DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL REGULATION
Florida Building CommissionRULE NO.:RULE TITLE:
61G20-3.015Equivalence of StandardsNOTICE OF CORRECTION
Notice is hereby given that the following correction has been made to the proposed rule in Vol. 38, No. 92, December 17, 2012 issue of the Florida Administrative Register.
Summary of Statement of Estimated Regulatory Costs and Legislative Ratification:
The proposed rule does not require a SERC and is not expected to require legislative ratification. The following is the specific information relied upon by the Commission in determining whether the rule is expected to require ratification:
This rule amendment is needed to help certain hurricane shutters/impact protective devices manufacturers to self-affirm their existing statewide approvals as meeting the updated 2010 edition of the Florida Building Code “the Code”, pursuant to section 553.842, Florida Statutes. The Code does not incorporate the ASTM E 1996-05; a testing standard which certain impact protective devices had tested to for compliance under the previous 2007 Code. By clarifying that the edition of ASTM E 1996-05 is equivalent to the testing standards editions that are incorporated in the 2010 Code (ASTM E 1996-02 and ASTM E 1996-06, with the exclusion of mullions) qualified hurricane shutters manufacturers will be able to self-affirm their existing approval as meeting the new edition of the code and therefore, they will be able to sell the affected products in their existing inventories without the need for additional product evaluation/revision. The hurricane shutters manufacturers have requested this rule amendment and have asked that it be accomplished by March 15, 2013, when the new edition of the Florida Building Code went into effect. Without this amendment, certain hurricane shutters manufacturers will incur additional costs of approximately $1000 for the evaluation/revision of each affected product. This amendment will prevent certain hurricane shutters manufacturers from having to incur these additional costs for evaluating affected products. The Florida Building Commission’s Product Approval POC (Program Oversight Committee) met on January 5, 2012, and determined that the standards were equivalent (except with regard to mullions).
In summary, this rule amendment will have no effect on small counties, cities or construction/manufacturing industries as defined by Section 120.52, F.S., and ultimately will reduce regulatory costs as noted above.
