ONTARIO, CA — The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO®) is seeking volunteers with technical backgrounds in plumbing system design to participate in the Water Demand Calculator® consensus panel for the development of IAPMO Z1403.

The plumbing industry has long recognized that the potable water systems in today’s buildings are over-designed. This represents a growing health and safety risk, as problems related to declining water quality have steadily increased in recent years in terms of water ageing due to longer water residence times in plumbing systems.

The water requirement calculator

In response to this need, IAPMO initiated a project to develop the Water Demand Calculator to provide a new method of sizing water supplies that takes modern water use patterns into account. It is the first statistically based sizing method since the 1940s and is the result of a multi-year research project between IAPMO, the American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE), the Water Quality Research Foundation (WQ-RF), and the University of Cincinnati. This effort resulted in the introduction of the Water Demand Calculator into the 2018 Uniform Plumbing Code (UPC®) under the ANSI-accredited development process.

The Water Demand Calculator is widely accepted in U.S. jurisdictions such as Wisconsin, New Jersey, California, and Oregon, and in Canada with adoption in Vancouver. The Water Demand Calculator has also been recognized as a recommended method for sizing residential buildings in the ASPE 2022-2023 Engineering Design Handbook, the ASPE Engineering Method for reducing the risk of Legionella in building installationsand the AWWA M22 Handbook on water supply and water meter sizing.

A binational standard

The development of this binational standard (ANSI/CAN) provides jurisdictions and provinces with a standard that is accredited by both the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Standards Council of Canada (SCC).

For more than 30 years, IAPMO has developed American national standards, initially as the secretariat for the ANSI Z124 Technical Committee and since 2005 as an ANSI-accredited standards development organization. On May 10, 2018, IAPMO received accreditation for the development of national standards from Canada through SCC, thereby assuming responsibility for the development of CAN/IAPMO-designated standards.

The Water Demand Calculator Consensus Panel members will assist IAPMO in the development of this new U.S. and Canadian national standard. The Consensus Panel members will work according to IAPMO’s accredited standards development procedures: IAPMO/ASSE PP-1 (Guidelines and Procedures for Consensus Development of U.S. National Standards) and IAPMO PP-2 (Guidelines and Procedures for Development of Canadian National Standards).

“This standard will provide guidance for proper sizing of pipes and address decades of oversizing of pipelines that have led to the unintended consequences of excessive system costs, deterioration of water security and wasted energy,” said John HigdonIAPMO Director of Standards Development.

Consensus Committee

The first consensus panel meetings will take place virtually in September.

The application deadline is September 27. Applications can be downloaded at the following URL:

https://forms.iapmo.org/iapmo/committee/app_ps_committee.aspx

Industry stakeholders – including installers, manufacturers, sanitation professionals, building owners and managers, engineers, AHJs and the general public – are invited and encouraged to apply to participate.

Interested parties who wish to serve on the Water Demand Calculator Consensus Panel may submit the completed application by the September 27 deadline or contact John Higdon at 909/ 218-8123 or by email at (email protected) by asking.