2019 NCC Seminars: Building Code of Australia update (Part 1)

Thank you, Mike.

My name is Graham Moss. I'm from the Australian Building Codes Board.

Today I'll be taking you through the technical content for the changes for NCC 2019.

As Mike said, this is the first amendment since going to a three year amendment cycle, the first scheduled amendment,

And so, we have a lot to get through today.

We're going to do it this way.

What we'll do is we'll go through Volume One first, and as we go through Volume One, we'll pick up the changes that are also the same for Volume Two.

After we've been through Volume One and picked up those same things for Volume Two, we'll go for the content for Volume Two that we haven't covered on the first pass through.

That's the changes to the NCC that we'll cover. Alison Scotland from Standards Australia will cover some of the changes to Reference Standards, and after that, there's a wrap up session.

It'll provide a few more updates. 

In all this, there's opportunity for questions as well.

So if you do have a question, please wait until we call for questions, and that's the same for Alison's session as well.

Please jot them down as we go through, and when we call for questions, make opportunity to ask your questions then.

I do ask, however, that the questions do cover content of the seminar.

You might have a project back at the office you've got a question about.

That's fine, come and grab me in the break or after the seminar and we can talk about those particular questions then.

While we're working through the changes, there'll be these icons on the screen to indicate the volume that that particular slide applies for.

The blue one for Volume One. The red one for Volume Two, and the green one there for Volume Three, the Plumbing Code of Australia.

Now today's seminar is not about the Plumbing Code of Australia.

This is about the Building Code of Australia, Volumes One and Two.

However, there's a number of changes which are also contained in Volume Three that are changes that we're going to be covering today for Volumes One and Two, so for that reason, you'll see that green icon on there as well.

On your seats, there was some material there.

You've got some information.

You've got the lovely z card, which folds in and out like a z.

That's an update, but we've also got the lists of amendments for each volume.

Standards Australia provided some information there as well, and we've also provided a specific list of amendments for the Reference Document, so file those away but if you have colleagues back at the office, abcb.gov.au/abcb/seminar.

All these documents except for the z card, 'cause your screen doesn't do that on your computer, at least not yet.

(audience members chuckle)

All those documents, those informative documents, are available at that website.

And if you like to use electronic copies, well of course then you can use that as well.  

Now of those documents, I meant to draw your attention to the lists of amendments.

Now the list of amendments are an appendix to every edition of the new NCC, and they're very handy.

You can see what changes occurred that year, but I really want to draw your attention to it this year, because, and we've provided an extract for you on your chairs and at this website, this year it's important because today's seminar is not going to cover every change.

There's three years worth of change.

At the end of today's seminar, you're going to be aware of the majority of changes, but you're not going to have a detailed look at all of the changes.

There's even going to be changes there that are important to you, that probably haven't been mentioned in this seminar.

So do, when you get back to the office, have a look at that list of amendments and see what else has changed.

Now, these are all sell out shows, so you might have some colleagues that aren't here today.

Fear not, there's going to be a video on the Internet of this particular seminar.

So you can grab that through our website or straight on the YouTube, now, so your colleagues who have missed it can download that on the Internet and also if you want to do a refresher on this seminar or if you want to keep some of that content that are on the screens, it's all going to be available on the Internet in a webcast.

That should be out sometime in May, and also the plumbing colleagues, they're going to have a plumbing seminar also available by webcast on our website also in May.

These are the adoption dates for NCC 2019, so 1st May this year is the adoption day.

It's when the NCC 2019 becomes the current code.

However, it's hard to talk about adoption dates for NCC 2019 without noting those other dates on the screen.

The first there is the Energy Efficiency Transition, so what the Energy Efficiency Transitions, sorry the Energy Efficiency Provisions, receive a transition period.

They come in, and they on the 1st of May next year.

Until the 1st of May next year, you can use both, so up until the 30th of April next year, you can use NCC 2016 or NCC 2019 for energy efficiency, but after then, you can only use NCC 2019, after the 30th of April, so that's that transition period.

And also talking adoption for NCC 2019, we can't talk about that without noting that the Fire Safety Verification Method is not enacted until the 1st of May next year.

We'll talk about that more later, but those are our adoption dates for NCC 2019.

As Mike said, we're going to touch on a lot of content today. 

Some of these changes come out of our deregulation work, so for example, the Battery Protection there in C2.12, that's an example of how deregulation works.

Some of these amendments we're going to talk today are clarification changes, so there's D1.15, method of measurement, that's a clarification change which has come in this year.

We're also going to touch on the changes for sprinkler protection.

With NCC 2019, Class 2 and 3 buildings greater than four stories in height require mandatory sprinkler protection under the deemed to satisfy provisions.

So you're probably aware that's a big change.

Usually it kicked in at 25 metres effective height except for other circumstances, such as fire protected timber buildings, but 2019 rising stories four or more, sprinkler protection kicks in under the deemed to satisfy provisions.

We'll talk about that today.

Now you might have also heard of our performance project. 

There's a lot of work done about the performance solutions, and some of these changes come out of that as well.

So we've got some quantified performance requirements, and a number of verification methods.

There's also condensation and a few other things.

We're touching on a number of changes in Volume Two, and a lot of these have come out of our Acceptable Construction Practise Review Project of our Acceptable Construction Practise Review Project and Volume Two's been worked through using great project officers, using working groups, to find opportunities to make the content better. 

And so, a lot of those changes are reflected in NCC 2019.

I should say also that there's a lot of content that actually isn't going to be covered today that came out of that project.

For instance, alpine areas, does anyone here do work in alpine areas?

I'm finding the same response happening in Perth, so.

(people chuckle)

Yeah, we're not going to touch on alpine areas, and there's some changes to the code.

In case you do find yourself doing an alpine area, unlikely up here, but that's an ACP Review change that isn't going to be part of this seminar.

Another project we've had is readability.

Now it's been said very often, correct me if I'm wrong, that the NCC is not a good read.

It doesn't make good reading.

Yeah (chuckles), you know, it's right up there next to Harry Potter on your book shelf.

Not really, it's a complex document.

It's full of long sentences. 

It's hard to understand, so what we've been doing has been rewriting it to make it a lot easier to understand.

And already, the Volume Three, the Plumbing Code, has been entirely rewritten under this readability project using much simpler language.

And also, for NCC 2019, you'll find that Section A, of Volume One and Part One of Volume Two, have been rewritten under this readability project.

Now, it's not just about the language, making the language easier. It's also about the structure.

We've been make, changing the structure to make it easier to understand because it was found that the three different volumes, with their three different structures, was made it hard to understand, so we're making a first step towards a common structure with NCC 2019, and that's reflected in the Governing Requirements.

On the left of this screen, you'll see the current structure for Section A for Volume One and Part One for Volume Two.

Now, they're very similar at the moment. You know there's some changes. Volume Two doesn't have a lot of buildings and things like that, but we're moving towards a common structure, as you can see on the right.

A lot of the content's been moved to the new Governing Requirements.

Some of it's been moved to the new common schedules.

This is a step towards a common structure for the NCC because there's Section A.

Or this Governing Requirements on the right is going to be in Volume One and Volume Two for NCC 2019.

Here in the schedules, so again the content's come out of the 2016 and been moved across to these common schedules.

The first schedule of the appendices for each state and territory, the second schedule, the abbreviations and also the symbols, so these have always been there as an appendix, so that's Schedule 2 right now.

Definitions and Reference Documents make up Schedules 3 and 4.

Schedule 5 is what used to be Spec A2.3 in Volume One, and Schedule 6 is what used to be Spec A2.4 in Volume One.

(participant's phone chimes)

Ah, the first phone.

Get that on to silent, please.

By the way, do you know that, that's one of the standard ones.

You can change it.

There's an app for that.

You can make it more exciting.

(people chuckle)

Thanks, mate.

And the 7 Schedule, the Fire Safety Verification Method, the 7 Schedule, that's, because that covers so much of the code of Volume One, that's been given a schedule there in the common schedules.

Now, I said it's all common, and so here is a zoom in on part of Schedule 3 to define terms, and you'll see that you've got plumbing terms right next to building terms.

So, backflow prevention device is right there next to average specific extinction area.

That's part of the common schedules that we're moving to.

And I mentioned the language, so here's an example of A6, which is about classification of buildings.

Part of this rewrite is use these sorts of exemption boxes and limitation boxes, and what these do, they take a concept about classification of building and pulls that concept apart into the different parts so that instead of having one concept all in a big sentence, which might go across a subclause maybe into the next one, has been pulled apart into different ideas to make it easier to understand.

It's the same content, it's just expressed more simply.

We also see a new numbering system, especially involving two users.

That is now a Volume Two numbering system right there.

That numbering system could be what you see for NCC 2022 throughout to make it common through all, for all volumes.

Now what we're talking about readability and changes, it's hard to go past this one here now.

A lot of tables in the NCC look like this.

There's titles which stretch across various columns because that title's relevant to all the columns in these merged cells and this arrangement of tables can't be read by technology.

So technology reads codes but technology can't read tables like that.

So for this reason, and we have an obligation as the Australian government to make our content accessible, so we're replacing tables like that with tables like this.

The merged cells have disappeared. Again, it's the same content.

This one's from Volume Two for attachment of hardboard cladding.

It's the same content, just expressed in a different way. 

We're now going to work through the tech content of Volume One, and like I said before, we're also going to pick up the changes to Volume Two which are common to both volumes, and so we'll be covering those as well.

Verification methods, there's a few new verification methods in Volume one, quite a number.

Most of these come out of that Performance Project

I mentioned earlier, but some of these are from other works, such as the energy efficiency work, and also condensation management, that's a new verification method. 

Ah, my first typo, that should be FV6, I do apologise, FV6 condensation management.

Now, we're not going to cover all of these in detail, some yes, not all of them, but what we do have for you are handbooks.

Now every verification, sorry, most of the verification methods here, will have a handbook which will accompany so if you're going to find yourself using one of these verification methods, jump on our website.

There's likely a handbook to help you in applying that verification method.

And of course, a verification method is always an option. You can use the deemed to satisfy.

You can use another performance solution, or if your project suits, you can use one of these verification methods.

Now we'll move into Section B and into the structural liability verification method.

This one came in in 2015, and it's recently had a review, and that review has changed a few things in the verification method, most notably the target reliability indices have increased.

So you can see a few of those there from 3.8 have been bumped up to 4 or more. We've also included an option in that verification method that you can derive your reliability index from an equivalent deemed to satisfy provision.  

And there's a few other little changes as well in there.

The formulas remain the same.

It's the same idea, just a few little revisions in that verification method, so if you use the structural liability verification method, be sure to have a look at that, and of course, the handbook has been updated to suit that as well, so that's BV1, and in Volume Two also, V2.1.1.

Now, we move into Section C, and the first change I'm going to mention is C1.9.

There's a few changes in C1.9. C1.9 subclauses a and b line out, set out some circumstances where parts of a building need to be non combustible, and that includes external walls and shafts and a few other things.

When I say external walls, of course that's external walls of Type A and Type B buildings that C1.9a requires to be non combustible.

Subclause (d) lists some things that don't have to be non combustible in those circumstances. It's a concession.

And what we've done is we've grown that list in 2019 to include termite measurement systems, glass, and thermal brakes in, associated with glazing, because these are commonly found in external walls and they're also low risk.

There's another change in C1.9, non combustible building elements, and that's in (e), so (e) is the subclause that sets out when wherever in a building you have to have something non combustible, it doesn't have to be non combustible in subclause, those items listed in subclause (e) don't have to be non combustible.

We've added to that sarking, which is thin, no more than one mil thick, and also if it has a spread of flame index of five or less.

Again, this is a low hazard, considered to be low hazard, therefore acceptable to put that in as a concession, particularly because everything around it is going to be non combustible.

Next change is to C1.10, fire hazard properties.

So subclause (c) is another concession.

It lists the items that don't have to comply with the fire hazard properties of specification C1.1, and for a long time, C Roman V here, applied the concession to timber faced solid core doors and timber faced fire doors.

For NCC 2019, the provisions changed to bring in all timber faced doors because timber faced, hollow core doors, again, are low hazard, and so it's appropriate to extend the concession to there also.

Back in 2016, we introduced a number of timber, we introduced the timber mid rise provisions as they're called.

This is where you construct a building out of fire protected timber up to an effective height of 25 metres.

The fire protected timber is usually this cross laminated timber as indicated on this diagram here. 

And of course, there's a few things that had to happen to your building to make that work, including sprinkler protection.

Now the big change for NCC 2019 is that while previously it only applied to Class 2 3, and 5 Buildings, now the concession, now sorry, not the concession, these provisions apply to all classes of building covered by Volume One.

There's a few other little changes such as how specification A1.1, which is about the, which is one of the specifications that goes with this content, has been moved to C1.13A.

So if you're working with timber mid rise buildings, do jump on the list of amendments and have a look at the changes that have occurred to these parts, mainly in C1.13. Now I said that these buildings have to be sprinkler protected.

Very soon I'm going to be talking, or while you're in this presentation, I'm going to be talking about a new classification of sprinkler system as specified under some technical specifications,

the FPAA specifications.

You can't use an FPAA sprinkler system for a timber mid rise building.

If you remember nothing else today, remember that. You can't use an FPAA system for a timber mid rise building. 

Also going to draw your attention to that website, woodsolutions.com.au, because Wood Solutions, they've already got on their website a number of handbooks to help with the current timber provisions.

They've been busy, and they've been creating handbooks to suit these changes, to assist in the use of these provisions for buildings other than Class 2, 3, and 5, so if you get into a fire protected timber building, have a look at woodsolutions.com.au. C2.12, that's the provision in Volume One that requires separation of some hazardous equipment.

And currently, batteries in there, require separation if they're both 24 volts and 10 amperes.

Now that requirement was written way back when lead acid batteries were the norm, and we did some research and found that battery technology's been changing.

We're seeing more lithium based batteries in buildings, and we also found that the old provisions were a burden, and they were overly burdensome.

So we've amended the triggers as a result of that research, and as you can see, in 2019, the provisions kick in at 12 volts and at 200 kilowatt hours.

Now to give a bit of perspective, when you have a battery which is connected to your house solar system, that's about 10 kilowatt hours.

So it's a pretty significant battery system that we're talking about to be protected by C2.12.

And you also see a new defined term, battery system there.

So that's a new defined term for 2019 that aligns with the defined term found in the relevant Australian standard for the batteries that you'd find used in buildings, and it means either one battery or a number of batteries that have been joined together, parallel or series.

Moving to Spec C2.5,and a small change, there's a small change in this specification, and it happens throughout.

This is how it appears in NCC 2019, and where it reads zone pressurisation system, that used to say zone smoke control system.

This one's a clarification.

It's intended the concession to not have the smoke reservoir above the door.

It applies only to zone pressurisation, zone pressurisation systems rather than all smoke control systems.

So that clarification you'll find in NCC 2019.

We're up to Section D now, and that brings us to two new verification methods for access, DV2 and DV3, and of course access for people with a disability.

DV2 is a hollow building modelling system, a type of verification method, and DV3 is about ramps.

So DV2, you can compare a hypothetical reference building deemed to satisfy, make a proposed building, and you check to see if there's equivalent levels of access. 

It's sort of like a JV2 for energy, applied to access, for people with a disability.

DV3 is about ramps, and under DV3 you can verify that a ramp is satisfactory after calculating the pushing force required to go up the ramp, the breaking force required for coming back down the ramp at a suitable speed, and to make sure that these forces are within certain parameters.

There's also other requirements there about the time taken and a few requirements about the cross force on the ramp, the surface of the ramp, and things like that.

You'll also notice a blanket rule.

You can't use this verification method to create a ramp that's steeper than 1:8.

Now, of course, this is a verification method, and like all verification methods, there are many options.

You don't have to go and get the calculator out and do the formulas in order to derive whether the ramp's okay.

You can still use another performance solution or you can use the deemed to satisfy and create a 1:14 ramp, which is inside all those parameters down in those 14.28.1.

Now DV2 and DV3 get a handbook as well, so if you're going to use either of these verification methods, please also grab our handbook.

One of the changes this year is a clarification, and here's the confusion that we're clarifying as shown on this hypothetical floor plan.

So on this floor plan, we've got a required exit down on the bottom left, and a required exit on the bottom right, a couple of fire isolated stairs in this scenario.

The yellow dot there is representing the point of choice. 

The point of choice is determined under D1.4 of Volume One.

This is where in that room up at the top thirds there you can only go in one direction in order to get to an exit.

Once you get to that yellow dot, you have a choice of turning left or right in order to get to your exit.

So that's the point of choice as established in D1.4.

You turn to D1.5c, and that requires us to measure the distance between the required alternative exits down at the bottom left and the bottom right.

And the maximum distance for that distance between the two is usually 60 metres, however for Class 2 and Class 3 buildings, and also the patient care areas in a Class 9a hospital, the distance comes down to 45 metres.

So, that's the existing requirement in D1.5(c).

We have to measure the distance between these required alternative exits, but how do we measure it?

This is the confusion that we're seeking to clarify, so some people in this room would measure it along this path, the most direct measurement between the two exits.

However, some people in this room would measure it this way.

They'd take in the point of choice.

The reason some people here would take in the point of choice is because they'd be reading this provision in D1.15.

D1.15 is that provision which sets out how you go about measuring your distances for exit purposes in D1.

And we've always had D1.15e here, which talks about how to measure between alternative exits, required alternative exits.

What we've done is introduce these words this year for the purposes of D1.5c. 

So this is clarifying that when you're making that, when you're measuring that distance, the maximum distance between required alternative exits, that you must take in the point of choice as established in D1.4.

So going back to our hypothetical floor plan, this is the correct method of measuring the distance between alternative exits. 

D2.21 in Volume One in the provision that sets out requirements for operating door latches.

We've made a couple of changes to D2.21 this year.

The first change is a new subclause that provides some parameters for the manual controls that are not located on a power operated door.

So think of your sliding doors or your order doors. 

There's a minimum requirement for these operation controls.

They have to be at least 500 millimetres from an internal corner, so that's so that the wheelchair user can come up and use the button.

And there's few other requirements there included some proximity requirements.

Believe this or not, it is possible under the current NCC that if those doors at the back of this room were power operated, the button used to open it could be right here.

There's no proximity requirement, so we've introduced that here for NCC 2019.

And of course, the intent of these requirements is to ensure that evacuation is straightforward and orderly.

A new subclause also mentions when you need to have Braille and tactile signage to identify the manual controls, so the occupants can use the doors easily in an emergency.

The second change to D2.21 is to provide some clarifications to subclause D2.21.(b)4.

This is the subclause that's in there at the moment that requires a door to automatically unlock on the activation of a detector or a sprinkler system.

It has to automatically unlock.

It doesn't have to automatically open, and that's fine, but if you read the current provisions, it actually doesn't clarify that you need,

So we did, adjusted that and ensured that the door is readily openable, and of course, this would mean providing appropriate door hardware so the door unlocks.

So to unlatch the door we'd have to have the correct hardware.

You'd leave a handle or a crash bar.

In 2016, the Australian government commissioned, or undertook a review of the access to premises standards, and some of the recommendations from that review led to some changes in Volume One.

Most are quite minor, and here are some from D3.

The first one (coughs) is, excuse me, the first one is a clarification in subclause (d) of D3.5.

This is the one that's an existing provision for a small carpark where you have five or less car spaces.

You don't have to put a sign to say that this is used only or exclusively for a person with a disability.

You don't have to mark it in that way.

Now it's always been the case except the text was a bit hard to understand.

People were doing it in different ways, so that provision has been clarified.

There's signage exceptions there in D3.6(a).

This one's about signage for sole occ units for your class 3 and your class 1b boarding house.

So think of it, if you're a wheelchair user, you'd ring up the hotel, you book a room.

You book an accessible room.

You go to that room, you don't have to have the door, the sign on the door that says this is a wheelchair accessible facility.

I know that already, I booked the room.

And the same applies for the class 1b.

Now, the amendment here is a bit of a clarification, a bit of a fix because it was recognised that there's also class 9c buildings where it was not necessary to put the sign on the door to indicate that this is a wheelchair accessible facility.

And another small clarification, it comes about how in a class 1b, you don't necessarily have a sole occupancy unit.

You can have a bedroom, so the provisions been amended to take that into account. D3.8 there, you may recall that in an aged care building, you can use a dome button on the handrail instead of the tactile ground surface indicators.

So the requirement for dome buttons is always sitting, it sits in AS14.28.4, the specifications for that.

At the NCC 2016, there's no direct reference to 14.28.4.

You have go to go through and find 14.28.4 as a secondary reference.

What we've done, the premises standard review recognised that a direct reference was more appropriate, so that's a little amendment there in D3.8.

Cinemas, this one's a correction,because under the current NCC, you need to provide range representative wheelchair seating in all cinemas.

Range representative seating, so you've got the premium, the business class,premium economy, and the economy.

It happens in cinemas.

You have to have range representative seating currently in all cinemas.

Now it was always the intent that this would only kick in where cinemas sat more than 800 people, so that's a correction that's been found that you'll find in NCC 2019.

And pools, that point in D3.10, there was a double up in the spec as well as the provision.

We've just removed that double up from the provision so the requirements, the technical requirements, are found in the specification of D3.10.

That brings us out of Section D into Section E, and we come to firefighting equipment.

And we come to hydrant provisions under E1.3 of Volume One.

This is a change that came from the red reduction project.

The first change is to do with how you measure if a fire brigade's station is available to attend a building fire.

This is how it appears in the current NCC.

You have to have a fire brigade available to attend a building fire.

How do you measure that?

Well we've put some numbers in NCC 2019, 50 kilometres, and of course the station needs to have equipment, the station within 50 kilometres measured by a road, has to have equipment which can use the fire hydrant.

These changes also appear in H3.9 for farm buildings.

So continuing on to subclause (b).

This one, there's some changes that came out of some common performance solutions that we found being applied across Australia.

So because they are so common and they are able to be replicated, we put them in the code.

These are two new concessions.

The first one's in sub (b), which is omitting the requirements of the standards, some requirements of the standard when your building is sprinkler protected, and also in (c) there.

We've given greater flexibility for when you protect a booster assembly.

So currently you've got the large protection that has to happen when your booster is anywhere between zero and 10 metres.

What we've done is put an intermediate level of protection when you're between 3 1/2 and 10 metres.

So a few common performance solutions found themselves into the pages of the NCC for 2019.

The office, we at the ABCB, we commissioned a risk assessment to determine if fire extinguishers in class 5 buildings, so those are your office buildings of course, a class 5 office building used for professional purposes.

We commissioned this risk assessment to determine if fire extinguishers could provide an acceptable level of life safety compared to fire hose reels.

The outcome of that risk assessment was that the fire extinguishers actually do provide at least an equivalent, and in some cases, a better level of life safety than fire hose reels.

Net result is that in NCC 2019 you no longer require fire hose reels in class 5 buildings.

You provide portable fire extinguishers instead.

So here's E1.4, explaining that this provision about fire hose reels does not apply to a class 5 building.

And here's E1.6,which is setting out that portable fire extinguishers must be included in the class 5 building.

You'll find that change in NCC 2019.

Residential care buildings, now residential care buildings, this is a new concept.

That's a new defined term, but it's a lot like an old one that you'll be familiar with, which is the aged care building.

What we're doing is we're taking the aged out of residential aged care building, and the reason for that is because aged care buildings attract requirements, such as sprinkler protection, on account of the fact that the occupants are vulnerable, but occupants can be vulnerable for other reasons than being aged.

They can be people with a disability or it could be the very young.

So, you'll find a change in NCC 2019 all under the title of  residential care buildings.

Here's a brief summary of the different types of class 3 and class 9a and class 9c buildings that you could expect to find.

The first row there is not a residential care building.

That's your common class 3 building where the level of care provided is none, although, and there's no need to provide assistance for evacuation, but you'll find other types of buildings which are all class 3 or class 9a or class 9c below that row, and those are buildings where some level of care and some level of assistance in evacuation is required.

And that includes the aged, yes.

That's the last row there, the 9c aged care building, but it also includes other buildings where people are required, people do require a level of care on account of being young or on account of having a disability.

The NCC already requires sprinklers in class 3, class 9a, and class 9c aged care buildings, but now NCC requires sprinkler protection for residential care buildings, be it class 3, class 9a, or class 9c.

We do maintain provisions for aged care buildings, which are appropriate for aged care buildings such as, we talked about the dome buttons instead of the tactile ground surface indicators as in D3.8 earlier.

Those still apply to the residential aged care building, which is a type of residential care building, but there's also the residential care buildings which are class 3, class 9a, and class 9c.

Sprinkler protection, we're still on E1.5, and we have some significant changes this year for class 2 and 3 buildings, and we discussed this already.

Most would be aware that the, for class 2 and 3 buildings, apart from, subject to other provisions such as the timber mid rise, the requirement for sprinkler protection doesn't kick in until 25 metres effective height under NCC 2016 in the deemed to satisfy provisions.

It is an option.

You can still install sprinklers and enjoy a level of concession, but for NCC 2019, that's changed.

You can still install sprinklers that's your top left box there, rise in stories of four or more for a class 2 or 3 building, so that's your apartment building, your hotel building, for a rise in stories that's four or more, a form of sprinkler protection will be required.

Three story walk ups and anything lower, no sprinklers required, but rise in stories four or more, has to, so I'll field that question.

If it's yes, move into the next question.

Is my effective height 25 metres or less?

If you exceed 25 metres effective height then of course you go down the right hand side there, and you end up with sprinkler protection as currently is the requirement under the NCC 2016, but if my 25 metre, if my effective height is 25 metres or less and my rise in stories four or more, I need to provide some form of sprinkler protection.

You can still use the AS2118 systems, Part One, Part Four, part Six, whichever is applicable, or you can use new reference documents, these FPAA ones that I've got listed there, the FPAA 101D or the FPAA 101H.

These are new reference documents for NCC 2019, and they outline a sprinkler system which is more cost effective than your regular AS2118 system.

I do have an asterisk there, and that asterisk of course says subject to other requirements such as the timber mid rise provisions I mentioned earlier.

However, most buildings four stories or more, 25 metres effective height, you're likely going to be using these FPAA technical specifications.

And here they are, the D in FPAA101D stands for domestic water.

No prizes for guessing where you get your water for the system from, the taps off the domestic supply.

And of course, that's a lower grade supply than what the AS2118 series requires.

The H stands for hydrant water supply, and that's the system that taps off the hydrant system of course.

And these specifications, technical specifications, they're outlining systems which are lower grade than an AS2118 system on account of their water supply and other, if you call them, concessions found inside that technical specification.

These specs are published by the Fire Protection Authority of Australia, sorry Fire Protection Association of Australia, and for a copy, you can go to their website fpaa.com.au.

I'm also told that FPAA are developing a handbook to go with these technical specifications.

I'm also told that they're going to be putting a seminar series out on these technical specifications, so keep an eye on their website for that new information.

Now because they're more cost effective systems, or a slightly lower grade system, there are some limitations to when they can be used, besides how they can then be used in buildings that are less than 25 metres effective height.

And some of those limitations are set out in this table.

Now you can see that there's situations where there's multi classified buildings, so the provisions do note that multi classified buildings are class 2 and 3 buildings, and you can also notice that the D system, with its lower grade water supply, can be used in less scenarios than the H system.

It comes down to how much of the building is another class of building amongst a few other little things like that.

So these rules are set out in spec A1.5, tells you about which system you can use.

But now that we've got these mid rise buildings less than 25 metres effective height with mandatory sprinklers, we also get some concessions.

These are the concessions or some of the concessions for the D system.

You get some reduced FRLs.

You also get increased travel distances.

You get some concessions of your smoke alarm or your smoke detection alarm systems.

And the system, the level of concession, of course correlates with the level of system, all the way from the FPAA101D system through to an AS2118 system.

And all these concessions are set out in a brand new specification, Spec E1.5A, and the concessions and requirements and provisions around the smoke detection alarm systems are set out in Spec E2.2D.

That's also a new specification for 2019.

And speaking of concessions,

you may recall that throughout the NCC,

there's a number of
concessions which apply

to sprinkler protected buildings.

Now, here's an example.

This is C2.6(b) from, from
the spatial provisions,

separation of prevention of
fire from one story to the next.

Now, this is just one example of many,

however most of those concessions

for sprinkler protected
buildings are not appropriate

for an FPAA101D or FPAA101H system,

so for that reason, you're
going to find exclusions

like this dotted throughout the NCC

where the sprinkler system
concession is there,

where that concession is not
appropriate for an FPAA system.

Some are, however a lot of them aren't,

which is why you find
these throughout the NCC.

The next change is also
relevant to sprinklers,

and you may recall that under NCC 2016,

in a lift machine room
and other similar areas,

you had to have a dry system.

That was found on our
red reduction project

that we did earlier,

and so what we've done is
we've reduced the burden,

and we've put in some simpler,

included some simpler
to achieve requirements.

It doesn't have to be
a dry system anymore.

You just have to be able
to protect the heads,

and be able to oscillate those sprinklers

for the lift machine rooms,
and the lift shafts, et cetera,

from the other sprinklers in the building.

There's also some
amendments to Table E2.2a,

and Spec E2.2a, which are
clarification amendments.

We included some changes to clarify

that when we're talking
about zone smoke control,

we're actually talking about
zone pressurisation systems,

which are vertical pressurisation systems

where the fire compartments
are listed above,

are found above and below one another.

Now this clarification is
all throughout the NCC,

but here's a hypothetical
example from Table E2.2a.

It's a class 9a hospital.

It's more than 25 metres effective height,

and it's made up of fire compartments

as shown by each box.

Now the zone pressurisation that we're

talking about is for a story.

So those blue ones up at the top there,

those are stories which
are fire compartments

above and below one another.

They're vertically
separated fire compartments,

therefore they're provided
with zone pressurisation.

For some reason, we've
got two fire compartments

on the ground floor there.

Those do not need to
have zone pressurisation.

While we're in Spec E2.2a,
it's worth mentioning

that we've made a few
clarification changes.

The technical requirements
are still the same.

What we've done is done some restructuring

and a bit of rewording
to make this provision,

this specification easy to understand.

And so, for example,

there's a lot of class 2 and 3 buildings

that can use a combined
clause 3 and 4 system,

combined smoke alarm and detection system.

And when you're doing one of these,

it's hard to keep track
because you've got to get

bits from clause 3, you've
got to get bits from clause 4.

People found it a bit hard to keep track,

so for NCC 2019,

your combination system
gets the same clause,

a clause 5 system in Spec E2.2a.

So, next time you're in E2.2a,

just have a look at the spec.

You'll find a few changes that

would make it easier to understand.

Now the next change has to do

with emergency warning
and intercom systems.

And for a long time, the E4.9 has required

an EWIS system for the
residential parts of a school.

Now a school is a defined term,

and a school for the purposes of the NCC

includes a university, so technically,

when you provided your, so
technically for a long time,

it was the case that when
you have an EWIS system,

you have to provide that
to your primary school,

your secondary school,

but also your university
student accommodation block

even though your university's
student accommodation

typically won't have fire warning systems

like that you'd expect
in a boarding school.

So for this reason, E4.9's been amended

to limit EWIS system only to
primary and secondary schools,

no longer a DTS requirement to put them

in university student accommodation.

Now if people are still awake,

you've probably noticed
another change on that screen.

Can anyone see it?

No one's found it, tthis is an uh oh.

That's a scratch not a hand.

No one can see this other change

No one's found it, this is an uh oh.

In NCC 2016, the title of this provision

is Sound System and Intercom System

for Emergency Purposes or SSISEP.

"Ah yes, I knew that,"
everyone says (chuckles).

"Yep, I knew that."

It used to be the SSISEP.

It's changed for NCC 2019 to Emergency Warning and Intercom System, or the EWIS.

And the reason for this is that the reference document to do with these systems, AS1670.4, that's been updated and we've referenced the updated document.

And the title in 1670.4 used to be SSISEP, now it's EWIS.

So we've just changed to keep track with the Australian Standard.

And that change also appears in G3.8 for atriums.

Section F, we've had some deregulation work, and some of the changes in Section F fall into the deregulation category, and that includes the wall floor junctions in laundries and WCs.

NCC 2016 has to be waterproof. NCC 2019, you only have to have it water resistant.

And also, we've had another dereg job there in facilities for employees, when you have your class 2 with 10 or more sole occ units.

It's what I like to call the janitor's facility, and so many times I ring up the architect and say, "You forgot your janitor's facility," whereas I don't have to make that call anymore because that requirement has been removed for NCC 2019.

You no longer have to provide another century facility for employees where you have 10 or more sole occ units.

In NCC 2019, we now have requirements for facilities for adults with a profound disability who require a change table.

Now these are different to your usual accessible, accessible wheelchair facilities or your ambulatory facilities, and they're also in addition to those existing facilities.

You may have come across these before.

There's a scheme in Australia called Changing Places, and under Changing Places, building owners are able to put an accessible adult change facility into a commercial building and have this facility, excuse me, have that facility verified by the Changing Places Scheme.

These new provisions in the NCC, Volume One, so that's F2.9, in the specification F2.9, reflect the Changing Places specifications.

It works like this, the clause F2.9 is the trigger clause.

It sets out the buildings which require an accessible adult change facility.

If you require it, then you go to the specification to find the details of that facility.

So here are the buildings in F2.9 which are required to have a facility.

You've got shopping centres with 3 1/2 thousand or more occupants.

So that's going to be a shopping centre of 4 1/2 thousand square metres.

You've also got class 9b sporting venues where you have more than 35,000 spectators, so it's a large sporting venue.

You've got your museum, your gallery,your theatre, those sorts of class 9 buildings where you've got more than 1 1/2 thousand patrons.

And also, airport terminals are triggered by these new provisions.

So, F2.9 sets out that you need to provision, you go to, you need to provide the facility, you go to Specification F2.9 for the requirements of that particular facility.

And as this diagram, straight from the specification, shows, you're going to need a change table, a change table which has dimensions, and the dimension's there in the Specification F2.9 to make it suitable for an adult.

You need an electric hoist above the change table.

Now about that hoist, that hoist has to be able to carry 180 kilogrammes.

So when you're specifying the ceiling for these rooms, you might want to be sure that that ceiling can also take 180 kilogrammes.

You also need a toilet with the fold down grab rails, a basin, circulation spaces, all these things as detailed in Specification F2.9.

We'll move now to natural light, and this is where the qualification of performance project has qualified some performance requirement.

Currently the requirement for natural light is that you have to provide an adequate level of illumination.

That's been replaced with this, with an average daylight factor of 2%.

Now this is an established measure.

It's not something new.

There's a lot of design software which uses this, ADF, average daylight factor, but if your design software, if you don't have means of measuring that available to you, we haven't left you in the dark.

(audience chuckles)

That's a joke.

We haven't left you in the dark.

There's a new verification method that you can use (chuckles).

Thanks, Luke.

(people chuckle)

There's a new verification method with a formula to calculate your ADF.

Now of course you don't have to use this.

You don't have to come up with an average daylight factor.

You can still use your 10% window in order to achieve the requirements of that provision.

We've made a change also in artificial lighting.

Just like natural light, it's an appropriate level of illumination.

And this is both Volume One and Two.

Currently, the performance requirement shows an appropriate level of luminance.

We put a number on that, it's 20 lux, and you'll recognise it.

That comes straight from 1680.0.