Proposed Change 1812

The National Building Code of Canada (NBC) currently applies to the alteration of existing buildings; however, authorities having jurisdiction may grant relaxations to specific Code requirements that are not practical to apply to existing buildings, relative to the importance of those requirements in meeting the Code objectives.

These relaxations may vary by jurisdiction, leading to confusion among Code users about the degree of work required for the alteration to meet the Code requirements. In order to provide a consistent set of requirements that apply to the alteration of existing buildings in a new Part in the NBC, the application of this set of requirements, including any appropriate relaxations, must be stated.

Given that it may not be practical to apply these requirements to the alteration of all building types, certain building types need to be explicitly excluded from the application of the new Part.

The voluntary alteration of an existing building presents an opportunity to upgrade the energy performance of the building. When significant repairs or alterations need to be made, the energy performance of the building should be improved at the same time where it is cost-effective to do so, thereby minimizing the incremental cost of the upgrade.

The Code requirements that apply to alterations must be identified, with any permitted relaxations provided where applicable.

The building types that are excluded from the requirements to upgrade during an alteration (e.g., tents) must be stated in order to clarify that the requirements are either impractical to apply to that building type, or that additional consideration should be given to prevent any negative consequences.

Providing a set of consistent, harmonized and cost-effective requirements that apply to the alteration of an existing building would provide Code users, the industry and authorities having jurisdiction with a clear expectation of the degree of work required to improve the energy performance of an existing building.

The proposed changes to Division B that apply to the alteration of existing buildings provide the impact analysis for each technical requirement.

It is expected that the proposed Code requirements that apply to the alteration of existing buildings would provide a benefit to both the industry and authorities having jurisdiction by providing a consistent set of provisions to ensure an acceptable level of safety and building performance, and to remove ambiguity with respect to the degree of work required to improve energy performance in the unaltered portion of the building.

This proposed change would help reduce the administrative and enforcement costs of assessing the degree to which any particular requirement could be relaxed without affecting the level of performance of the building with respect to the Code objectives.

It is expected that a consistent set of provisions that apply to the alteration of existing buildings would help reduce the administrative and enforcement work of assessing the degree to which any particular requirement could be relaxed without affecting the level of performance of the building with respect to the Code objectives. The proposed changes would aid enforcement by identifying the work necessary to improve energy performance in the unaltered portion of the building.

Designers, engineers, architects, building officials, manufacturers, suppliers and energy advisors.