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| Insulation in Demising Walls |
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 Demising walls are those walls that separate a tenant's suite from another tenant's suite, or separate common areas in a building. Demising walls are typically found in retail strip center malls and commercial buildings with multiple tenants. I am quite often confronted with the question - is insulation required in a demising wall to meet energy code? The answer to this question is three-fold: 1. Insulation is typically NOT required in a demising wall to meet the 2006 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The U.S. Department of Energy provides guidance in their COMcheck Web-Based Training Questions, "Typically, envelope compliance is done on the entire building at the time the shell is designed and/or constructed, in which case the demising walls are not included. If you are doing a tenant space after construction of the shell, the demising walls would still be ignored because the original design assumes these will always be between conditioned spaces." Read more here. 2. City code officials may require insulation in demising walls at their discretion, or by amendment to the code. There may be situations where an older building obviously does not meet code, and the city code official may require the entire envelope of a new space to be insulated. It is always wise to check with the city building official to determine whether insulation will be required in a demising wall. If it is required, you want your contractor to know about it and price it up front. 3. Insulation is always required when a demising wall separates a conditioned space from an unconditioned space. However, there are other situations where insulating a demising wall is a good idea. For example, a demising wall separating a hot commercial kitchen from adjacent tenant spaces. In buildings where tenants pay their own utility bills, they may appreciate insulation in their walls, so they are not paying to condition adjacent spaces, particularly if adjacent spaces are not occupied for a long period of time. Insulation is also often used as a noise damper. If insulation is shown on the architect's approved plans, without a note saying it is for sound damping only, I assume the insulation is required, and inspect the insulation as well as the sealing of the demising wall to minimize air leakage. |
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