William, The fire class rating of modules is not covered in the "Installation Guidelines" that became the fire code. Fire rating of modules is a separate issue that is found in the building code.
The reason there are many jurisdictions holding up permits at the moment is that the State of California requires local jurisdictions to enforce requirements for Wildland Urban Interface Areas and Very High Fire Severity Zones. These areas make up about 20% of the state. Cal Fire has jurisdiction over 70% of these areas and local jurisdictions--the rest. AHJs are simply trying to address a state requirement, and most local jurisdictions follow Cal Fire's lead which is to require Class A roofing in these areas. Now that the building code requires that PV meet the required roof rating--we have an issue. The good news is that due to requests from CalSEIA, Cal Fire is putting together a recommendation to delay enforcement of the new requirement for PV systems for 180 days to give the PV industry time to develop mounting solutions to meet the new requirement. That memo will hopefully go out in the next week or two. If you are a CalSEIA member and would like to help on this matter, you should contact the Director, Bernadette Del Chiaro. Also, anyone who is having permitting difficulties can contact me directly offlist as the U.S. Dept. of Energy is asking for anecdotal evidence about permitting delays due to this issue. Several manufacturers of mounting equipment are currently working hard to develop products that would allow many standard modules that now are Class C rated to be rated as Class A in a mounting system. We should have several available products by June of this year. The train on this issue has been coming down the tracks for several years. We have been effective in asking for the delay in enforcement because the new version of the UL1703 test standard that can certify existing modules in Class A systems was only published in October of 2013. The new test standard has been under development for 5 years and includes about 150 tests to get us to today. The reason we have not had more grief about this issue is that very few other places in the U.S. require Class A roofing systems. That will change in the near future as the benefits of higher rated roofs are recognized by local fire departments all across the U.S. Bill. -----Original Message----- From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of William Korthof Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2014 10:51 AM To: RE-wrenches Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] California State Fire Marshal's "Solar Photovoltaic Installation Guidelines" Bill, Thanks for the attached info. I don't see where the fire rating class of solar modules is addressed though... In the IBC, the specific section (I believe 902.4 or close to that) seems to call for solar modules to carry the same fire rating class as the roofing class required of the building. At least that's the interpretation I initially got from my local building and safety office. They've been sitting on my plans for two weeks so far. When they turn them around, I may have more to talk about. /wk William Korthof 714.875.3576 Sustainable Solutions #956904 On Feb 13, 2014, at 9:34 AM, "Bill Brooks" <billbroo...@yahoo.com> wrote: Yes Peter, It is called the 2012 International Fire Code. The California guidelines were turned into code in 2012. There is an explanation document I wrote available online at: http://solarabcs.org//about/publications/reports/fireguideline/index.html For those states that are using NFPA 1 as their fire code, it is nearly identical. Bill. --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Change email address & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org
