Are we ever going to see a review of BS 8102 Standards?
One of the main objectives of the Structural Waterproofing Group has been to push for a review of BS 8102 to better reflect where we now are as an industry. This process unfortunately, has been extremely drawn out.
Back in February, we informed members that despite correspondence with BSI a year ago and their initial response being moderately optimistic, it has since felt like they have been dragging their heels…
Should other BS standards be sidelined and not improved?
Whilst we do appreciate that the tragic events at Grenfell have created a rush to improve fire standards, does this mean other standards such as BS 8102 should be sidelined and not improved?!?
In February we wrote again to BSI (click to see our letter to BSi) following their request for additional supporting information. We have recently received a response from BSi, which we would like to share:
BSI’s Response to our letter – BS 8102
“BS 8102 Code of Practice for Protection of Below Ground Structures Against Water from the Ground was discussed at length during the recent B/526 Geotechnics meeting. The view held was that the scope of BS 8102 related to domestic basements and to include commercial basements, would require an extension to its scope. The extent of coverage on waterproofing was also discussed. Members were of the opinion that BS 8102 should not be the responsibility of this committee as it is outside its scope. National committees which mirror CEN/TC 250/SC 10 EN 1990 Basis of Design and CEN/TC 250/SC 2 Eurocode 2 Design of concrete structures will be contacted to see if they would ownership of this code.
“Comments from the PCA will be submitted at the same time. In the past, queries received on BS 8102 were sought from these committees as the code is more relevant to structural engineers than to geotechnical engineers. I will keep you updated on any progress made but in the interim period BS 8102:2009 will not be updated.”
We do not want to Fail to bring BS 8102 up-to-date
There is also a strong feeling that failure to bring the document up to date will leave the PCA Code of Practice well behind industry best practice by the time of the next planned review. As we keep saying, from a PCA perspective this is clearly not ideal and we will be doing our utmost to push the revisions through.
Whilst this certainly feels like a case of ‘kicking the can further down the road’, this was not entirely unexpected and we will keep you up to date with any further developments.