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Basement access & egress

P

Petoria

Member
Joined
May 2, 2014
Messages
3
Location
Denver
Please see attached drawing. We are looking into possibility of converting an old fast food restaurant to a dental office. The area of above-grade story is 4,800 sf and basement is 700 sf. There will be no major work to this unfinished basement. It will be left as a storage. The only new work is we will place boiler and air pump (for dental operation) in here. 1. Can this basement be considered as unoccupied space or uninhabitable space? 2. There's no top landing at the existing stair. If this basement is considered as unoccupied space, can we leave this stair as is? I guess the ADA would force us to add top landing anyway? 3. Do we need to provide some ventilation to exterior if we put boiler in this basement? 4. Do we need to extend the stair enclosure to the back wall of the building so the stair's door is open to daylight? The code used is Virginia Construction Code 2009 (looks pretty similar to IBC). Thank you.

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The boiler should be installed in accordance with the manufacturers guidelines and in compliance with the VMC.

The restaurant having a single exit could be classified as a B occupancy and not be considered a change of occupancy for accessibility.

In reference to chapter 34 the VCC administrative section addresses the sections that are deleted.

For your convenience the to the VCC is provided below.
 
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Thanks. Please note that the attached plan is not complete. This plan will be partitioned per new requirements and couple doors on exterior walls will be added.

The back portion which includes stair to basement and back door are existing that once used to support the kitchen area.

The strange thing is the as-built of this building didnt show the basement. I wonder if they excavated the basement after building shell is done.
 
See administrative section 103.3 in reference to change of occupancy requirements and chapter 34 for the applicable accessibility.

Should be straight forward changing to an occupancy of a lesser degree. Hope this helps.
 
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