HomeMy WebLinkAbout1994-Letter (violation) January 31, 1994
Security Investments
John Mark
505 N. Westfield St.
Oshkosh, WI 54901
Re: 1760 Robin Ave.
Dear Mr. Mark:
An inspection of this apartment building on Thursday, January
27, 1994 revealed some points of concern about rated fire
separation versus fire stopping. These concerns centered primarily
around the kitchen and bathroom soffits.
As you may be aware, ILHR 57.01(2) requires the walls
separating individual living units to be covered with a layer of
5/8 inch type X gypsum board on each side of the separating wall.
This section makes no provision to allow dimension lumber in lieu
of the rated gypsum board.
This building is also unique from other developments you have
recently built in that this building is a three story, type 7, Wood
Frame Protected structure. Table 51.03 -A requires the interior
load bearing walls and the floor - ceiling assemblies to maintain a
listed one hour fire resistive rating. Therefore the sheetrock
must be applied to the wall surfaces and ceiling surfaces prior to
erecting any soffits to maintain the integrity of the testing
laboratory's approval. Please be reminded that several apartment
separation walls are also load bearing and must maintain a tested
rating, not just the rating as described in ILHR 57.01.
I must also point out that the two hour rated mechanical room
enclosure must be extended to the underside of the roof deck. Upon
further review, this was noted in the State approved plan, page 7.
I suspect this was provided as a place to run exhaust vents without
penetrating outside of the 2 hour rated assembly.
In our discussion, you had expressed an interest in using
dimension lumber in place of the sheetrock required by the various
assemblies where the soffits were attached to the walls and
ceilings. As I indicated before, I am not aware of any approved
fire rated assemblies that allow this type of substitution of
materials. In fact, based on ILHR 51.045, Table 2, rows 25 through
28, standard 1.5 inch dimensional lumber is not recognized as
meeting a one hour fire rating. However, standard dimension lumber
can be used for fire stopping to restrict the flow of fire from
adjacent concealed spaces, if neither the wall or the ceiling are
required to be fire rated.
If you have questions, call me at 236 -5050.
Sincerely,
Allyn Dannhoff
Chief Building Inspector
cc: Donald R. Haanen, Architect
Donald L. Diedrick, DILHR Plan Examiner
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