Quality Assurance and Inspection
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In Practice: Quality Assurance and Inspection
In construction, the goal of inspection and quality assurance
is straightforward: verify that the building is being built properly
and that the owner is getting not only what they asked for, but
what they are paying for. For masonry, we need to know things such
as:
- materials meet their individual specifications
- mortar is mixed to the correct proportions
- grout is placed in the right cells and adequately
consolidated.
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| As masonry walls have become taller and thinner,
the system has moved from loadbearing units to hollow units
that contain reinforcement and grout in their cores. |
There are several approaches for improving the quality of masonry
construction. These include new products, new construction methods,
and as we will focus on here, different ways of testing or inspecting
the work.
One trend in masonry is a greater focus on inspection, with good
reason. The manner in which seismic zones are defined has been changing
over the last few years. The definition of seismic areas has been
broadened so that a greater proportion of the U.S. falls into those
categories. It is not that any part of the country is any more or
less at risk of a seismic event, but the government and codes organizations
have decided that greater protection can be built into structures
from the outset. The increased focus on seismic design has led to
more grouted masonry, necessary to encase the reinforcement and
add strength and ductility to a wall. (Download
article on seismic design considerations in model codes.)
Along with this revised approach, the three legacy building codes
(UBC, NBC, SBC) have converged into a single national document (International
Building Code), lessening regional differences. The IBC is published
by the International
Code Council.
The IBC contains guidance on the level of inspection necessary
based on building type and use. There are two levels of inspection,
appropriately called Levels 1 and 2, and one exempt category, meaning
no inspection is required. Some tasks require periodic inspection
and some require continuous inspection. (Only non-essential facilities
that are empirically designed masonry, glass block masonry, or masonry
veneer fall into the exempt category.)
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