By: Gerald Richard Genge

Gerald Richard Genge — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 17:22:22 +0000

I am the past chair of the new standard CSA S478 Durability in Buildings – a 2019 standard. We created that standard for building envelopes to cause designers to do two things.
1. look to the future for environmental loads – not the past, which has been the way buildings have been designed since there were building codes in Canada. ECCC is working on that data and was a participant in the standard development.
2. design durability into the building (envelope) such that the service life of building elements that could not be easily and cost-effectively replaced or maintained, were to last the design life of the element.
Why the National Building Code of Canada did not immediately adopt the standard has several suspected reasons not the least of which is assumed increases in initial construction cost. The CSA committee was more focused on life-cycle considerations which is consistent with reduced GHG over that life.
Designers can still use the standard regardless of whether NBCC has incorporated it into its minimum requirements and I encourage them to do so – not just because it will reduce GHG but because it represents the best practice and thus impacts potential negligence claims for inadequate design for long-life buildings.

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By: Gerald Richard Genge