A town meeting sponsored by the International Code Council, with the involvement from the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical officials, took place July 15 in Denver to discuss the joining of the two organizations' codes. It was decided that IAPMO would maintain ownership and development of the Plumbing Code. The base document for the plumbing code would be the current Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC). The code change process would be the American National Standards Institute process, currently used by IAPMO.

ICC would retain the Mechanical Code. The base document in developing the joint code would be the International Mechanical Code (IMC). The process used to promulgate the Mechanical Code would be the current ICC governmental voting process.

The anomaly would be the Fuel Gas Code. Currently, gas piping and gas water heater requirements are listed in the UPC. For the ICC, all of the fuel gas requirements are found in the International Fuel Gas Code (IFGC). That includes gas piping, all gas appliance installations, chimneys and vents, etc.

Under the proposed agreement, the Fuel Gas Code document would be developed through the ICC governmental voting process, but published in the UPC. The result is that the current IFGC would disappear.

The proposed names for the new codes would be the International Uniform Plumbing Code and the International Uniform Mechanical Code. A permanent license agreement would be established between the two groups, with IAPMO owning the copyright to the Plumbing Code and ICC owning the copyright to the Mechanical Code. It was left unclear who would own the copyright to the fuel gas sections of the Plumbing Code.

Links

• International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials
• International Code Council