Hello!
Kind of a strange situation, but I am hoping to get a little guidance... I am trying to add a small enclosed porch at the rear of my home. This would act as a mudroom where you take off your shoes and hang your coat before entering the back door at the rear of the house. As it is now when you go in the back door you walk right onto carpet and it gets everything dirty.
I want to this to be an enclosed porch and not a full-on addition of habitable space to avoid pouring a full foundation, meeting stringent insulation requirements, etc. I would leave the back door at the rear of the house intact to make sure the new space is isolated from the inside, conditioned space. I understand the enclosed porch will be cold in winter and hot in summer, but I am fine with that.
One potential way to get around the foundation/insulation requirement is to call my enclosed porch a "shed" and not have it structurally connected to the house. It would be a three sided, freestanding shed built right up against the rear of the home and I would just use metal flashing and silicone to water seal the "Shed" to the existing home.
I spoke to the building code department in my city and they told me this will not work because I would create an egress issue by technically blocking my back door with the shed (even though in practice you can still go out the back door and then exit the shed since the shed only has three walls). If it wasn't for the egress issue, they said it is fine to build the structure as a "shed" and skip the foundation requirement and insulation requirements.
So... the question is: is there a way to designate the back door as not an egress route from the inside? Like can I put a sign up that says "NOT AN EXIT" or something similar?
Per code (R311.2 Egress Door) I believe I only technically need one door to meet the egress requirement, and my front door meets this requirement. I mean the back door is only 28" wide anyways so it does not even meet code for an egress door... If I could say it's not an egress route, it seems like I could technically block it with the "shed."
A sketchy alternative would be to just get permits to remove the backdoor (temporarily), build the shed, get everything inspected and approved, and then put my back door back without permits. But, I would prefer to do things legally...
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Other notes: I considered doing a sunroom since there are exceptions in code for those, but this room is on the north side of my home and doesn't get much sunlight. Plus, going with a bunch of windows eliminates the ability to put a lot of coat, shoe, and other storage...
Kind of a strange situation, but I am hoping to get a little guidance... I am trying to add a small enclosed porch at the rear of my home. This would act as a mudroom where you take off your shoes and hang your coat before entering the back door at the rear of the house. As it is now when you go in the back door you walk right onto carpet and it gets everything dirty.
I want to this to be an enclosed porch and not a full-on addition of habitable space to avoid pouring a full foundation, meeting stringent insulation requirements, etc. I would leave the back door at the rear of the house intact to make sure the new space is isolated from the inside, conditioned space. I understand the enclosed porch will be cold in winter and hot in summer, but I am fine with that.
One potential way to get around the foundation/insulation requirement is to call my enclosed porch a "shed" and not have it structurally connected to the house. It would be a three sided, freestanding shed built right up against the rear of the home and I would just use metal flashing and silicone to water seal the "Shed" to the existing home.
I spoke to the building code department in my city and they told me this will not work because I would create an egress issue by technically blocking my back door with the shed (even though in practice you can still go out the back door and then exit the shed since the shed only has three walls). If it wasn't for the egress issue, they said it is fine to build the structure as a "shed" and skip the foundation requirement and insulation requirements.
So... the question is: is there a way to designate the back door as not an egress route from the inside? Like can I put a sign up that says "NOT AN EXIT" or something similar?
Per code (R311.2 Egress Door) I believe I only technically need one door to meet the egress requirement, and my front door meets this requirement. I mean the back door is only 28" wide anyways so it does not even meet code for an egress door... If I could say it's not an egress route, it seems like I could technically block it with the "shed."
A sketchy alternative would be to just get permits to remove the backdoor (temporarily), build the shed, get everything inspected and approved, and then put my back door back without permits. But, I would prefer to do things legally...
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Other notes: I considered doing a sunroom since there are exceptions in code for those, but this room is on the north side of my home and doesn't get much sunlight. Plus, going with a bunch of windows eliminates the ability to put a lot of coat, shoe, and other storage...