Online clearinghouses for building codes are trying to make ease-of-use a hallmark of code research.

(Photo by Tom Sawyer for ENR)

Subscribers to services such as MADCAD, from Computecture Inc., Rockville, Md., and of GoCodes.com from AEC Innovations LLC, Litchfield Park, Ariz., buy one-year, online access to a selection of codes that can be searched over the Internet through the services. The online codes retain their original structure, but are searchable and up to date. Standard tools, such as GoCodes’ subject navigation trees, help users scan for references the same way in any code.

Titles are sold either separately or by category bundles. Available codes include the 2000 and 2003 I-Codes, New York State Codes, 1997 Uniform Building Code and Uniform Fire Code.

Some code groups also have their individual products online, but the trend is to vend multiple codes under a common interface.

Annual subscriptions for titles range from a few dollars to hundreds. A full set of the 2000 I-Code is about $260 on GoCodes, which also has the ADA Standards for Accessible Design as a free trial at http://www.gocodes.com. Computecture’s MADCAD can be seen at http://www.madcad.com.