Starting on Jan. 1, New York State residents will be required to notify local officials when they build or renovate a structure with pre-engineered wood or timber roof trusses.
The new regulation, signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sept. 17, is designed to protect firefighters and other emergency workers who could be injured when buildings constructed with trusses catch on fire.
Trusses have replaced conventional roof framing on many residential job sites because they use less lumber, and they go up faster. They’re also used in floor framing and can span greater distances than sawn dimensional lumber. But, the governor’s office said, trusses are more likely to collapse in a fire.
“While this construction method is safe for normal use, it can also become fragile and collapse with little or no warning when exposed to fire,” a statements from Cuomo’s office says. “Truss type, pre-engineered woor or timber construction is often undetectable without advanced notice, and there have been multiple occasions in recent years where first responders were injured or killed while responding to fires in buildings that utilitize this particular construction method and ultimately collapsed.”
The Journal News reported, for example, that five New Jersey firefighters died in 1988 when a truss roof collapsed in Hackensack. The newspaper quoted a local fire official as saying roof trusses are “firefighter-killers.” There have been other incidents as well, including a fire in Indiana that killed a firefighter when a truss roof on a church collapsed.
Property owners outside of New York City will be required to indicate on their building permit applications whether trusses will be used. Local government agencies, in turn, will be required to inform the fire department and emergency dispatchers. In addition, the presence of trusses will have to be noted by a sign or symbol attached to an electrical box on the exterior of the building, the governor’s office said.
The new law covers both roof and floor trusses. It applies only to new construction.
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Roof trusses are increasingly common in residential construction, but they also pose risks to fire fighters and other emergency personnel in the case of fire, according to the New York State's governor office.
