News
Advisory Committee Reports Productive First Year
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Chairman Mark Crawford reports that ESAC had a productive first year. |
The Evaluation Services Advisory Committee (ESAC), established by the ICC-ES Board of Directors to work with ICC-ES on matters related to Acceptance Criteria, Evaluation Reports and service-related issues, is beginning it second year of operation. This 20-member committee, which is comprised of members from the building industry, had a successful first year and is looking forward to a productive second year of service.
In its first year, ESAC met five times and accomplished the following:
- Established a good working relationship with ICC-ES staff and the ICC-ES Board of Directors.
- Worked with staff and the Board to establish ESAC policies and procedures.
- A new “ICC Evaluation Service, Inc., Rules of Procedure for Appeals of Evaluation Committee Technical Decisions” was established and posted to the ICC-ES website. Applicants now have a technical appeals process available to them if they feel a provision of an Acceptance Criteria was not adequately evaluated.
- An improved Evaluation Report submittal checklist was established and posted to the ICC-ES website. This will help applicants submit higher-quality submittal packages for review by ICC-ES.
ESAC will be meeting three times in 2008 and working on the following:
- Developing proposals for improving the Acceptance Criteria public comment process and the public hearing process.
- Developing a checklist for the submittal of new draft Acceptance Criterias to help ensure that improved, complete submittals are provided to ICC-ES. (Similar to the Evaluation Report submittal checklist that was put in place last year.)
- Developing proposals for improving the uniformity of Evaluation Service Reports that are based on the same Acceptance Criteria. This will have a two-fold benefit in that it will make it easier for building officials to use the Evaluation Service Reports, and it will help ensure that the Acceptance Criteria and code requirements are uniformly applied to each product report.
- Developing proposals to help ensure consistent application of technical decisions within ICC-ES are applied to all applicants.
- Discussing various additional issues as considered helpful or needed by the ICC-ES staff and the ESAC members.
As always, each ESAC meeting is open to the public. If you have any interest or concerns related to ICC-ES or ESAC activities, come join in the discussions and planning. Meeting information is posted on the ICC-ES website approximately four weeks before each meeting.
