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Fargo inspections director outlines technical corrections to International Residential Code
Summary
City of Fargo inspections staff presented a package of technical edits to the International Residential Code (IRC) covering enforcement-agency naming, landing and riser dimensions, flood-code cross-reference and several deleted tables and sections; no adoption vote was recorded at the meeting.
Shawn Rednick, inspections director for the City of Fargo, presented proposed technical amendments to the International Residential Code (IRC) chapters 1, 3, 4 and 6 during the board's unfinished-business code review.
Rednick said the changes are largely cleanup to align local practice with the adopted code. "We just saw that historically the name of the enforcement agency was wrong. So we just wanted to make sure we corrected that in the new adoption," he said, noting the enforcement agency name will read "Inspections Department." He also described multiple dimensional corrections to stair and landing language that he said were intended to match the rest of the code.
The package described by Rednick would: change landing thickness/height language from "7 3/4 inches" to "8 inches" in two places referenced in chapter 3; revise the language about risers so the total rise is capped at 30 inches (rather than a limit described as "not more than two risers"); replace section R322 with the local Fargo flood code in chapter 4; delete specified sections and tables in chapters 5 and 6; and amend header/stud-count language in chapter 6 to the configuration currently used by the inspections staff.
Rednick summarized the intent as maintaining consistency with prior local practice and with adopted tables and figures. He told the board the stud/header language is being amended to read as it has been applied in practice: the number of full-height studs required at each support will be set to "not less than 1 plus the number of studs displaced by half of the header span based on the maximum stud spacing in accordance with [the applicable table]."
Board members asked no substantive policy questions during the presentation; the items were presented as technical clarifications rather than new policy changes. The record does not show a formal vote to adopt these IRC amendments at the meeting.
Earlier in the meeting the board approved the minutes; that motion passed by voice vote before the unfinished-business discussion began.
The proposed wording changes will require staff to prepare final ordinance/adoption language if the board places the items on a future agenda for formal adoption.
