scope:

Preface

This is a revision of EGSA 109C. Engineers, distributors and manufacturers' representatives sometimes have difficulty obtaining information on what regulations apply in specific states or municipalities. There are over 40,000 municipalities in the United States and hundreds of safety codes and standards with a myriad of variations in the form of local amendments. No one could begin to tabulate the requirements in more than a few of those municipalities, and even that has to be in simplified form. In addition requirements change day by day. An additional complication involves what edition of a particular code is being enforced. Cities are frequently two to five years behind. We find cities still enforcing the 1987 National Electrical Code, two editions behind.

This revision is necessarily limited to states and about 55 major cities. The listing is limited to the building code, the electrical code and the life safety code in force when the survey was made. Further listing would complicate the chart beyond practicality. We do, however, give a listing of contact addresses and phone numbers. We believe that this is the most useful feature of this publication.

In addition, the text included with this revision gives a summary of the major requirements of other national safety codes that various localities may enforce. In determining compliance, this summary should not be used as a substitute for the actual standard. Also be aware that nothing is static. These standards are constantly being revised, usually on a three to five year cycle. Part of the reason for revising this publication at this time is that most of these standards have been recently revised.

An additional purpose of this publication is to encourage specifiers to list codes or standards that may not be required in a particular location. For example, if the municipality does not require compliance with NFPA 101, The Life Safety Code, the specifier's specification should list it. That is necessary to make the emergency power system criteria of the National Electrical Code a requirement.