Commercial Building Code Definition of the Day 18 Sep 2025

[jar546]

[BG] COMPUTER ROOM.
A room or portions of a building used primarily to house information technology equipment (ITE) and serving an ITE load less than or equal to10 kW or 20 W/ft2 (215 W/m2) of conditioned floor area.

 

[Yikes]

The word “OR” is important. A small I.T. closet with a rack mount will easily exceed 20 watts/SF, while remaining well under 10kW.

 

[jar546]

A computer room is not just any space with servers. The code makes it very specific: it must be a room used primarily to house information technology equipment, and it can only serve an IT equipment load of 10 kW or less, or 20 watts per square foot or less of conditioned floor area.

Think of a small municipal server room: two racks, a switch, and a firewall. The equipment draws 8 kW, and the room is 600 square feet. That works out to about 13 watts per square foot. Both numbers are below the limits. This room is a computer room by definition.

Now, picture a university data center. Rows of blade servers pulling 50 kW in a 1,500 square foot space. That’s about 33 watts per square foot and five times the 10 kW limit. Although it houses IT equipment, it is not considered a computer room as defined by the code. It is a data center or an information technology equipment room, which is subject to different requirements.

Do you agree?

 

[mtlogcabin]

it can only serve an IT equipment load of

I had to read it a couple of times before the "only serve" registered with my brain and made sense.

That is an easy one to get messed up with

 

[Paul Sweet]

This looks like it's a new definition for 2024. I wonder why they added the definition since the index doesn't list "Computer Room". I don't see "Data Center" or "Information Technology Equipment Room" listed in the index either.

I remember that computer rooms used to have to be fire-rated because of all the cabling under the raised floors, but I can't seem to find it now.

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

This looks like it's a new definition for 2024. I wonder why they added the definition since the index doesn't list "Computer Room". I don't see "Data Center" or "Information Technology Equipment Room" listed in the index either.

I remember that computer rooms used to have to be fire-rated because of all the cabling under the raised floors, but I can't seem to find it now.

The first thing I did, too, was to check the index to see what requirements the code had introduced for spaces meeting those definitions. And, like Paul Sweet, what I found was -- nothing.

What's the point of introducing definitions for terms that don't appear anywhere in the code?

The 2024 IBC also introduced two more new definitions that relate to this:

[BG] INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EQUIPMENT (ITE).
Computers, data storage, servers and network communication equipment.

[BG] INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EQUIPMENT FACILITIES (ITEF).
Data centers and computer rooms used primarily to house information technology equipment.

Of course, neither of these terms appears in the IBC index, either, but they do correspond more closely with the NEC terms:

Information Technology Equipment (ITE). Equipment and systems rated 600 volts or less, normally found in offices or other business establishments and similar environments classified as ordinary locations, that are used for creation and manipulation of data, voice, video, and similar signals that are not communications equipment as defined in Part I of Article 100 and do not process communications circuits as defined in 800.2.

Information Technology Equipment Room. A room within the information technology equipment area that contains the information technology equipment. [75:3.3.9]