MIA+BSI: The Natural Stone Institute has released the Dimension Stone Design Manual, Version 8.0, the stone industry’s single-source reference for dimension stone design and construction facts and details. Major revisions and additions to version 8.0 include the following:

• New Restoration and Maintenance chapter, totaling 122 pages covering equipment, repairs, sealers, restorative processes, and working with commercial and historic buildings, in addition to a 16 page Troubleshooting Chart containing over 128 photos illustrating common problems and solutions.
• New Tolerances chapter, incorporating the September 2014 technical bulletin “Tolerances in the Dimension Stone Industry” and all tolerances references from previous DSDM editions. This new chapter is formatted as an easy-to-read chart divided into three sectors: stone fabrication, installation, and substrate condition tolerances.
• Revised Wet Areas chapter, incorporating the 2013 Wet Areas Technical Module and 19 additional pages of large scale detail drawings. The revised chapter includes residential and commercial application details, conformance to current water vapor permeance standards, and endorsement of current ASTM, ANSI, and TCNA methods and standards.

MIA+BSI Technical Director, Chuck Muehlbauer, stated: "The Cleaning, Maintenance, and Restoration chapters of the Dimension Stone Design Manual were the only two chapters that had not received significant revision in the past 10 years. This fact, coupled with the realization that the restoration sector of the industry is currently the fastest growing sector of MIA+BSI membership, made this project an essential improvement to our manual.” Keith Graves (Arc Granite & Marble), who was instrumental in completing the new Restoration and Maintenance chapter, commented: “I really think that this document will be an asset to the industry and it is my hope to have it serve as a standard to preserve the integrity of the industry.”

Following the publication of version 8.0, MIA+BSI is working on the first-ever translations of the manual. Spanish, Arabic, and Mandarin translations are now underway as a means to enhance the applicability of the association’s technical resources. The launch of the association’s online Natural Stone Resource Library in 2015 now affords architects and designers easy access to this information. To date, nearly 12,000 downloads have occurred, with the highest percentages being information from the Dimension Stone Design Manual.