Originally Posted by
A.D. Miller
The house has an attached garage. The conterminous or contiguous wall with the house contains three (3) separate access panels for the fire sprinkler system, the main water shut-off valve and the PEX manifold.
My first reading through that lead me to say "WTH you talking about?", then I re-read it, dropped the unknown big word which I looked up (conterminous) and the other big word I knew (contiguous) as they were not clear in their use, and substituted in the smallish word "common" and came up with "The house has an attached garage. The common wall with the house ... "
Which raised the same basic point that H.G. was raising ...
Originally Posted by
H.G. Watson, Sr.
AD: I'm not clear on this: Are they ON or IN a separation wall ?
... and that is: You stated "The ... wall with the house contains", indicating that they were "in" the wall.
Being as that is a "separation wall" and not a fire-resistance rated wall, the requirements for membrane penetrations into the garage side membrane are not the same as they are for a fire-resistance rated wall. That said, however, there is still a "separation" requirement which is required to be met.
The "separation" wall simply requires:
-
R309.1.2 Other penetrations. Penetrations through the separation required in Section R309.2 shall be protected by filling the opening around the penetrating item with approved material to resist the free passage of flame and products of combustion.
Thus:
- The door could be an approved "separation" rated door (not sure there is such a rating, but if there is, then the door should be suitable as manufactured and installed if installed in accordance with the installation instructions).
- Lacking such an approved "separation" rating, what makes "The access panel doors are metal of the proper thickness"? What is "the proper thickness"?
- Lacking such information (I do not have it), then the door would need to meet the requirement for the garage side separation, or, the door would need to open to an enclosure which meets the garage side separation.
Agreed so far?
Being as the garage side separation is required to be 1/2" gypsum board minimum ("The garage shall be separated from the residence and its attic area by not less than 1/2-inch (12.7 mm) gypsum board applied to the garage side."), then either the door needs to be 1/2" gypsum board or the enclosure the door opens to needs to be 1/2" gypsum board on the garage side of the penetration. An example of the latter would be the "five sided box" which is constructed of 1/2" gypsum board and installed within the wall with the open (missing) sixth side of the box facing the opening in the separation wall to the garage side. The door would then open to an enclosure which consisted of the required 1/2" gypsum on the garage side.
The pipes which enter and exit this five sided box would need to be sealed around where they entered and exited the walls of the box.