Framing Door Openings

[Francis Vineyard]

A 2012 Virginia Residential Code amendment requires an accessible route when certain conditions are met. One of those if the hallway is wide enough to allow for a 34-inch door or case opening. How wide would the finished hallway need to be?

Thanks in advance for your answers.

R311.2.1 Interior passage.

. . . . Any doors or cased openings along such interior passage route

providing access to the areas identified above shall comply

with the following.

1. Cased openings shall provide a minimum 34-inch

clear width.

2. Doors shall be, at a minimum, nominal 34-inch

doors.

Exceptions:

1. Where a door or cased opening, and its associated

molding or trim, is at the end and facing the

length of a hallway and the width of the hallway

is not wide enough to accommodate such doors

or cased openings.

 

[Paul Sweet]

A stock split-jamb prehung door would take 3" each side, for a 40" width.

In theory, you could get a 34" door in a 36" wide hallway, but it would require a custom frame.

I won't go into details of how I feel about this amendment.

 

[cda]

R311.2.1 Interior passage.

34 inches????

 

[MASSDRIVER]

Rough frame opening on a jambed door is 2" over call size. That's typical. So a 2'10" door will flush frame in a 36" framed hall. Your header will call out 5" over the door call size.

So you put the trimmers in flush with the framing, and the header has blind kingstuds behind it, so you are building a channel with the flat part as the trimmer, the kingstud then sits behind that.

Brent.

 

[SCBO1]

Mass,

I just love it when you talk framer talk!