Building to code | New uniform building standards overhaul the construction landscape
Photo/Amber Waterman
Dick Dolby, head of the new Bureau of Building Codes and Standards, says the new code will serve to unify construction standards across the state
When Dick Dolby built his house back in 1977, he relied on the common sense and wisdom of his father, brother and other family members skilled in the art of construction. Starting Dec. 1, that kind of familial collection of wisdom will cede to Maine’s Uniform Building and Energy Code — MUBEC, for short — a new law that standardizes building codes across the state.
Dolby is the head of the state’s new Bureau of Building Codes and Standards, created to oversee the implementation of MUBEC. All municipalities will have to adopt MUBEC, a provision that Jeffrey Austin, a Maine Municipal Association lobbyist, declared one of “the more significant public policy changes in Maine in recent times,” in the MMA September newsletter.
MUBEC blends standards from four nationally accepted code books and four national trade association standards into the new statewide code. It will supersede existing municipal building codes in the communities that have them, and impose building standards in communities that don’t.
“You’d be surprised how many communities have no building codes at all,” says Dolby, who spent 23 years as director of Augusta’s code enforcement. “The intent of the law is to level the playing field” and push the state’s aging, drafty housing stock into the 21st century by requiring energy-efficient design in new construction.
Contractors across the state must build to MUBEC standards, regardless of whether it is a commercial or residential building and irrespective of a community’s size.
But size does matter in the municipal role of MUBEC. For municipalities with more than 2,000 people that already have model building codes, enforcement of MUBEC begins Dec. 1 (that’s about 70 communities, estimates Dolby, most of which have a knowledgeable code enforcement officer.) For communities bigger than 2,000 residents that don’t have industry-recognized codes — such as Skowhegan, Kittery and Camden — the implementation date is July 1, 2012.
“That’s to give those communities time to get a code enforcement officer in place and get that person trained, if that’s what they want to do,” says Dolby.
The third category — communities with fewer than 2,000 people — requires new buildings to meet the MUBEC code, but towns are not required to be the enforcing agent.
Careful to avoid passing an unfunded mandate, the creators of MUBEC put the onus of complying with the new code on builders. They gave communities the option of using municipal staff to perform inspections, or for builders, developers or homeowners to hire independent third-party inspectors to ensure compliance with the new code. Municipalities are not allowed to issue an occupancy permit for a new building without the inspection report, whether signed off on by a town code enforcement officer or one of the third-party inspectors.
One wrinkle to the new code is the dearth of third-party inspectors in Maine. The State Planning Office is offering training in the new codes to familiarize municipal staff, and to people interested in becoming third-party inspectors. Classes in various locations throughout November and December are posted on the SPO website.
Mainebiz chatted with Dolby about MUBEC and the reasons behind it. The following is an edited transcript.
Mainebiz: What is MUBEC and who does it most affect?
Dolby: Hooboy. It affects the entire state, every construction project. No matter where you build, as of Dec. 1, it should be done in compliance with MUBEC. Whether you’re up in Ashland or Auburn or Augusta, any contractor building anything should be aware of and constructing his project in compliance with the Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code.
For instance, let’s say you’re in one of Maine’s smaller communities and you want to build a McDonald’s restaurant or a VIP Auto. Those are commercial projects and are supposed to be designed and built in accordance with the code. [With MUBEC], not much changes. The architect continues to design the building and tells the contractor how to build it.
But then there’s you and I. If we want to have a home built, who assists us? It’s up to the homeowner to decide. This building code is designed as a specification code. If you tell me you want to build a wall to support a one-story house, [the code] tells you to use a 2x6 that is so long. If you want a floor in the living room, it dictates the load capacity. You want to use spruce or fir, if the span is over 10 feet, you should use a 2x8, and so on.
Before this law took effect, people could do whatever they thought would work?
Yes, that’s right. But we’ve been very fortunate to have a population that had some reasonable understanding of how to build things. The carpenter I hired down the street … his common sense was enough. As long as you stay to what’s written in the code, you really don’t need an architect or an engineer [to build a house]. These are very common-sense applications of typical rules. How many nails to put in a piece of Sheetrock and so on.
So with this new code, it’s going to tell you what size screw, how many, what kind … this is all specs. That’s going to help the builder figure out what he ought to be doing and protect the homeowner by building a house with the right floor load or right roof load, and not make the homeowner go out and hire an architect for that. And it also protects the builder, because he’s not a designer. He doesn’t necessarily have to make those decisions.
The new code calls for insulation standards as well?
Oh yeah. We have not done a really good job staying ahead of the insulation rules. One of the big reasons we have a code in Maine at all now is because the DOE said you really need an energy code up there in the Northeast.
The federal Department of Energy?
Yes, they encouraged us to do that. Maine State Housing has a low-income energy program where if you’re in need, they’ll put the oil in the tank. But before they do, they’ll look at your house and make sure you’re not going to heat the outdoors. And they’re going to make sure it’s reasonably insulated.
We’ve got a lot of older houses that are unreasonably insulated. [The DOE said] ‘If we’re going to give you the oil for the furnace every year, you’ve got to make some changes here.’
So they were trying to prevent throwing good money after bad?
Yes. When I was building my house, I went through some training with the state energy folks [back in ’77]. At the time, all you needed was three and half inches in the attic. … The problem is, we’re still building them that way. There’s nothing that tells you in 80% of the communities of the state that you have to put in insulation.
I saw that when went back to work in Kennebunk issuing permits for brand new houses and looked at the standards [after attending energy auditing classes]and realized that the next year those houses would qualify to be retrofitted. That’s because some contractors haven’t had the opportunity to share the knowledge of the energy code that’s been developed.
That was the impetus behind this code?
Well, the Business, Research and Economic Development Committee found many reasons. The strongest thing was you’d go to one town and find a modern building code and the next didn’t have any rules at all. So an architect could go to Biddeford and design according to one set of codes and go to Saco and find another set of rules and go to Wells and another. He had to have eight or nine code books on his desk and all the provisions for every one of those. So architects, engineers and contractors said for a number of years that it would be wonderful if we had one document.
Plus I believe you’ll find in the BRED Committee information that they were told a lot of developers don’t like coming into a state that doesn’t have a nationally recognized code.
You mean out-of-state developers, or people looking to make big investments?
Yes. If I want to build a Ford Motor plant, I want to know that the structure’s going to be appropriately designed. I want to know the housing my people live in is going to be appropriately built. There was such disparity between one town and the other. So they wanted to level the playing field and have one set of rules.
The big question now is how will code enforcement work. In a lot of the southern communities, it’s no big deal because they were adopting a new code every three years and they’d learn the code changes. But there are quite a few communities where you ask for a building permit and you just pay the fee and the town doesn’t look at the site or the plan. MUBEC should begin some standardization.
Probably 75% to 80% of the people in Maine live in communities of more than 2,000 and already have a building code. So most towns should have somebody to work with the new code right away. But there are a number of communities over 2,000 without a building code.
What’s the plan for getting the new information out to builders/contractors?
The hard part right now is there’s a lot of push on the code enforcement officers. But nobody to speak of is saying, ‘Let’s mandate, that contractors own a code and study it.’ I think we should design a course for the contractor. The contractor needs to know the code better than the inspector.
What I have pushed for and what I think they’re trying to do is get the assistance of the community colleges in designing a more advanced class for the contractor. That makes the most sense to me.
Carol Coultas, Mainebiz editor, can be reached at ccoultas@mainebiz.biz.
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