New Chicago Fire Alarm Requirements, Part 2

In a previous post, we went over the changes in fire alarm requirements in Chicago educational occupancies. Today we’ll discuss the changes for Group B and M occupancies in Chicago. To start, the Chicago Building Code (CBC) business occupancy designation has changed from Class E to Group B and mercantile occupancies have changed from Class [Read More]

Are Fire Alarm Strobes Required in the City of Chicago?

Update 8/1/20: With the adoption of the new Chicago Building Code effective August 1, 2020, as well as an update of the Illinois Accessibility Code (IAC) in October 2018, strobes are now required in fire alarm installations in Chicago. There are no longer Class I or Class II type fire alarm systems in Chicago. The [Read More]

New Chicago Building Code Fire Alarm Equipment Requirements

In our recent blogs, we discussed some of the the new Chicago Building Code (CBC) requirements that will take effect on August 1, 2020. Let’s now take a look at the effect the new code will have on fire alarm equipment requirements in Chicago. We’ll begin today with E-1 Educational occupancies, which are primarily K-12 [Read More]

New Chicago Building Code Educational Occupancy Fire Alarm Requirements

The fire alarm requirements in Chicago have always been somewhat unique from other large cities and definitely different than the suburban requirements. That’s expected, but the accumulation of requirements via policies, memorandums and rules rather than by municipal code made keeping track of specific requirements difficult. The implementation of the new Title 14B of the [Read More]

New Chicago Construction Code Impact on Fire Alarm Shop Drawings

A brief overview of the new City of Chicago shop drawing requirements.

New Chicago Construction Code Occupancy Types

In a previous blog, we discussed which Chicago Construction Codes have already been updated, which are going to be updated on 8/1/20 and which are going to be updated in 2021. We’ve also reviewed one of the upcoming changes to fire alarm requirements in Chicago. In this blog, we’ll continue to identify changes to required [Read More]

What Are The Changes In The New Chicago Fire Code?

We’ve been asked by many design firms and installers whether the adoption of the new Chicago Building Code (CBC) will affect the existing requirements for fire alarm systems. The actual changes to the Chicago Fire Code won’t be adopted until 2021, but there are changes in the new CBC that can affect fire alarms systems [Read More]

What Are the Changes In The New Chicago Construction Code?

The Chicago Construction Codes are about to undergo a major update on August 1, 2020. At this time, they are generally grouped together under Titles 13, 15 and 18 of the Chicago Municipal Code, but will be broken out into their own sub-titles in Title 14. A letter designation will title the sub-tile to reflect [Read More]

New Electrical Code for the City of Chicago

The City of Chicago has adopted the 2017 version of NFPA 70 (NEC) as its new electrical code, with amendments of course. The new code is set to become effective on March 1, 2018. I’ve got a copy of that new code and have begun going over the fire alarm/voice evacuation section to find variations [Read More]