Hello! I’m so glad you’re here. The idea of a community like this has been brewing for a few years… and things have escalated quite quickly over the last couple months! I’ve always been one to march to the beat of my own drum, and although creating a Canada wide building code community and resource site seems like a bit of a pipe dream…I’m going for it. For those of you who know me personally, probably know that I love the building code and love to talk. So talking about the building code to even more people seemed like the next step.

Over the years, struggling through learning the code, I’ve reached out to building code officials, experts, designers and contractors across the country and almost always found them willing to share their unique perspectives and areas of expertise. 

Now, through Kilo Lima, I invite you to connect with these experts and other code users across the country. I am passionate about creating a collaborative space to share resources and spark conversations that will help users of every level achieve a more complete and useful understanding of national, provincial, and regional building code requirements. 

So what exactly is Kilo Lima?

The NATO phonetic alphabet was designed to ensure that letters could be easily understood across language differences and poor connections. At Kilo Lima, I want to take the spirit of clear communication and apply it to the complex building code to make it easier for all users to understand. Kilo Lima also represents my initials and I liked the ring of it. My mom gave me a weird look when I told her the name…but she did the same when I told her the name of my first child so I ran with it anyways.

The Blog

I love to share code knowledge and tips, and have always thought that it would be great to do that through a blog. I quickly realized that although I can talk at phenomenal speeds, getting those ideas down on paper in a concise organised way is on my ‘to-work-on’ list.

Good Question!

The Good Question! of the website might be what I am most excited for. Like my children, one of my favorite questions to ask is, ‘But why?’ In the infancy of my building code journey, a lot of what I heard was, “That’s the way it’s always done.” Well, I’ve never been one to just agree with something without understanding it, so for the past 5 years I have been working through my ever growing list of ‘to-figure-out’ questions.

Every question submitted to Kilo Lima will be reviewed. And every day, I’ll post an anonymous Good Question! This will be a cross country and discipline code chat platform, where every community member can ask their questions, share their experience and knowledge, and connect with others in the industry.

If any of these describe you, then you’ll definitely want to follow along:

• Love asking questions,
• Have a list of ‘is-this-too-dumb-to-ask-my-boss’ questions,
• Enjoy helping other code users,
• Have shared a little bit of code knowledge that impressed your boss.

Online Code Courses

I know I just said I was most excited for Good Questions!, but I’m also most excited to be able to provide online courses. You’ll come to find I get pumped up about about a lot of things… and the various aspects of this pipe dream is no exception. When I was learning the building code, I had to wait for the yearly offering of a Part 3 course to roll through town. There are also formal programs out there to walk you through the code, but if you’re like me, learning happens best in the comfort of pajamas with a hot cup of coffee in hand…. and that is typically frowned upon in an institutional setting. I also know that people are busy, and I want to provide courses that you can work through at your own pace, broken down into digestible pieces.

Do you have an idea of what specifically you’d like a course for? Awesome! Tell us about them. There are no bad ideas at Kilo Lima.

So What Happens Next?

Well I’m glad you asked! This community will only be as great as it’s members, so follow along and get involved, ask some questions, give some answers, and share it out. If you have any great ideas to make this community even better, reach out!

Until next time my friends,

KL