Building Safety Month is almost here

Building Safety Month is a public awareness campaign presented each May by the International Code Council Foundation that reinforces the need for adoption of modern, model building codes, a strong and efficient system of code enforcement and a well-trained, professional workforce.

The four weeks of the campaign will focus on a different building safety area. The first week - May 7-13 - focuses on energy and green building. This is your chance to educate customers and potential customers about the benefits of upgrading to energy-efficient boilers and water heaters, or demonstrate how to install a programmable thermostat to help keep energy costs down.

The second week focuses on disaster safety and mitigation (May 14-20). Show your community how to prepare homes and businesses for tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, floods and wildfires.

The third week (May 21-27) is fire safety awareness (residential and commercial fire sprinklers!) and the last week (May 28-31) highlights backyard safety.

Each year, Building Safety Month is marked by ICC members through official ceremonies, community outreach events, demonstration projects and school-based programs. Click

herefor tips to help promote the building safety campaign or

host a community event.

Kelly Faloon was a former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical as well as the BNP Media Plumbing Group’s Integrated Content Development Specialist. She also was a former editor of the Radiant Comfort Guide the Radiant & Hydronics Report — both official publications of the Radiant Professionals Alliance — and twice-monthly Radiant & Hydronics eNews, an enewsletter for anyone interested in the world of heating with hot water.

Her editorial specialties included women in plumbing, recruiting for the trades, green construction techniques, water conservation, water treatment, hydronic heating, radiant heating and cooling, snow melt, solar thermal and geothermal.

After a 3½-year stint at sister publication Supply House Times, Faloon joined the PM staff in December 2001 as senior editor. She was named PM’s managing editor in 2006 and editor in 2013.

Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.

A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a 1986 journalism graduate of Michigan State University.