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Landings

Mr. Inspector

Mr. Inspector

SAWHORSE
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
Messages
4,694
Location
Poconos/eastern PA
I had a rash of people building sunrooms with a exterior stairway with no landing at the door. They just build it on an existing deck and the plans don't show a stairway or only a few risers. The all glass sunroom guys are the worst for this. They always say we didn't touch the stair. They either revise the plans or we make them get a new permit for the landing. I like to get them to get a new permit because of the cost of needing to do at least two more inspections. How do other inspectors handle this.,

Also I see a lot of gates on the top or on the bottom of deck stairways (no landing?), all the time when they built a deck for an above ground pool. The code wants landings for stairways and doors but don't mention gates. I been told to let this go. What do you think?
 
Landings

This is why a thorough plan review is necessary. We have had multiple problems in PA with sunroom companies that think everything they do is perfect and easy but they have no clue.

Then we ask for specs on ground snow load and they have no clue.

Then they don't realize there is now a dead load and snow load added to those existing footers for the deck.

Basically they have no clue until they get to our jurisdictions, then they say:

"But we just built 12 of these the same way and the code officials approved them"

My response and the response of my guys is always the same:

"We can't control the competency of code officials in other area"

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
We always see landings where an exterior door is provided.

Do the plans show a doorway? What is on the elevation views?
 
ICC actually has an interpretation and have changed the language of the code since 2003 to address other than the one required egress door.
 
jar546 said:
Which is exactly why we won't accept them or approve them without elevations.
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Agreed. We also don't accept "one size fits all plans". If it's not specific to the building then we reject it.
 
The elevations are to be exactly that, elevations. We ask a lot of questions when people drop off prints and we call them and ask them too. It is much easier to ask for what you need and make a call during review than it is to wait until it is too late and have to battle about steps that are already built.
 
Rick18071 said:
How would I know if the elevations are right until I go out on an inspection? If the plans don't show stairs I must assume that there are no stairs.
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How big is the area you cover? Sometimes we will do a "pre-inspection" to determine existing conditions before we issue the permit. Contractors are often present when we do it and are often grateful that we took the time do do it because we end up avoiding a couple of problems. You can tell really quickly if the elevations are garbage if the house has an elevated main storey and they don't show stairs.

If the elevations aren't right you could always stop construction at the first inspection that the inconsistency is noted until you receive correct ones. We only had to do this once before everyone smartened up.
 
The problem is almost all the inspections I am doing right now where permitted before I was in this area. I stared last year trying to clean up 1000 open permits of mostly small stuff like sunrooms and decks..some go back 10 years. All the plans suck if there is any.
 
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