Well, jurisdictions are slowly adopting the 2015 version of the IBC and it is time to start our farewell to elevator hoistway venting. This requirement was only meant for buildings with sleeping type occupancies, however it seemed to find its way into all sorts of buildings. The IBC section requiring hoistway venting has been removed.

The good news architecturally is two-fold:

1. Elevators that only went partially up the building still needed to be vented from the top (the floor at which their shaft terminated). Hoistway vents had to be connected directly to the outside or connected via a rated enclosure (horizontal or vertical). This was sometimes challenging to achieve.

2. Depending on the architecture of the building roof these vents were sometimes hard to hide.

The rational for having venting originally (according to the code commentary) was that most fire deaths occur due to smoke which could rise up the elevator shaft. The reason given for removing it was that it was an antiquated requirement, would likely actually increase smoke movement in the shaft, it was in conflict with the hoistway pressurization method, and also wasted energy.

If you have any questions about this - or anything MEP related please email me at tlong@engr3.com

ABOUT TREY LONG