Basement Remodel Code?

[Jeef]

My brother lives in Waukesha County, Wisc and told me he can't remodel his basement without putting in an auxiliary exit. I find this hard to believe. Can anyone confirm this?

TIA, J

[The Reverend Natural Light]

That's the way it is in my county.. No exceptions. At least if you want to call it finished living space. There's probably no reason you can't put a couch and a big screen TV in a "storage room".

[hallerb]

very likely, for escape in a fire. thats what egreess ingress windows are for. good news once you add the extra access space can be called a bedroom.

this rule has spread across the US after so many died in basement fires, Its a excellent rule

[Jeef]

When did this ridiculous rule get passed? All new houses have to have 2 stairways from the basement?

[Jeef]

How do I get out of my bedroom? All I have are windows 30 feet off the ground. This safety culture is making me ill.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Maybe. How does that county define "auxiliary exit"?

When your brother called the county office, what did they tell him?

Oh...wait. He didn't call. He wants to get this information from you, who got it from a newsgroup.

[cp]

"Jeef" wrote

To be on the conservative side, I'd say it's been this way for at least 25 years.

NO. Only if the space is used as living space, then there must be other means of egress. Stairs/windows/door......pick your choice. I believe windows have to be no more than 4 ft. off the ground, and at least

2'x4'.... I'm sure someone will come along and give the exact sizing, but that figure is stuck in my head for some reason.

[Moses]

You have basement bedroom windows, which are 30 feet off the ground?

[HeyBub]

Rope ladder.

[lee h]

and likely pay the increased property tax due to the increased valuation of your home.

[ransley]

Codes Are Online, for Chicago for Rentals two points can be a seperate area, for residential I do not know but for a house it should be less stringent for fixing up. I think you have leeway, try a different inspectors idea.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

At 30 feet, the firemen can put a ladder or you can just jump. They also make rope ladders you can drop out a window.

At 8 feet below grade and having a heater, maybe an oil tank near you, the risk is greater. Statistically speaking, basement fires are ranked #1 or #2. Kitchen fires are right up there also. Am I over reacting? Many years ago my brother accidentally started a fire in our basement. He had an exit by a door, no one injured.

[Steve Barker]

Here's from the 2000 IRC, the 2006 is roughly the same.

SECTION R310

EMERGENCY ESCAPE AND RESCUE OPENINGS

R310.1 Emergency escape and rescue required. Basements

with habitable space and every sleeping room shall have at least

one openable emergency escape and rescue windowor exterior

door opening for emergency escape and rescue. Where openings

are provided as a means of escape and rescue they shall

have a sill height of not more than 44 inches (1118 mm) above

the floor. Where a door opening having a threshold below the

adjacent ground elevation serves as an emergency escape and

rescue opening and is provided with a bulkhead enclosure, the

bulkhead enclosure shall comply with Section R310.3. The net

clear opening dimensions required by this section shall be obtained

by the normal operation of the window or door opening

from the inside. Escape and rescue windowopenings with a finished

sill height below the adjacent ground elevation shall be

provided with a window well in accordance with Section

R310.2.

R310.1.1 Minimum opening area. All emergency escape

and rescue openings shall have a minimum net clear opening

of 5.7 square feet (0.530 m2).

Exception: Grade floor openings shall have a minimum

net clear opening of 5 square feet (0.465 m2).

R310.1.2 Minimum opening height. The minimum net

clear opening height shall be 24 inches (610 mm).

R310.1.3 Minimum opening width. The minimum net

clear opening width shall be 20 inches (508 mm).

R310.1.4 Operational constraints. Emergency escape and

rescue openings shall be operational from the inside of the

room without the use of keys or tools.

R310.2Window wells.Window wells required for emergency

escape and rescue shall have horizontal dimensions that allow

the door or window of the emergency escape and rescue opening

to be fully opened. The horizontal dimensions of the window

well shall provide a minimum net clear area of 9 square

feet (0.84m2) with a minimum horizontal projection and width

of 36 inches (914 mm).

Exception: The ladder or steps required by Section

R310.2.1 shall be permitted to encroach a maximum of 6

inches (152 mm) into the required dimensions of the window

well.

R310.2.1 Ladder and steps.Window wells with a vertical

depth greater than 44 inches (1118 mm) below the adjacent

ground level shall be equipped with a permanently affixed

ladder or steps usable with the window in the fully open position.

Ladders or steps required by this section shall not be

required to comply with Sections R314 and R315. Ladders

or rungs shall have an inside width of at least 12 inches (305

mm), shall project at least 3 inches (76 mm) from the wall

and shall be spaced not more than 18 inches (457 mm) on

center vertically for the full height of the window well.

R310.3 Bulkhead enclosures. Bulkhead enclosures shall provide

direct access to the basement. The bulkhead enclosure

with the door panels in the fully open position shall provide the

minimum net clear opening required by Section R310.1.1.

Bulkhead enclosures shall also comply with Section R314.9.

R310.4 Bars, grills, covers and screens. Bars, grills, covers,

screens or similar devices are permitted to be placed over emergency

escape and rescue openings, bulkhead enclosures, or

windowwells that serve such openings, provided the minimum

net clear opening size complies with Sections R310.1.1 to

R310.1.3, and such devices shall be releasable or removable

from the inside without the use of a key, tool or force greater

than that which is required for normal operation of the escape

and rescue opening.

[gfretwell]

Would a sprinkler system soften that rule? Your insurance company might give you a discount that would pay for it in a couple years. I put one in my Md house because I had a couple choke points near the utilities that scared me. The parts were actually pretty cheap.

[hallerb]

I dubt a sprinkler would help, and in any case getting out, and firemen getting in is job one

[DerbyDad03]

Let's see...Code requires a platform so a 4' 5" person can egress and the platform has to support 300 lbs.

How many 300 lb 4' 5" people do you know? ;-)

[DerbyDad03]

Yeah...I considered the whole fireman's carry thing and all that, but the visual of a 300 lb 4' 5" escapee was just to much to pass up.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Does the code state "must be large enough for a big ball to roll through"?

[Cshenk]

"Jeef" wrote

Actually if you check, it probably says '2 exits' as in your first query. One can probably be a window if it's of a certain size and and can be reached by something built in to use as an exit in an emegency.

Emergency exit would be the reason and quite common to require such. An older house may not have it but to officially 'upgrade' you have to add them. That said, it depends on what he means by 'remodel his basement' as to how far he needs to go.

When redoing a basement once in Virginia, we didnt have to knock any holes as the back side had several windows within codespc for exits. We did have to replace one of them so it could be flipped out but that was due to the huge size of the basement (1,800sqft). Center had staircase to main house, far back corner had exterior ground level door, and we added the escapable window along the far back furthest from the door. Built a little 'window seat' under it (opened for storage) that made that wndow reachable for egress for a 4.5ft tall person (VA Code then). Using the existing posts, we separated that far side with the window from stairwell to wall into 3 rooms and an ajacent bathroom. False walls i guess you would call them as we didnt mess with the existing posts, just framed around them and left doorways (2 per room). The 3rd room was a sortof 1 room apartment with egress on one side to the huge pool table room (had 2 doors to the huge family room where the window was) and egress on the other side to the rest of the unfinished basement where the exterior door was. The under stairwell was made into a walk in closet, and a wall conjoined the bathroom (mini-kitchen on that wall and sink, bathroom on other side with shower and a toilet with a sink in the top tank such as you see in Japan).

They made us change one thing for code. We had to add more lights in the unfinished part as it was now an egress point. We didnt have a wall switch on the 'bedroom side' so added some lights then put in one of those battery charger types that go on in a power outage but keep charging when power is on. Neat huh! Now, we had to go that far because we were truely 'renovating' and clearly making a true 'living space'.

[Cshenk]