Door landing (2018 IBC 1010.1.6) @ upper floor dwelling unit bathroom

[rogerpa]

Commentary is NOT code.

 

[Yikes]

Had a little more conversation this morning with the reviewer... We're not in a hurry about it, so it's a slow conversation, via email. He shared these from the commentary for 1010.1.6... And despite the definition of "occupiable," he's adamant that the bathroom will be "occupied" by the dwelling unit residents for reasonable periods of time (unlike a closet or something). He even pointed out that the commentary's specific reference to toilet rooms NOT being occupiable, in older codes, has been removed in more recent codes.

Commentary is NOT code.

Note what tcoon says happened: the reviewer quoted the code commentary when it supported his thesis about landings, but then ignored the code itself when the bathroom did not meet the code definition of "occupiable" space.

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[tcoon]

To be fair (and it’s a little weird defending the reviewer that I’m trying to argue against), maybe I phrased that poorly...

He wasn’t claiming that the bathroom was “occupiable”, going against code definition. His point was that the means of egress definition doesn’t reference “occupiable spaces” (when it just as easily could have) - it references “occupied portions”. And he’s suggesting that, “occupiable” or not, the bathroom WILL be an occupied portion of the building and the means of egress needs to serve it.

His mention of toilet rooms being removed from the examples under the “occupiable” commentary section was more to point out that perhaps ICC felt that was misleading in previous codes.

And yes, I’m aware that the commentary is not code.