F-1 or S-2?

[Mr. Inspector]

The designer has a garage occupancy as F-1 where decals are put on trucks and cars. No motor repairs are done. I believe it should be S-2. What do you think?

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

A long time ago, a code old timer described S-2 as where they store iron ingots in metal pails filled with water. His point was that S-2 is for storage of LOW-hazard materials, and that we should pay attention to the "LOW" in low-hazard.

Do they just "apply" the decals in this business? Where do the decals come from? Do they make them on site? Do they have rolls of vinyl material from which to cut the decals? How are the designs applied to the vinyl material? Is that done on the site? Is the paint or ink or dye flammable? What quantities of flammable materials do they have in there? If the decals are fabricated elsewhere, how many decals do they typically have in the facility at any given time?

In general, except for motor vehicle repair S occupancies are for storage, not work. F occupancies are for "0assembling, disassembling, fabricating, finishing, manufacturing, packaging, repair or processing operations that are not classified as a Group H hazardous or Group S storage occupancy."

I think F-1 is the appropriate classification. If it were going to be an S, I would go with S-1, not S-2.

 

[Mr. Inspector]

I used S-2 because they need to park the vehicles inside this garage to put the decals on them which to me was the closest classification. Nothing about parked vehicles under F1 or F2. They make the decals in an attached building which they are classifying as "B" so I guess they have rolls of vinyl there.

This garage was built with no permit. It is an addition to a B and R3 use building that has no C. O. and was built before we adopted the code.