Your One Stop Tenant Improvement Shop
British Columbia is releasing a new guide that builds on industry knowledge gained over the past decade to enhance the quality of wood-frame, multi-unit residential buildings constructed in British Columbia. Developed in consultation with an industry task group, it updates earlier best practice guides that have been instrumental in creating a consistent approach to the design and construction of effective building envelopes ... »»»
The column in the May 18 issue of the Journal of Commerce by Carolyn Campbell with the B.C. Ready Mixed Concrete Association significantly misrepresented the fire in the Remy in Richmond. It notably confused the fire risk of a building under construction with the fire risk of a completed building. These risks are entirely dissimilar. One could equally use the argument that a fire in a car plant means that all cars are unsafe to drive ... »»»
C'mon people, the fire was an unfortunate course-of-construction occurrence. It had nothing to do with building codes. To a thirsty flame, the structure was merely a pile of dry kindling. At the same stage of construction, a three-or four-storey woodframe structure would have suffered the same fate. If construction had been complete, with all safety systems installed -sprinklers, fire breaks, alarms, etc. -a fire would likely be contained to a single suite or isolated to one small area of the building and dealt with expeditiously ... »»»
The safety of six-storey wood frame construction is being questioned after a housing project, being built under new regulations, was destroyed by a fire in Richmond, B.C. The Office of Housing and Construction adopted changes to the B.C. Building Code in April 2009, which increased the limit on wood-frame structures from four to six storeys ... »»»