North Dakota

Statewide summary — confirm with your building department before designing

No value on this row was changed by this audit. The seismic design category A was verified against the USGS ASCE 7-16 design maps at Site Class D and Risk Category II and holds everywhere in the state, including Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Minot and Williston; North Dakota carries the lowest seismic hazard of any state in this data set. Termite risk none sits inside the none to slight band of the IRC map, which is the correct band for the northern tier, so the stored value is within band even though the column cannot express the band itself. The 60 inch frost depth is conservative rather than exact: the City of Fargo publishes a frost line of about 52 inches, or four and a half feet, in its own residential guidance, so a footing at 60 inches will satisfy Fargo while your own jurisdiction may permit less. The 105 mph wind speed is an ultimate design wind speed at Risk Category II; North Dakota sits between mapped contours and a site read can land either side of it. Ground snow load and winter design temperature were not confirmed against an adopted North Dakota table. IRC Table R301.2 is completed by the local jurisdiction. Snow load audit, August 2026. North Dakota publishes no ground snow load, and this was checked against the adopted instrument rather than assumed. The current instrument is the North Dakota State Building Code Book effective January 1, 2026, published by the Department of Commerce, which adopts the 2024 editions of the IBC, IRC, IMC, IFGC, IECC and IEBC as amended by the Building Code Advisory Committee and the voting jurisdictions. I read the full IRC amendment section: it runs from section 104.8 through 2103.3 and touches R301.1.3, engineering design, but it never touches Table R301.2, and the word snow does not appear anywhere in either the IBC or the IRC amendment sections. The previous book, effective January 1, 2023 with the 2021 I-codes, is the same in this respect. There is no North Dakota county snow table, map or appendix, so both range columns are left null rather than invented. Scope, from N.D. Admin. Code 108-01-01-04 and repeated in the code book: the state building code supplements the Century Code, applies to all cities, townships and counties that elect to adopt and enforce building codes within their boundaries, applies to all state and local government buildings, and applies to all public and private schools. Under 108-01-01-05 a jurisdiction that elects to enforce a code must adopt the state code but may amend it to conform to local needs. A one- or two-family house in a township that has not elected to adopt a code is not covered at all. None of the four existing values was changed. Seismic design category A was re-confirmed against the USGS ASCE 7-16 design maps service at Site Class D and Risk Category II, returning short-period design accelerations of about 0.063 g at Fargo and 0.080 g at Williston, both category A on the short-period parameter and category A on the one-second parameter as well, which is unusual and makes North Dakota the cleanest A in this data set. Ground snow load 40 psf and wind speed 105 mph still have no North Dakota government source; the 60 inch frost depth remains conservative relative to the Fargo figure already noted above.