TCNA Releases Industry Updates & Developments
Anderson, SC, April 20, 2020-For the inaugural day of Coverings Connected, the Tile Council of North America (TCNA) has released a series of announcements.
* The TCNA’s Product Performance Testing Laboratory is expanding its microbiology-based services to meet the industry’s growing and ever-changing needs for relevant, up-to-date product testing and analysis, due to increased testing inquiries during the COVID-19 pandemic. New services include antiviral testing to determine the survival rates/duration of viruses on different surface materials and the efficacy of common household cleaners to disinfect these surfaces. TCNA will also be joining the ASTM task force for developing surrogates for the SARS-CoV-2 virus for testing purposes.
* An update to the International Building Code (IBC) will allow designers to use adhered porcelain tiles as large as 48”x48” or 36”x72” inches on building facades. The proposed change, driven by the International Masonry Institute (IMI) and the TCNA, was certified by the International Code Council Board of Directors this month and will go into effect in the 2021 IBC. Prior to the update, the IBC limited adhered porcelain tile to a maximum of 24” on one side and a maximum of three square feet per tile.
* TCNA announced a transformative collaboration to provide industry-wide material ingredient transparency. This collaboration, covering the ingredients from which ceramic tile and cementitious grouts and mortars are made, will produce a Material Ingredient Guide that includes Certified GreenScreen Assessments of at least thirty of the raw materials most commonly used by the North American tile industry. Existing programs for material ingredient disclosure, such as the Health Product Declaration and the Declare Label, already provide vehicles for individual manufacturers to report what goes into their products. Building on these efforts, the North American ceramic tile industry’s Material Ingredient Guide will serve as a unified source to better understand the raw materials regularly used by the ceramic tile industry.
* TCNA announces the 2020 North American industry-wide Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) for ceramic tile has been certified by Underwriter’s Laboratories (UL) and published to UL’s publicly accessible database. This EPD, valid for the next five years, updates the previous North American industry-wide EPD for ceramic tile, which expired at the end of 2019. Effective immediately, products covered by the EPD can be used to satisfy architectural and green building specification criteria, including those established by LEED v4.1.
Over 85% of North American ceramic tiles are covered by the EPD and specifically those from the following companies: American Wonder Porcelain, Arto Brick, Crossville, Dal-Tile, Del Conca USA, Florida Tile, Interceramic USA, Ironrock, Porcelanite-Lamosa, Portobello America, Quarry Tile, StonePeak Ceramics and Vitromex USA.
* Ryan Marino, TCNA’s standards development and research manager, has been named a Coverings 2020 Rock Star recipient. Coverings Rock Stars-an Emerging Leaders Program-honors the best and brightest young talent in the tile and stone industry.
Marino has been engaged in ceramic tile industry research and standards development for nine years. He served three consecutive terms as chairman of the ASTM C21 Committee on Ceramic Whitewares and Related Products, manages the TCNA Tile Technical Committee, and is actively involved in the ISO TC189 and ANSI A108 Committees.
Related Topics:Coverings, Crossville, Stonepeak Ceramics, Daltile