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Most long time readers of this news letter will remember when the Hurricane Mitigation Requirements were adopted by the Florida Legislature as FAC Rule 9-B3.0475. This 14 page document went into effect in late 2007 and required that when the roof on an existing site built home was replaced several upgrades were to be performed at the owner’s expense. These upgrades included; refastening the roof decking, the addition of a secondary water barrier, strengthening of the gable ends, and a number of other requirements each based on a different set of thresholds.
As you have followed this issue you know that when the 2007 Florida Building Code went into effect this year these criteria were not included. However during development of the second edition of the 2009 amendments, the requirements were added. Remember, we adopted the 2007 Florida Building Code with the 2009 amendments (first edition) earlier this year. At the time of adoption into the Building Code of the amendments the Florida Legislature repealed FAC 9-B3.0475. The reason for repeal was that the changes were now incorporated into our Building Code and there was no further need for FAC Rule 9-B3.0475.
Specifically, the 2009 supplement to the 2007 Florida Building Code (aka 2009 amendments 1st edition) are available on the Florida DCA web site as the March 1, 2009 supplement to the 2007 Florida Building Code. The Florida’s Hurricane Mitigation requirements can be found in the October 2009 second supplement to the 2007 Building Code (aka 2009 amendments 2nd edition). If you look at the Florida DCA web site this is shown as the Oct. 1, 2009 supplement to the 2007 Florida Building Code.
Effective November 1, 2009 the two 2009 supplements were combined and published as insert pages to the code. Just to put into perspective the magnitude of the first and second edition of amendments, the supplement package of substitute and added pages is about the size of the Tampa telephone book. Nonetheless, with its publication, the Hurricane Mitigation Requirements are finally in the body of the Code. The majority of the requirements can be found in the Florida Building Code 2007, Existing Building (FEBC). Within the FEBC they have been included in chapter 6, the chapter titled Alterations - level 1. The requirements are placed at the end of section 611 in added paragraphs 611.7 through 611.8.1.7.
It appears that the Florida Legislature and the Florida Building Commission have worked together to get what was seen by many to be necessary and immediate needs into the Florida Building Code where they belong and not leave them in a separate stand alone legislated Code. The government has now completed their actions on these requirements and we can now point to them “in the code”. That is, once we’ve updated our code book with all of these yellow, changed and/or added, pages.
If you have questions about this issue, we're here to help. Contact Gary Pailthorp, PE, CBO, CFM at gpailthorp@brackenengineering.com.
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