BCAB #949 - Combustible Piping, Sentence 3.1.7.2.(1) & Subsection 3.5.3.

December 10, 1987

BCAB #949

Re: Combustible Piping, Sentence 3.1.7.2.(1) & Subsection 3.5.3.

With reference to your letter of October 19, 1987, regarding a domestic water distribution system in a high rise residential building. Refer also to Appeal No. 947 for some general provisions applicable to this appeal.

Our decisions on the questions raised are as follows:

1. The Code permits hot and cold risers to be located within a vertical shaft, and this would be required to comply with Subsection 3.5.3. We emphasize that we are dealing with pipes containing water, not drain, waste and vent pipes.

Any penetrations of the shaft walls would fall under Sentence 3.1.7.2.(1), requiring that, in the case of plastic pipe, the assembly be tested incorporating such equipment. Such testing has been dealt with in more detail under Appeal No. 950.

2. Acceptance of manifolds is not a requirement of the Building Code.

3. Running distribution pipes within a concrete floor slab, which is required to have a fire rating, would impair the fire resistance, unless the slab was tested incorporating the pipes. In addition from a plumbing aspect we could not consider the proposal to be acceptable.

J.C. Currie, Chair