good morning commissioners this is a code enforcement and the update pretty much to october. and for the building inspection that were performed and i approximate 417 and we note that it is the highest month that we had for the year. and back in january, there is maybe 1000 less inspections and so the inspection has been very busy, building up the districts and redesignate the inspectors to assist other inspectors in the busy districts and we also have two new building inspectors performing inspections. complaints received, 344. complaints response within 24 to 72 hours is 277. complaints but first notice of violations were 54. complaints received and abaited without notice of violation, 174, abaited complaints for notice of violation were 49. second notice of violations

refer to code enforcement 21. for the housing inspection division housing inspection performed were 897, complaints received were 347, complaints responsed within 24 to 72 hours, 339. complaints of notice of violations issued 123. abaited complaints are 289. the number of cases sense the director's hearing, 4. >> routine inspections 237. for code enforcement division, the number of hearings were 101, number of order of abasement issued were 20. >> the number of cases under advisement is 25. the number of cases abaited, 108. and today enforcement, and with the 23 and that is for the month of october and we will have it provided there to give you the break down on that, thank you. >> thank you, deputy director. >> is there any public comment

on the director's report, items 4 a through d? >> seeing none, >> so madam secretary if we could go to item 7 if it is okay with my fellow commissioners. >> okay. >> discuss and possible action on the ordinance and amending the health code, article 38, to require an enhanced ventilation system for sensitive use projects within the air pollutant exposure zone, and establishing document review fees; amending the building code to correspond to the health code changes; and making environmental findings, and findings of consistency with the general plan, and the eight priority policies of planning code, section 101.1. (continued from 10/15/14 meeting) and thank you for coming i know that you are well tired of us here now at this stage, but now we have the people here today and i think that we will have a good conversation and the whole gist of it is kind of an update on the implementation and i want

to acknowledge paul niel here who was implement to put together the report and he has also brought back jeffrey maddox who is a fire consultant who maybe have some input as well and i know that we have the speakers here and i appreciate you coming and you and the staff and the planning coming today, each though at this stage we are just trying to figure out, it is kind of past where you guys are at now. if you have any comments. >> thank you very much. i am from san francisco, department of public health and environmental health, representing the air quality program and my colleagues are here from the planning department. and it is true that the effective date has been established as december 7th, for the amendments to article 38, and the mayor's signature was on november 7th. we then have a 90 day mandate to from the effective date to

conduct with our effective city departments. including dbi planning and fire. and effective members of the development community, and this week and also, began a discussion with the affordable housing, and the people in the mayor's office of housing and the community development because they will be assisting those developers. so, similar to what we have been doing with your community of the builder's association and mr. oneal presenting a proposal which we will call the corridor air proposal. so we will have a term about that, and that is a way to see if it is acceptable in fire safety terms to use the filtered corridor air as the fresh air supply for the residential units so we are definitely trying to give a fair hearing to that idea and seeing whether or not it is going to be acceptable to our fire marshal. so then our job in the health

department is to lead the charge for the 120-day mandate as well. which is to have a report, of technologies, that help people comply with this law. and so, the corridor air proposal will be one of those if we can determine whether it is going to be accepted across the board, accepted on a case by case basis or not accepted at all. we will include that in the report, and we are looking at the technologis that they have use and what the history has been with compliance and so we can use their experience and we are considering whether or not to let out a small contract and so we can have the review from the mechanical engineering firm on the available technologies to use. >> okay. >> and those are all different approachs that we are thinking about right now, and the report says that there could be regarding policies. that help the people comply. and so, that is something that i probably need to go back to the planning department and consider.

but, some of the high-rise developers said that they would lose the space when they put in ducting. the question is can be there a different height allowance to the proportion for the space that they lost for ducting, for example. >> and so at the end of the 120 days. >> yes, so that will be the april. >> does that go back to the board of supervisors? or where does that go? >> let me see here, shall report to the board of of supervisors within 120 days. after the effective date, even though it is a one time report, it is something that we will need to keep doing to make it available through the website. >> but the end of the game of the 120 report will be implementation and among all of the other issues that you talked about. >> implementation is ongoing from the effective date, which is december 7th. so the report is to inform implementation but it does not stop it or halt it or pause in. >> okay. all right. >> okay. >> thank you.

>> and so, once again, thanks very much for coming again here today. >> thank you. >> so i will and if it is okay, not to kind of be, direct on this, we could go straight to mr. davis's who is here, dr. davis who has been... >> okay. >> good morning, i am david rich and i am with the engineering firm over in the east bay in burkely and we regularly do the work like the work that we have done on this project, reting to the performance based assessments of systems designed to maintain some level of fire life safety for occupants in buildings where there might be a fire.

it is not comprehensive but i will give you the summary now. in a design of a system like this, it is common to look at the code requirements, what the building system looks like and then develop some sort of a faulty, and to understand what the risks are and what the potential threats are to the system and so we did that and we understood that we were dealing with one particular approach to maintaining the occupant with a fire inside of a dwelling unit and that is typically visibility and the ability to see and to get out of the building and that would be impaired by smoke.

you are looking at a corridor that is damper that will be activated by a fire by a smoke detector probably to keep the smoke that is in the unit from traveling into the corridor. and these kinds of smoke or fire smoke dampers are commonly employed in the building components that separate an area, where you don't want the smoke from the fire, if those operate correctly, they will have a good proven track record. if they don't, they will let the smoke in the area that you don't want it, what we are assessing here is whether or not the pressurized corridor system that is being proposed somehow adversery effects the operation of those dampers and the ability of those dampers to keep the smoke in the room of the fire and the short answer is no, it doesn't from our study, it does a good and the system performs, and if the

damper activate and the system performs as it should, maintaining in it for the occupants trying to escape for a range of simulated conditions. >> those conditions included a fire that has grown beyond the sprinkles ability to control it and so a large fire and the fire that is controlled by sprinklers and we are looking at the conditions by which the glass has broken out and we looked at the wind on the fire fa said and we looked at the temperature and the low temperatures in the winter and the top and bottom floor and we looked at whether or not the supply sands in the corridor failed, the exhaust fans failtd, both failed, and we looked at whether the dampers failed and whether, 25 percent failed and whether they all worked or whether they all failed. okay? it is a pretty big matrix to run through and we ran through it using a term called contam which is a network model and it

solves a series of equations that say that if you have the high pressure in this room and the low pressure in the hall the air will flow from this room to the hall through a series of openings that will allow you to go through a whole bunch of these simulation and look for bad okay tore and that is what we did, and we took those bad actors and ran them through a comprehensive model. it allows us to run those quickly and it heats our offices, the result of both of those sets of that if all of the dampers worked fine, everything is safe. despite the fans operating or not operating, and also showed

that if you have 25 percent damper failure and one damper is in the room of fire origin, that is bad. that smoke is go to get into the corridor and it may or may not get into the adjacent rooms if one has failed in an adjacent room. >> the supply or the exhaust fans in the corridor, being active, are not active, makes no difference on either of those scenarios. operational smoke damper here is good and stays good. and i will stop there and answer any questions. >> so i have questions about power, in the event of a power outage that is prolonged like during an earthquake, what happens to these systems? so the assumption is that the

dampers fail to a closed position. >> okay. >> we also assume that the supply and exhaust fans fail under those circumstances. the damper might also activate with power intact, but, fail in an open position. so they could fail into the open position, irrespective if there is a power supply failure or not. so the power supply issue, becomes irrelevant because the supply and exhaust fans being operational or not did not make a difference on whether the dampers failed open or operate td normal. >> it was not working and didn't make a difference. >> plan and exhaust working did not make a difference. if they worked normally, supply and exhaust working no difference, and supply and exhaust not working made no difference. do you follow all that have? >> yes. >> the matrix is a little hard to keep track of. >> so my guess, is and you sort of answered my question and the

default is not that big, when there is a failure that they remain open and so i guess that i was looking at it in the event that there is no fire, that there is just an outage, and in the building, and it is sealed. you know, and folks, like, elderly folks, and the people who can't necessarily get out after a long time. you know? there is no default that these things will just remain open. there are others here that will be able to comment on this subject. and my understanding is that you will be able to employ a failed, closed damper. >> okay. >> there is no back up battery that is mandated. >> in low rise, no. in high-rise, you will have the back up power supplies. >> okay. >> and again not really my area of specialty. but, that is my understanding. >> thank you. >> others can correct me. >> thank you. >> we will go to commissioner walker and lee. >> i guess that i wanted to clarify the dampers, the dampers will be important in a

fire because it would and we are assume thating they get activated by the smoke alarm. is that what you are saying? in a power outage they would not need to close, maybe we are getting too detailed but i get it now. >> yeah. >> the dampers could be activated by a smoke control system, or by an alarm system. >> right >> building wide bu, they could be activated by a detector placed nearby the... >> yeah, by the smoke or somewhere in the air. >> okay. >> yes, in that case we want them closed as a default in the case of a power outage it does not matter. >> okay, commissioner lee, thank you. >> that brings up my question about what happens after the failure? do we need to go back into the building and rebalance everything, to make sure that it is working? >> probably? >> now i am really outside of my area. i am not sure. that is something for people

who specialize in balancing, air balancing of buildings, and that would certainly be done initially. i believe that it is something that would need to be done periodically. that there are requirements for it to be done periodically and the inspection of the smoke dampers will need to be done. >> and then i have a question f that and you can't answer that, then what happens inside of the building when the people living there and how would they know if it is working or not? >> i mean, how would they, fuel that and this is going to suppose to work the way that it is supposed to be done? and so the smoke and fire control systems are require to adhere to a certain schedule of inspection testing and maintenance. >> and that schedule would vary based on code requirements but, i think that that is the basis for answering a question for an occupant does my system work? >> i see. >> okay. >> and i believe that we have got the fire consultant here that could probably dig a

little bit deeper on the technical questions if you need. my question is related to the pressurized hall, is it pressurized by the system, or is it pressurized by the fire, and how, and let's stable that required pressure. >> so the whole, according to the requirements of the enhanced ventation ordinance, or the implementation as described in mr. oneal's document i would have i believe two air changes per hour within the corridor and then a requirement to have air flow from the corridor into the dwelling units based on the factors related to the units and the number of occupants. >> that ability to push in the air to the dwellings requires the corridor be pressurized. >> yes, okay. >> the corridor could also be influenced by wind and what is called stack effect in the building which is an effect

which arises during times when the building is hot relative to outside or cold relative to outside. >> okay. >> so the corridor could see the changes in pressure, yes. >> and there is something that regulates that within the system? >> yeah, and sort of out of my area, there are what are called compensated fans, which would allow for regulation of pressure in a space. whether those fans would be implemented in a given scenario i am not sure. >> i believe that we might have more questions for you dr. rich, but we really appreciate you explaining that in the layman's terms and we got a good understanding and i appreciate the kind of excuse on the fire drill that you had to go through for the last week to get this and give us this presentation here today. >> sure. >> but in summer, you think that basically, that the fire

dampers are an option for us here? to put this implementation of our (inaudible). >> this implementation does not adversely effect the operation of smoke and fire dampers, and at protecting people in the event of a fire. >> thank you very much. >> i appreciate it. >> okay. thank you. >> is somebody from fire, did you want to weigh in on this? >> no you didn't. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> no, i will call you back up, dr. rich if we need it. >> okay. >> you could state your name for the record, please? >> my name is john and i am a fire protection engineer, and with the fire department. >> and our position on this matter is that we are concerned about life safety, and the okay ccupant egress and we would like to see that fully vetted

and come to a conclusion that these types of systems don't impact life safety, egress, of the occupants and especially in the residential buildings where the people tend to and not be aware and in the early hours of what is going on. i am reviewing the analysis and it is not complete, but so far, it looks like it is coming up with the results that are valid. and so at this point, to say more about it, would not be, you know, helpful. but, because there, and there are many possible scenarios that could be evaluated, and we are really just focusing on what has been presented by the

paul oneal in the cb engineering article, and so, otherwise, than that, that is pretty much where the fire department is right now. >> okay. >> and what..., could you, commissioner? >> thank you. and what would be the egress issues? >> okay. >> so, when you have a fire in one of the units, and you have failure of systems, basically, the fire and the smoke dampers, that protect the corridor, where the people would have to evacuate. and you would allow the smoke into those corridors. that you potentially block egress, because the people can't get out of their units and in the article 38, there are no windows that are operatable. and so, we have no egress

windows. and however, certain code cycles have required egress windows. and so, when you don't have an egress window there is no alternative escape route. and one thing that i did note in the article 38, write up, is that there seems to be a discrepancy between a low rise and a high-rise. and in the article report that i read, low rise was defined as three stories and below. correct me if i am wrong. and with the requirements of 62.2? of the energy code. right. and then, high-rises are defined anything above 4 stories. >> well, in the building code, we define a high-rise as anything above 75 feet of the

last occupiable floor level and so what we are evaluating right now, are low rise buildings that are 75 feet or less. in height. and so, the important distinction because the high-rise buildings present a higher challenge for the fire department to address occupant safety and response, and firefightering tactics and things like that. and it we can't reach higher than 75 with what is called a master stream. so essentially we have to fight the fire from inside and not outside. so, right now, what is being looked at is the what, the building code, and it will define it as a low or maybe even a mid rise, and we just say that it is not a high-rise. and so, the egress getting back to your question, is of a very important concern because there is very little time usually in a fire for the occupants to

respond. and escape. and if that fire is progressed to the point that the smoke is coming through the corridor, because the failure in the fire smoke dampers to close, and the corridor is blocked, then the occupants can't escape. and essentially, if they tried to, they will smoke inhallation, and it will overcome them. and they can't see, a lot of things happen and they become disoriented and we have a problem and the same thing with the firefighter response and we come into a floor and we can't see. and we can't see where to go. there is and it works, you know, either way, but we are, primarily we are concerned with the people getting out. so, in the case of a failure, which does happen often with the fire smoke dampers and because they are not as reliable as we would like them

to be. then that would present a problem with the egress and the corridors. >> okay. and thank you. >> okay. >> i appreciate you giving us that update and at this stage, if i may, i think that we have the city mechanical here as well. but if we could just probably hear from maybe somebody from the consultant from the fire, and the authority and mr. metta? >> maybe just to comment on what you think that you heard here today and what you think will be a possibility of going forward. >> thanks. >> jeff maddox with the fire control and you can hear me through the microphone okay? >> yes. >> i would like to see the results of the studies we have also been doing studying various ducted systems with our cfd analysis, and for the buildings that are under construction and design and i

am curious to see how there are results compared with this corridor air scheme. and so i would... and one of the things that i would like to think about though, is john, you mentioned that if air or smoke has moved into the corridor and the egress problem? and i think that we could use a study to evaluate just how much smoke it takes to make that corridor untenantable and is that something that is included in your study so far. >> yes. >> i think that is a big part of it to figure out if there is an opening where the damper fails, how much time there is in the corridor, for the rest of the tenants to respond and get out. >> the idea that there is be no smoke in the corridor is a very conservative and how long they can be in the space, and that is really where we need to go. and i do want to talk about some of those questions about whether dampers fail, and how, and failures, because there is a couple of terms that are a

bit confusing when we see the dampers fail closed what that means is when the power is removed from the electrical device, it closes, when it experiences a failure, that means in my mind, that is does not move to a closed position, it is hung up and the mechanism does not allow it to close to a safe position and so john is suggesting that the dampers experience failures yes, they do. and in this case, though, the word fail, closed, is not the failure. that is what we want, we want it to close, right? >> and the question of whether they run all of the time, the fans and the question is that they will run all of the time in the normal mode, when the power is gone, they will not have back up in the low rise buildings, the fan will turn off but at that point, if there was a fire that damper will close to the closed position and it will not matter as dr.

rich said, whether the fan is running or not, as long as that closes we are safe. in general we are having the problems with this, because the building code had a prohibs to use the corridor to convey the air and i think that that is a hold over, more from one corridor were used as a return and think about that and if you have a space and an office or residential and whatever and your return air is going through the corridor and that is exactly where the smoke is going to go in a fire and so i think that the genesis of this prohibition is the return side, if we are pushing the air through the corridor to the units that is less of a problem, the smoke is not going to tend to go through the corridor, as it was in the return mode and i would like to see more of that study as well and you mentioned that it did not work, when in the corridor

remained, positively pressurized, and again, i would like to see how much time there is involved in that, or whether it was the any smoke is a failure sort of a question. >> and any questions. >> commissioner walker? >> yeah, i think that i am in returning to the issue of how much smoke is allowed in the corridor for it to become a problem, that would tie-in also to the condition of the stairwell, or the down exiting, egress, correct? so, you have to, you might have a different set of rules for the stairwell, requiring outside source or something. which would then be more important in the higher buildings. you have that issue, so, just i want to bring that up that that might be considered, and then you are talking about the return air, coming in and so you are assuming that a system that just might push in the air

and go out from some of the other source within. and so it will go out, and not in the corridor. >> right. and that, and i think that it paul's design or in tent, the air comes in from the core and it gets relieved, either through the exterior openings or the windows or the exhaust shafts that are serving the other functions as well. >> okay. >> and you mentioned that is the air pressurization idea, thank you very much. and you know, we do the exact same thing that we are proposing for the corridor and we do it for stairs as a requirement of the building code for high-rise buildings, it is the same idea. if you are a pressurizing that stair so the smoke can't go in and then the stair is safe. >> the idea is to pressurize the corridor and it is not quite the same pressure, and i am not claiming that it is the same as the air pressurization but it is the same concept. >> but one more question here. >> okay. >> what is the standard now for allowing the smoke into these corridor and stairwells? >> what is