Historic Building Codes 1

[avolonnino]

Does anyone know how to find what building code was used during a certain year dating back to the 1960's specifically in Mississippi?

I tried the building department in the city where my buildings are located followed by state and then local library archives but to no avail.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

Back in the early 70's when I started, the SBC - Southern Building Code was predominant in that area.

Maybe you can find something there. It really wasn't too much different from the UBC or ICBO codes of the time - if I remember correctly.

Kind of the reason they all combined into the IBC

 

[Ron]

The code you are looking for was the Southern Standard Building Code, put out by the Southern Building Code Congress International in Birmingham, Alabama. The oldest is about 1947, but it was produced on roughly a 3 to 5 year cycle until combining to form the International Building Code. There are legacy copies of many of the older codes available. Go to

http://www.iccsafe.org

and check the legacy codes.

 

[msquared48]

Hey Ron... Didn't you tell me that you bought the first codebook when it came out in '47?

Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
Motto: KISS
Motivation: Don't ask

 

[Ron]

Mike...it was my bedtime story!

 

[AZengineer]

I have also had this same question in the past. Not specifically what code you are looking for, avolonnino, but how to state, with certainty, which code was adopted in a given municipality during a given time period. In many smaller jurisdictions, the building officials don't always have that information available. I would like to know how to reference a code with 100% confidence that I am referencing the correct edition...

 

[JedClampett]

I've spent some time looking at the Code of Ordinances (usually in a website called Municode) to find applicable codes. In this code of ordinances there are, sometimes, a history of revisions to that section of the Code of Ordinances. So if you can find that history, maybe you can get in touch with the City or Town clerk and find out what these revisions were and what they changed in the building code.
This is tedious and you're going to have to sweet talk the town clerk (who doesn't owe you anything) to get this information. Also the town library should have a history of the minutes from the board which if you go through enough, you can work backwards and find this out.
The Building Department could have be a little more helpful. Have you tried meeting them face to face? Sometimes people are more helpful to someone standing there, than a phone caller.
I hope you want this real bad, because this sounds like a major pain.

 

[avolonnino]

Thank you all....

I've been resourcing JedClampett's Municode and the library archives both state and local. Unfortunately to no avail. This situation involves specifics due to attorneys and a real estate claim. The attorneys need the exact code used to justify that the building was built to code at that time period.

We are finding that local county and state do not keep good records. Plus I've been getting the dreaded runaround from the officials. Coupled with the fact that this is Katrina country (lost archives), state property and provinces in the region of these buildings have been split, is making this search quite problematic.

 

[SLTA]

Call the MS ASCE group and have them send out an email to their entire members list. I'm sure that someone on there has a copy.

 

[MiketheEngineer]

I have to suggest this because it happened quite often - it was not built to any code.

Either the city/town/county didn't have one or it was not enforced.

Still goes on today. Although my state has adopted IBC - in about 90% of the rural areas there are no building departments or code enforcement. And the state has neither the money or manpower.