Pennsylvania’s building codes will be updated this year for the first time in nearly a decade, after a state review board adopted a suite of changes to modernize standards for constructing homes and commercial buildings.
The changes will apply to things such as fire safety, insulation and building materials in new construction and major renovations. They are expected to make new homes about 25 percent more energy efficient than homes built to the 2009 standards.
The new codes will take effect Oct. 1.
Updated model codes are published by the International Code Council every three years.
But Pennsylvania’s building codes had largely been stagnant since a 2011 state law required two-thirds of its advisory board to opt in to each of thousands of recommended code changes.
In 2012, the Review and Advisory Council accepted no changes to the state’s Uniform Construction Code. In 2015, it adopted just 16 of 1,902 proposed changes.
A state law last year aimed to ease the stalemate by making it less cumbersome to catch up with past changes and institute new ones, even while it ensured each future round of model codes will be at least three years old before it can be implemented in Pennsylvania. The new codes are based on the 2015 model standards.
An analysis done for the U.S. Department of Energy found that if new Pennsylvania homes were built to meet the 2015 code for energy performance — instead of the current 2009 code — energy savings would pay back the higher upfront costs in a little more than three years. Over 30 years, the net savings for the average Pennsylvania home built to the newer code would be more than $8,000.
Green building advocates had worried that the updated code review process still made it too easy for the board to reject changes that would increase the initial costs of new construction even if those costs were offset by later savings. The energy code was one of the likeliest targets.
Kristen Osterwood, the technical and policy director for the South Side-based Green Building Alliance, said she had “expected it to be completely stripped.”
But during four meetings in March and April, the board adopted the 2015 model codes “with modest amendments,” making fewer than 30 changes, according to the board chairman’s report.
Ms. Osterwood said the board relaxed the most important energy performance update in the code: The Pennsylvania standard for a building’s airtightness will be stricter than the 2009 standard but not as strict as the 2015 model code recommends.
Still, the new codes encompass standards for insulation, windows and lighting that will cut down on the energy wasted by new buildings.
“We’re not leaders,” she said, “but hopefully we won’t be the back of the pack anymore.”
The Pennsylvania Builders Association, which pushed to slow new code adoption, wrote to its members that it had successfully advocated to reject or modify “the most egregious code provisions” up for review, “but all residential builders should be prepared for a major update” to the current code beginning in October.
Frank C. Thompson, a Cranberry-based homebuilder and land developer and an association member, said the board used its new ability to modify provisions — instead of just accepting or rejecting them — which resulted in “better outcomes for Pennsylvania’s home-buying consumers.”
The cost of new home construction will increase with the new codes, he said, and it may not be reflected in appraisals, which often do not properly value a home’s energy attributes.
“It is definitely going to be a challenge,” he said.
Supporters of adopting the 2015 model code in its entirety included architects, code enforcement officials, fire marshals, electricians and the City of Pittsburgh, which wrote earlier this year that the state’s failure to adopt updated codes had subjected building owners, residents and first responders to “higher insurance premiums, greater safety concerns, higher building operating costs … and higher greenhouse gas emissions.”
Laura Legere: llegere@post-gazette.com.
First Published: May 30, 2018, 12:30 p.m.
