ICC Evaluation Service Inc. Evaluation Report ESR-1338, sponsored by the Gypsum Association, has been revised and reissued by ICC-ES with an effective date of September 1, 2005. The reissued report supersedes the June 2004 edition.

The new document reflects a total technical review of the information contained in the report and also incorporates the provisions contained in a parallel report sponsored by the association, Evaluation Report ESR-1046. In 2003, a complete internal association review of both reports revealed a moderate amount of duplicative information between the documents. Working closely with ICC-ES staff, the GA recast the two reports into a single document while simultaneously reviewing and reconfirming the technical product information.

"We also noticed that some provisions in both reports had, over the years, found their way into the model codes," said Michael Gardner, executive director of the association. "While it is helpful to have the code information repeated in an evaluation report, it really serves little purpose to do so. Having the information in both the code and the evaluation report also creates a situation where the information can change in one document and not change in the other document, thus causing confusion for product users and installers. We wanted to minimize the potential for that circumstance to occur, so we also removed some sections from the report that were identical to the language in the International Building Code and the International Residential Code."

The association will be petitioning ICC-ES to eliminate the ESR-1046 report from circulation.