Features Codes and standards
Knowing NAFS: Jaugelis explains how to navigate the standard at Top Glass

With the title “North American Fenestration Standard,” it is tempting to think that NAFS applies equally to all fenestration products. This is not the case: while NAFS applies to a great many fenestration products, it excludes many products used in larger buildings from its scope. Fortunately, the code recognizes this and provides complementary compliance paths for products within and outside the scope of the standard.

This presentation will examine NAFS and the Canadian Supplement to NAFS from the perspective of the National and Ontario Building Codes. It will explain why Performance Class is so central to NAFS, yet peripheral to the code. And why in Canada we dismantle the Performance Grade – the “American ABC rating” – to specify air-water-structural properties independently of one another.

This session will also address the matter of products outside the scope of NAFS and how the methods provided in CSA A440S1, the Canadian Supplement to NAFS, can be used to determine suitable design pressure and water-penetration resistance test pressure values for products within as well as outside the scope of the standard.

As a bonus this presentation is supplemented with a free e-book for participants titled “An Architect’s Guide to NAFS: Using with the North American Fenestration Standard in Canada.”

About the speaker
Al Jaugelis is a senior fenestration specialist with RDH Building Science and contributes to research, new construction and renewal projects as well as assisting fenestration manufacturers with product performance and regulatory compliance issues.

Al brings to this role practical experience in the fenestration manufacturing industry and a clear understanding of Canadian code requirements applicable to fenestration. He is an effective communicator and is in demand as a speaker on topics related to fenestration performance and Canadian building codes.

 Al is a member of the CSA A440 Committee on Performance Standards for Windows, the Fenestration Canada and FenBC Technical Committees, the NRCan Energy Efficient Fenestration Steering Committee, and is also a technical consultant member of the American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA)

He is recognized as an authority on the North American Fenestration Standard (NAFS) and writes about it in the NAFS in Canada blog. •