NFPA 101 2000 vs 2015 Residential Board and Care Construction Type

[Frank Lloyd Left]

Greetings everyone. Happy to have come across this forum. I have a head scratcher that I was hoping others might be able to help with.

I am working on a new Supportive Living Facility (SLF) ie affordable senior living in IL. (4 stories, ~140 units) The project is potentially under multiple versions of NFPA 101 due to the following:

1. IL Dept of Health and Family Services stipulates the project to conform to the current State building code, ....2000 NFPA 101 Chapter 32 Residential Board and Care, March 11, 2003 "and no later amendments or editions" or local building codes if more stringent.
2. As of 2020, the State Fire Marshal has adopted the 2015 version of NFPA 101 over the 2000 version.
3. Building code is IBC 2018

The reason I ask, is my reading of these two versions of NFPA 101, there is a night and day difference of construction type/ fire rating requirements between NFPA 101 2015 as compared to the 2000 edition or requirements per IBC. By my estimation, the 2000 version is quite permissive, including allowing Type V (000) construction up to 4 stories, while the chart in 2015 indicates a 4 story (4-12) must be construction Type II (222). IBC is somewhere in the middle for occupancy type I-1 Condition 2 requiring Type II, but only equivalent to (111) construction by NFPA standards.

My plan to this point has been for the building to be primarily a load bearing cold form metal frame construction, with a fire resistance more in line with (111). I don't know at what point making a cold form building becomes impractical due to extra layers of sheathing & drywall vs going to a concrete frame.

Obviously the difference between the codes has a substantial impact on the overall building construction to say the least. Could anyone shed some light on to if there is an exception that I'm not seeing in the 2015 version or possibly the rationale for the large swing in construction type requirements? Side note this is my first senior living project, my background is in large multifamily.

I have a meeting with the local fire marshal at the end of the week where I'm hoping to get some clarity on this. I would like to think there is some rational middle ground that would be reasonable for this construction type, but I don't know how much authority local fire marshals have on something like this.

Sorry for the long intro!

 

[Yankee Chronicler]

Greetings everyone. Happy to have come across this forum. I have a head scratcher that I was hoping others might be able to help with.

I am working on a new Supportive Living Facility (SLF) ie affordable senior living in IL. (4 stories, ~140 units) The project is potentially under multiple versions of NFPA 101 due to the following:

1. IL Dept of Health and Family Services stipulates the project to conform to the current State building code, ....2000 NFPA 101 Chapter 32 Residential Board and Care, March 11, 2003 "and no later amendments or editions" or local building codes if more stringent.
2. As of 2020, the State Fire Marshal has adopted the 2015 version of NFPA 101 over the 2000 version.
3. Building code is IBC 2018

Why are you meeting with the fire marshal if your problem is the health department?

And you say the State Fire Marshal adopted the 2015 NFPA 101 as of 2020. It's now 2023, and since 2015 there have been two newer editions of NFPA 101. The State hasn't adopted anything newer than 2015?

Is the project in Chicago, or elsewhere in Illinois?

 

[Frank Lloyd Left]

Why are you meeting with the fire marshal if your problem is the health department?

And you say the State Fire Marshal adopted the 2015 NFPA 101 as of 2020. It's now 2023, and since 2015 there have been two newer editions of NFPA 101. The State hasn't adopted anything newer than 2015?

Is the project in Chicago, or elsewhere in Illinois?

The project is outside of Chicago, northern suburb. I'm not entirely sure as to why the state or local AHJs don't adopt the most recent codes. Speculation on my part would be that the bigger developers have a great deal to say in what gets adopted as newer codes often come with additional costs. It wasn't until 2019 that Chicago switched from their own entirely unique code to a modified version of IBC. The modifications are heavily toward omitting aspects that would otherwise be costly for large scale development. Not to say Chicago doesn't take fire aspects seriously - they do as there is history there.

Since the DHFS says NFPA 101, 2000 and not later amendments or editions, the thought with meeting with the fire marshal was if they would accept the 2000 version as the governing code or provide some kind of variance on the (222) requirement. The requirements from the local municipality do not list NFPA at all, so I'm also not sure what body is reviewing for NFPA as opposed to IBC given the difference in requirements.

I have not really run into this discrepancy with respect to NFPA 101 prior either because it didn't apply or the building code was more stringent.

 

[Joe.B]

If I'm understanding correctly, it sounds like the Department of Health and Family Services wants you to follow specifically Chapter 32 of the 2000 NFPA 101, with the understanding that nothing can conflict with the current building code. I would suggest that you have to follow current building code first, while trying to incorporate provisions from Ch 32 that don't conflict... I haven't reviewed that section though so I don't know the feasibility of that.

As far as construction type, ever considered Mass Timber? The introduction of CLT panels has expanded the possibilities of what can be built. The 2021 IBC added three new construction types, and a whole bunch of provisions specifically for Mass Timber and CLT products. You mentioned your project is under 2018, so maybe not for this one, but maybe check it out for future projects.

 

[Frank Lloyd Left]

I agree that we have to follow the current building code as a baseline. I'll report back what we find out tomorrow - should be interesting.

I have thought about mass timber, but honestly I just don't know enough about it - especially where it falls out on cost to know if it would be a viable option. I would also have to do some research into what some of the funding sources for this type of project have to say about it as there might be some aspects that don't jive well with their requirements.

 

[Joe.B]

I did a little bit of research on it and it appears to be roughly equivalent in cost to concrete and steel construction. Like a pre-cast, concrete tilt-up structure, you save a lot of money in construction time. It has a lot going for it, it's both strong and flexible, and has a surprisingly high fire rating and resiliency. The big bonus is environmental impact, and if the right funding sources get wind of that it could help. I have a bunch of different stuff I dug up, but I'll just share this one:

 

[Frank Lloyd Left]

I did a little bit of research on it and it appears to be roughly equivalent in cost to concrete and steel construction. Like a pre-cast, concrete tilt-up structure, you save a lot of money in construction time. It has a lot going for it, it's both strong and flexible, and has a surprisingly high fire rating and resiliency. The big bonus is environmental impact, and if the right funding sources get wind of that it could help. I have a bunch of different stuff I dug up, but I'll just share this one:

Thank you Joe. I'll have to start asking my friends in the GC circle about how local trades are coming along with this. I know there has been some movement towards mass timber, but not sure who installs it locally. I'm also a hobbyist woodworker so it's defiantly an interest to me.

 

[Frank Lloyd Left]

Update on the meeting with the local Fire Marshal. He said that NFPA is the law of the land as far as the state is concerned and he doesn't even have contact with the state FM. We both agreed that since the local municipality does not specifically list NFPA we're not sure who is reviewing for this aspect since it is above and beyond what IBC prescribes. I've never had a state entity do a review prior to construction and in my role we don't always know who is reviewing at any step in the construction process. It would seem the state should review at some point?

GC is out doing pricing on cold form metal framing and concrete. Initial info from concrete sub sounded very attractive on speed of schedule and other cost savings aspects (some of which I had not considered). They would basically have the entire superstructure done by the time podium concrete demobilizes and cold form mobilizes. The inherent fire rating is obviously a major plus.