Garage Door, Missing Smoke Alarms, and Stair Guard Deficiencies
A two-story house has an attached garage. A solid-core door connects the garage to a laundry room; it has a spring hinge but no self-closer, and the laundry room has a door to a first-floor bedroom. There are smoke alarms in the upstairs hallway and at the top of the stairs, but none inside the three bedrooms. The basement has a new sleeping room with a 24-inch by 36-inch window; the sill is 40 inches above the floor. The stair from the first to second floor has a guard with balusters spaced 5 inches apart and a handrail at 40 inches above the tread nosing. The owner wants to know what must be corrected before the final inspection.
1. Does the garage-to-laundry door meet the separation requirements?
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Not as described. R302.5.1 requires the door between a private garage and the residence to be a 1-3/8-inch solid-wood door or a 20-minute fire-rated door, and it must be self-closing. The door has a spring hinge but no self-closer, so it fails. Direct openings from a garage into a sleeping room are prohibited; this door opens into a laundry, not a bedroom, so the indirect path through the laundry to the bedroom does not by itself violate that prohibition, but the laundry door should not create a sleeping-room opening. The garage and residence separation wall and ceiling also need the required gypsum membrane. Require a self-closer and verify the wall separation.
2. What smoke alarm corrections are required?
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Smoke alarms are missing inside the bedrooms. R314.3 requires alarms in each sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity, on each story, and in the basement. The existing upstairs hallway alarm may satisfy the outside-each-sleeping-area location, but it does not replace in-bedroom alarms. The new basement sleeping room also needs an alarm, and the basement story needs coverage. Alarms must be interconnected and powered as required by the code edition, such as hard-wired with battery backup or listed wireless interconnection where allowed. Add the missing devices and verify interconnection.
3. Evaluate the stair guard, handrail, and basement egress window.
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The guard and handrail fail. Guards must be at least 36 inches high, and the balusters must reject a 4-inch sphere; 5-inch spacing is too wide. Handrails must be 34 to 38 inches above the tread nosing; 40 inches is too high. The basement window, however, appears to meet egress: 24 by 36 inches gives 864 square inches, or 6.0 square feet net clear, width 24 inches is at least 20 inches, height 36 inches is at least 24 inches, and the 40-inch sill is not more than 44 inches. Verify net clear dimensions after the sash and any stops. Correct the guard spacing, guard height if needed, and handrail height before final approval.