Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule BCEGS® Suggested Revisions and Form

Building Code Effectiveness Grading

Building officials, community leaders, and insurers have made suggestions for the improvement of the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS®) program. Here are some suggested revisions for your review that ISO is considering.

 Calculations

Adjust the calculations to let communities with strong enforcement activities achieve more favorable classifications even if they haven’t adopted the latest model code.

Include a section on community risk reduction.

 Code Adoption

The BCEGS program should continue to encourage the unamended adoption of the latest nationally promulgated codes. The program should continue to reflect codes that local and state governments have amended, which reduce the codes’ ability to mitigate potential hazards. However, strong enforcement efforts combined with unamended adoption of a previous code edition may still be able to receive a favorable BCEGS classification.

 Checklists

Eliminate the reliance on checklists for both plan review and inspection.

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Revision Comment Form

Please identify yourself so we can contact you if we have questions about your comments or want to discuss your ideas further.
First Name* Last Name*
Title/Position Company/Division
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1. Currently, the BCEGS schedule awards maximum points for the adoption and enforcement of the latest unamended edition of the nationally promulgated codes. A community begins to lose points six years after the publication year of the code.
Comment:

2. The current schedule allows for points lost because of an older building-code edition or amendments that tend to weaken the structural requirements of the code. Lost points for those criteria affect all the points a community earns in the schedule. Please comment on this practice.

Comment:

3. Currently, the Plan Review Section considers elements of plan review, including staffing levels, certification, use and retention of plan review checklists, and training as they relate to structural plan review. Please comment on how you would improve this section, what items the schedule should keep, what items the schedule should eliminate, and what items we should add.

Comment:

4. Currently, the Inspection Section considers elements of inspection, including staffing levels, certification, use and retention of inspection checklists, and training as they relate to inspection operations, policy, and procedures. Please comment on how you would improve this section, what items the schedule should keep, what items the schedule should eliminate, and what items we should add.

Comment:

5. Participating communities receive a summary report detailing how ISO determines their classification and comparing their building-code enforcement efforts to other communities that have similar workloads and area to cover. Has the report been useful in understanding the program or running the business of code enforcement? How could we improve the report?
Comment:

6. We are interested in your insights about the BCEGS program. Please give us your ideas and suggestions to make the program more valuable to your company or community.
Comment: