Special Inspections for Wood Construction

摘要

The use of special inspections in the building codes is not new. Special inspections date back to the 1961 Uniform Building Code (UBC) published by the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO). At that time the UBC established a number of situations in which the employment of a special inspector was mandatory. An owner of a building was required to provide specially qualified inspectors or engineers to conduct continuous or periodic inspections during construction in addition to other mandatory inspections provided by the building department. Today, the International Code Council's (ICC) International Building Code (IBC) continues this practice with criteria included in the 2012 IBC Chapter 17, titled Structural Tests and Special Inspections. From the point of view of a structural engineer and two building code experts from the American Wood Council (AWC), this paper will provide background on special inspection in addition to a discussion on the related topics such as fabricated items, special inspections for wood construction, special inspections for seismic resistance and structural observation as it pertains to the 2012 IBC/2013 California Building Code (CBC) and the 2015 IBC.