ICC ESR Report and Approval

[North2South]

I am working with a client (USA) to get approval for a product he has developed. The next step is for him to get an ICC ESR report for the product so it can be approved nation wide. Does anyone have an experience going through the process of obtaining an ICC ESR approval? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jjl317]

Is it a product that is similar enough to an existing product that it will meet the same Acceptance Criteria (AC), which is basically the ICC defined rules for how they will test/rate/document the product? For example, for post installed concrete expansion bolts, there are a number of examples of similar products already with ICC reports. But if the product doesn't have a similar AC to compare to, developing the AC would likely be the first step, and can be a real challenge. And staying current for ICC-ESR approval is an involved process, including site inspections of fabrication facilities, periodic testing and lots of documentation.

In my personal experience, the ICC can be challenging to work with, to the point where many groups are now using other agencies (i.e. IAPMO) to conduct and manage the evaluation process, and create their own reports (see Hilti HST3 for an example). I believe that there was/is a court case between ICC and some of these other evaluation agencies, though I don't know if I know the final result.

But regardless, it is generally not a simple or straight-forward process. I was tangently involved in the process for a product with a new AC, that was several years before approval was reached.

 

[phamENG]

When selecting an agency to certify it, keep in mind that an ICC report doesn't mean it "meets the building code." It just means that it was tested by a lab that happens to be owned by the people who write the model building code. It's good name recognition, but as long as a product has been tested using standard ASTM (or other applicable agency) procedures by a third party lab, I'm happy to review and usually accept it.

 

[phamENG]

Case in point, I'm working on a multistory wood building using ZIP R-Sheathing. They have reports from both ICC and UES. I find the UES report to be far superior to ICC. They present the data in the same form as that presented in the NDS/SDPWS, making it easy to incorporate the design values into existing spread sheets and software programs. ICC, on the other hand, gives sort of the bare minimum strength, which is only one piece of a very important puzzle when analyzing multistory, segmented wood shear walls of variable lengths.

ICC-ESR

UES-ER

 

[North2South]

Thanks, guys, I appreciate the feedback. I’m not aware of a product that has a similar acceptance criteria. I guess it is worth “shopping” the different agencies.