Every year in May, DHCD celebrates Building Safety Month by raising building safety awareness. Building safety and the codes involved are what will ensure we have safe, sustainable structures for generations to come.
Building Safety Month is an international campaign to raise awareness about building safety, the benefits of modern up-to-date building codes and to help individuals, families, and businesses understand what it takes to create safe and sustainable structures. Virginia has statewide building and fire codes that are regularly updated to protect our citizens from disasters like fires, weather-related events, and structural collapse.
The topic for week one of Building Safety Month is ‘Preparing for disasters: Build strong, build smart’. DCHD is currently in the 2018 code change cycle, in which it helps stakeholders from all over Virginia create and develop modern, up to date codes. A new Resiliency Sub-workgroup will meet throughout this cycle to review the codes and make recommendations to increase resiliency. Keeping codes updated with new technology and standards will help keep communities safe in the event of natural disasters. The public is welcome to participate in the code development process. Resources can be found on https://va.cdpaccess.com.
The topic for week two of Building Safety Month is ‘Ensuring a safer future through training and education’. DHCD partners with the Virginia Building Code Officials Association (VBCOA) and the Virginia Plumbing and Mechanical Inspectors Association (VPMIA) to award scholarships to students in the code arena. This year, students must write a 1000 word or less essay illustrating how having building codes in place can increase the level of confidence within a community. DHCD not only focus on education and outreach during the month of May. DHCD’s Jack Proctor Virginia Building Code Academy provides important training and education to the code enforcement industry throughout the year. The Building Code Academy successfully provided an estimated 4,392 instruction hours in 2018, offering courses in every facet of the codes.
The topic for week three is ‘Securing clean, abundant water for all communities’. Currently, DHCD staff is working with the Virginia Department of Health in an effort to develop regulations for harvesting rainwater for potable reuse. Being able to harvest rainwater would reduce the strain on water supplies and open doors for providing water to communities in need all over the commonwealth.
The topic for week four is ‘Construction professionals and homeowners: Partners in safety’. DHCD works closely with code officials and homeowners on a daily basis, including modular and manufactured home owners, providing technical assistance, helping resolve issues and enforcing the safety regulations related to manufactured and modular housing..
The topic for week five is ‘Innovations in building safety’. The construction industry is increasingly utilizing more technology and many homes or parts of homes today are constructed in factories and delivered to the installation site. DHCD is currently working with multiple stakeholder groups on initiatives to utilize alternative building methods and materials. Some of the topics being explored are 3-D printed houses and homes made out of shipping containers. These new methods of construction are not only innovative, but they might also provide additional temporary and affordable housing options, not only in Virginia but across the globe.
Code officials and design professionals work every day to ensure the buildings we enjoy are safe. We encourage you to take a moment this month to appreciate Virginia’s building and fire codes and those that enforce them. It is because of them that we can be confident that the structures where we live, work and play are safe and resilient.
Thank you to the Va. Department of Housing and Community Development for contributing this article.