If you've ever had to produce a full code compliance review for a building project, you know what it actually involves.

You're cross-referencing occupancy classifications, fire ratings, spatial separation, plumbing fixture counts, energy requirements, barrier-free obligations, and every one of those has to be traced back to a specific provision in the applicable code. You do it once, then you check it again, because the consequences of missing something aren't just professional, they land on your client, on the building, and potentially on the people inside it.

For Shawn, our principal architectural technologist, a thorough code compliance review takes roughly two days of full time work. That's not inefficiency, that's what is required when you're doing it properly.

So we built a tool to do it in under an hour.

The new Code Review tool, available now to Pro subscribers, guides you through a structured process to produce a complete compliance report. Here's how it works:

You start by filling out a basic form with building type, location, applicable jurisdiction, and a few other key parameters. From there, the tool takes over. It analyzes what it knows, identifies the gaps, and comes back to you with a targeted set of follow-up questions. You answer those, it refines the report. The process repeats until every section is resolved.

In our own testing, the initial stage takes around 10-15 minutes. Follow-up rounds are faster. A complete review across three sessions came in at under 25 minutes of processing time. The rest depends on how quickly you can get answers to the questions it asks, which is the same constraint a human reviewer faces.

What comes out the other end

The report covers the full scope of code compliance: occupancy and classification, construction type, fire protection and life safety, structural requirements, building envelope and energy, mechanical and ventilation, plumbing systems, spatial separation, and accessibility. Every finding is referenced back to the specific provision it comes from, the article, the table, the sentence, so you can verify it directly against the code.

View a sample Code Review report →

Which codes does it cover?

The tool works with the codes applicable to your project. Currently supported:

• National Building Code of Canada (used as the base for provinces without their own edition)
• NBCC Alberta Edition 2023
• NBCC British Columbia Edition 2024
• NBCC Ontario Edition
• National Fire Code of Canada
• National Plumbing Code of Canada
• Alberta STANDATA advisories

We are actively working on expanding coverage for additional provincial supplements and advisory bulletins.

Who is this for?

If you're an architectural technologist, designer, engineer, contractor, or building inspector who needs a reliable, referenced compliance summary, this is built for you. It won't replace your professional judgment, and it isn't meant to. What it does is handle the heavy lifting of the search and cross-reference work, so your expertise goes into reviewing and applying the findings rather than hunting them down.

Try it free

Code Review is a Pro feature. Pro subscribers get a 14-day free trial, no commitment required. If you've been on the fence about Pro, this is a good reason to take it for a run.

Start your free trial →

— Brendan