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Research Reports and Listings Based on ICC-ES Acceptance Criteria
ICC Evaluation Service (ICC-ES) is aware that other organizations are issuing research reports and listings based on ICC-ES acceptance criteria. A number of jurisdictions, concerned with enforcing building regulations, have inquired about the reliability of these reports and listings, and their usefulness in determining compliance with the International Building Code® (IBC) and other codes.
It must be stressed, first and foremost, that ICC-ES acceptance criteria are created solely for the purpose of issuing ICC-ES evaluation reports on building products. The criteria specify the information that is required to justify compliance of a product with the model codes, and issuance of an ICC-ES evaluation report indicates that compliance. ICC-ES evaluation reports, in turn, are intended for use by jurisdictions enforcing building regulations, to assist them in rendering decisions as to whether a particular product complies with the building code they are charged with enforcing. To develop criteria and write reports, ICC-ES employs a large staff of professionally licensed architects and civil, structural, mechanical and fire protection engineers, several of whom also have product testing backgrounds. The members of the ICC-ES technical staff are experts in the application of model codes, and also have access to historical information relating to product evaluation. Additionally, in developing acceptance criteria, ICC-ES routinely seeks input from experts in the building industry, through a process of open public hearings conducted by an independent committee (the ICC-ES Evaluation Committee) composed of representatives of governmental jurisdictions that actually enforce building regulations. The ICC-ES Evaluation Committee will approve an acceptance criteria only when it is satisfied that the criteria adequately addresses the needs of the building officials who approve building products. Through the ICC-ES process of developing technical criteria with input from interested parties, and then issuing evaluation reports based on those criteria, there is a certain guarantee of consistency and fairness, of transparency and independence. The ICC-ES process also makes sure, in the end, that the best interests of the building official are served.
Section 104.11 of the 2003 IBC makes it clear that the building official is the approving authority for alternate building products, and that the building official therefore determines the basis of approval. That basis may be ICC-ES evaluation reports, research reports issued by other organizations, listings by approved agencies, or the building official's independent evaluation of data. (For purposes of this article, "research reports" deal with code compliance, while "listings" deal with compliance of a product with specified standards or acceptance criteria.) The recent inquiries from jurisdictions, mentioned earlier in this article, concern the qualifications of various agencies, other than ICC-ES, that have recently been issuing declarations of product compliance with ICC-ES acceptance criteria. Questions arise because ICC-ES acceptance criteria, while freely available to any interested party as part of the transparent ICC-ES process, are always developed for the purpose of issuing ICC-ES evaluation reports-not for other uses by other organizations. Some of the inquiries, too, have concerned statements made by various parties that building officials are somehow obligated to approve building products based on reports or listings from accredited agencies. Given some of the questions that have arisen, ICC-ES offers the following as information for the code official to use in determining whether to approve or disapprove use of any given building product:
- The agency issuing a report or listing should be accredited as a product certification agency. An accredited testing laboratory or inspection agency is not necessarily an accredited product certifier. An accredited product certifier has proven its independence and impartiality, as well as the technical validity of its processes. Its accreditation is based on an international document called ISO Guide 65, General Requirements for Bodies Operating Product Certification Systems. The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is currently the only domestic organization issuing accreditation to certification agencies dealing with building products. ICC-ES and most major United States listing agencies have this ANSI accreditation. Without such accreditation, the building official would have difficulty in establishing the basis for approving an agency doing this type of work.
- When product testing is involved, it should be conducted by a laboratory accredited for the specific type of testing required. As an example, a laboratory accredited to conduct only fire tests should not be used to conduct structural tests. Generally, laboratories are not accredited for specific tests unless they have the proper equipment, instrumentation and expertise to conduct those tests. Something similar holds true for accredited inspection agencies. In this case, agencies are accredited for specific types of inspections. International Accreditation Service (IAS), a subsidiary of the International Code Council (ICC), is currently the only accreditation body in the United States recognized as addressing the full range of testing and inspection involved in building construction.
- The basis for determining product compliance must be clearly specified. ICC-ES acceptance criteria, as indicated earlier, are created specifically for the purpose of issuing ICC-ES evaluation reports, but are now being used as the basis of research reports and product listings by other organizations. Even when ICC-ES acceptance criteria are improperly used in this manner, however, it must be emphasized that the criteria are just part of what is necessary to determine full compliance with the IBC. Here, again, the point must be emphasized that ICC-ES evaluation reports fully address the code. Published acceptance criteria may or may not cover everything that is necessary to determine code compliance. ICC-ES has the resources to make this determination; other organizations may not.
It should further be emphasized that, if they are to be useful in determining compliance of a product, acceptance criteria must be considered in their entirety. ICC-ES has noted at least one instance where an organization has used ICC-ES acceptance criteria as a basis for product recognition but then made exceptions to the testing requirements. This could be a critical consideration for some building jurisdictions. - Product information in the report or listing should include key installation procedures that are necessary to assure compliance with the code. If a research report or listing merely states that installation must be in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, this may not be sufficient to ensure the product's code compliance-especially if the test specimens, used in the testing to show code compliance, were assembled differently than indicated in the manufacturer's published instructions.
- The recent inquiries to ICC-ES, about listings and reports from other organizations referencing ICC-ES acceptance criteria, have concerned products requiring ongoing inspections of the manufacturing facilities. As a point of information to regulatory agencies, it should be noted that even when an ICC-ES acceptance criteria and the code do not require ongoing inspections, ICC-ES still mandates detailed quality control procedures, and an initial factory inspection, before an evaluation report will be issued. Other organizations, while referencing ICC-ES acceptance criteria, may not have such strict requirements for product approval.
The points noted above can also be considered by the building official when addressing products required to meet specific, code-prescribed standards; or when the building official is independently evaluating technical data on the code compliance of a product. Always, the approving authority should exercise due diligence in determining a product's compliance with code, if legal exposure is to be minimized.
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