Code Wars Over? Coming Soon: One Plumbing and Mechanical Code

History was made on a sweltering day in Denver this past month, when two model code organizations, the International Code Council (ICC) and the International Assn. of Plumbing & Mechanical Officials (IAPMO), announced their intentions to publish one unified plumbing and mechanical code by 2009. This is indeed an historic event and probably the most significant change in the plumbing and mechanical codes since the introduction of the common code format and the drafting of the “Joint Model Plumbing Code” in 1994. The ICC, of course, publishes the International Plumbing Code (IPC) and the International Mechanical Code (IMC), while IAPMO publishes the Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC) and the Uniform Mechanical Code (UMC). The joint announcement was made July 15 at ICC's town hall meeting, where the two groups officially reported on the progress to produce a single model plumbing and mechanical code. One of the major motivations for a joint code, according to Chris Salazar, president of IAPMO, was the fact that both organizations had been spending large sums of money meeting with various municipalities in order to convince different jurisdictions to use their particular code. This “Code War,” he said, often a daily battle, took intense effort, a huge time commitment and significant travel expenses going all around the country.