[I-Hate-Hulse]

I was hoping to pose a question to the many engineers that are CP residents here. I'm not an engineer myself, so advance apologies if this comes across as a stupid question.

I'm on a project at work that's going to require me to give some thought as to the service lives as to the various elements of a commercial building (ie the service life of the roof, HVAC, the slab, walls etc). I recognize that "service life" is going to be dependent on a whole bunch of factors, such as materials used, location and usage patterns.

Here's my questions to you structural / civil engineers. Is there some sort of element to Canadian building code that specifies what minimum service life should be of a building's various elements? (ie some part of the NRC building code that says designed to minimum code requirements, the roof of a commercial building should last between 15-25 years?). Ideally what I'd like to be able to do is say that a commercial building's envelope was designed to code - therfore it should last 20 years, assuming its of average construction.

I've found CSA 478-95 Guideline on Durability in Buildings - but I don't have access to it (any chance someone does?) and apparently it's not widely adopted. Is there anything else?

Thanks!