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 schools. In the past, these schools had specific requirements that were unique to Chicago, such as the back lit, tabular annunciator. Per the current CBC Chapter 15-16-1400, alpha-numeric annunciators that are most commonly used were not allowed on the Class 1 fire alarm systems that served these occupancies. However, Article 22, Section 37 of the City of Chicago ordinance that adopted the new building code repeals this requirement, effective August 1, 2020 per Article 24, Section 3 of the same ordinance. In fact, Article 22, Section 37 repeals all of the current fire alarm equipment requirements, leaving only some administrative & testing requirements in place.

Since the new Chicago Fire Code won’t be enacted until 2021, how do we determine the new requirements? Section 907 of the new CBC provides the answer. The new CBC replaces the 2018 IBC Section 907.2.3 and its exceptions with an amended version that requires a manual fire alarm system in any Group E occupancy. This amended version eliminates the requirement for voice/alarm communication systems found in the IBC and the automatic detectors found in the current CBC. For E-1 occupancies with an occupancy load of more than 100 and E-2 occupancies with an occupancy load of 100 or more, the method of fire department notification is by the local energy city fire alarm box (AKA the masterbox), per CBC Section 919.1.5 & 6, not a remote monitoring station or a central station.

There are many more changes to fire alarm requirements in the new CBC and some of the current requirements may be reinserted in the new Chicago Fire Code in 2021, so make sure you utilize Affiliated Fire Systems on the fire alarm portions of projects to get it done in a code compliant manner the first time. Contact us for more information & thanks for reading.