I am doing a life safety review of a local hospital built in 2002 and from the 97 UBC. We are seeing walls that are labeled "ONE-HOUR RATED UBC PARTITION". I am trying to find out what the "UBC Partition" means and am trying to find the partition types in the original set. The issue the hospital is facing is that the doors in the UBC partition are 20 minutes fire rated doors, which I assume was allowed back then but now the AHJ is saying they need to change out all the doors to 45 minute fire doors to match the one hour wall rating. The hospital of course if fighting it since it would be about a half million dollars. Can anyone provide insight on this? On subsequent additions to the patient wings under the IBC, that just extend the corridors, these walls switch to non-rated smoke partitions. Just trying to figure out how to save the hospital a half million dollars.
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1997 UBC Rated Partition Question
- Thread starter denvermac
- Start date
Well the ahj should have a set of the plans!!
They should provide from the code adopted, that the building was built under, the requirement showing 45 minute doors were required.
The other problem it more than likely had to meet NFPA 101.
Which back in the day sometimes conflicted with UBC
I do not think even 101 required 45 minute doors.
Where are some of these doors at??
What use room do they serve??? Patient, office, other ?
They should provide from the code adopted, that the building was built under, the requirement showing 45 minute doors were required.
The other problem it more than likely had to meet NFPA 101.
Which back in the day sometimes conflicted with UBC
I do not think even 101 required 45 minute doors.
Where are some of these doors at??
What use room do they serve??? Patient, office, other ?
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Chapter 10 starts page 105
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If the walls are corridor walls, then under the UBC they were not called "fire partitions" at the time, just walls of "one-hour fire-resistive construction." Similar to the IBC, one-hour corridor walls are permitted to have 20-minute openings.
If the walls are considered occupancy separation walls (there was no such thing as nonseparated occupancies in the UBC--all mixed-use buildings were considered separated), then the openings were required to be one-hour rated.
If the building is of a type of construction that required one-hour construction throughout, then no openings are required to be protected in the walls unless the walls form a corridor, occupancy separation, or other assembly requiring protected openings (e.g., shafts, stair enclosures, exit passageways, etc.).
If the walls are considered occupancy separation walls (there was no such thing as nonseparated occupancies in the UBC--all mixed-use buildings were considered separated), then the openings were required to be one-hour rated.
If the building is of a type of construction that required one-hour construction throughout, then no openings are required to be protected in the walls unless the walls form a corridor, occupancy separation, or other assembly requiring protected openings (e.g., shafts, stair enclosures, exit passageways, etc.).
steveray
SAWHORSE
Who is the AHJ? DPH? What is driving the retro upgrade? Any remodeling?
The only thing that would be unique to hospitals per the UBC would be smoke barriers for smoke compartments. Unlike the IBC which requires 1-hour openings in smoke barriers, the UBC only required 20-minute openings (I'm suspecting this may be the case in this situation).
It makes sense that the required rating must be per a UBC requirement and not per an NFPA 101 requirement because of the wall markings. They may have done so for JCAHO's (now "The Joint Commission") benefit to show which fire-rated walls were required by which code.
Unless the building is going through some kind of alteration that exceeds 50% of the building area, there is no requirement to change the door openings throughout the entire building to comply with the current building code. Even then, only the doors within the work area (if using the IEBC work area compliance method) are required to comply with the current code. If using the IEBC prescriptive compliance method, then there is no requirement to change out any existing door unless it makes the building less compliant with the IBC than it was before the alteration.
Yes, which is why they may have labeled the wall as a "UBC Partition," since it was a rated wall required by the UBC and not NFPA 101--the most restrictive requirement of the two codes will apply. Either the NFPA 101 was silent on the matter or the UBC requirement was more restrictive than the NFPA 101 requirement.
So I got found out that this request did not come from an AHJ but from a consulting company, Barrier Compliance, that is doing a review of all their doors. They have their Joint Commission coming up in the first half of 2021 so they brought them in to find any issues. I don't have a lot of hospital experience but I would expect these doors to be grandfathered under the code they were built under.
Picture this. You are standing in a central nurse station looking down the hallway of one of the patient wings. The first half of the hallway, from the 97 UBC, is a 1-hour fire partition with 20 minute doors into the patient rooms. Then there is a building expansion joint and the second half of the hallway is an addition, same continuous hallway. The second have of the hallway, under the IBC, is a non-rated smoke partition with non-rated smoke doors. This consulting company is stating that the 97 UBC rated wall needs a 45 minute door in it since it is 1-hour, not a 20 minute door. I think it's hogwash that any building would have to change out these doors because the code at time of permit did not require it. I am going to do some more reading in the 97 UBC but I feel confident they don't need to do it.
Picture this. You are standing in a central nurse station looking down the hallway of one of the patient wings. The first half of the hallway, from the 97 UBC, is a 1-hour fire partition with 20 minute doors into the patient rooms. Then there is a building expansion joint and the second half of the hallway is an addition, same continuous hallway. The second have of the hallway, under the IBC, is a non-rated smoke partition with non-rated smoke doors. This consulting company is stating that the 97 UBC rated wall needs a 45 minute door in it since it is 1-hour, not a 20 minute door. I think it's hogwash that any building would have to change out these doors because the code at time of permit did not require it. I am going to do some more reading in the 97 UBC but I feel confident they don't need to do it.
Tell the highly paid firm to give you the code reference where they think this comes from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
See if it ever shows up.
It is hogwash. It sounds like a corridor wall, which the UBC only required a 20-minute door in the 1-hour-rated corridor (even in the current IBC that is the most that is required for a corridor wall). However, for hospitals (IBC Group I-2), the IBC and NFPA 101 only require smoke partitions and smoke-rated openings as you stated. Thus, that older corridor wall exceeds the current requirements, and there is no need to replace the doors.
ADAguy
REGISTERED
And the building is sprinklered too?