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GBlist: DElightful News!

Thought this little tidbit might be of interest...

Last Thursday I recieved a phone call with tremendous potential 
significance.  The call was from Roy Fewell, who works at ICBO 
(International Conference of Building Officials - the Uniform Building 
Code folks) headquarters in Whittier, California.  Mr. Fewell asked me if 
I could provide him with copies of all the straw bale codes that had been 
developed to date.  He said he had the California code but needed copies 
of the Tucson/Pima County, Arizona code, the New Mexico code and any 
others that I knew about.  I told him about the Austin, Texas code as 
well, which should have been adopted by now (do you know anything about 
the status of this Bill Christensen?  Perhaps you could give Ben Obregon 
a call and give us a status report).  I said I could provide him those 
documents and asked what he planned to do with them.  He said he had been 
speaking with a mutual friend, Bob Fowler (Pasadena, California Building 
Official and former Chairman of the Board of the ICBO).  He said they 
planned to assemble this information to submit a proposal to the 
appropriate committee working on the new IBC (International Building 
Code), for the creation of a new chapter for straw bale construction.  
This code is being developed by the International Code Council (ICC, an 
organization made up representatives of the major code organizations 
which was co-founded by Bob Fowler) to develop a national performance, 
rather than prescriptive, building code.  A long and encouraging 
conversation ensued.  It was quite informative and enjoyable.  

We, of course, assembled the materials and sent them on to him.  Okay, I 
hear you say, what exactly does that mean?  My best guess is this: that 
the committee, when they get this material to review and go through it, 
will reject the initial request and describe a list of test and research 
results, upon which to judge the proposed code.  This is both bad and 
good.  Bad because it will take quantities of money and time to 
accomplish this body of work, which is what we've been trying to 
accomplish for some time.  Good because we will have, for the first time, 
THEIR real research list, not ours, to use as the basis for seeking 
financial and technical support.  The significance of the list and their 
initiation of the submittal for a new chapter is large, IMHO.  Of course, 
who knows, perhaps they'll be convinced by the mezmerizing power of our 
work (and hopefully we'll be represented in person at the committee 
meeting) and they'll just let us through the gate :->.  Much more likely 
is a years-long process to develop this information to their 
satisfaction, but this is a slightly different ball game, and we'll just 
have to wait and watch.  It will be very interesting to watch this one 
unfold.  

Meantime, I just keep thinking ... They called us!  



David Eisenberg
Director
Development Center for Appropriate Technology (DCAT)
PO Box 41144
Tucson, Arizona 85717
strawnet@aol.com
(520) 624-6628 (phone & fax)


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