producing a code that addresses the few issues raised in hurricanes Irma and Michael while fending off superfluous changes. Bottom line, the new process is working!

Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation giving a summary highlighting some of the code modifications. While there are mods related to hurricane resistance that will increase cost (updated national wind standard and enhanced roof underlayments) all were evaluated and supported by FHBA.

The Florida Building Code 7th edition (2020) will not go into effect until January 1, 2021, and the process is not complete. Certain interest groups promoting automatic adoption of the I-Codes still oppose the changes made by the Florida Legislature in 2018. Click here to view letter. The changes to the code amendment process were apparent by the reduced number of changes to the I-Codes adopted that in the past would have been automatically adopted as part of the new code.

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