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Third Floor R3 occupancy above Business - egress requirements

SMA

Registered User
Joined
May 11, 2018
Messages
4
Location
NY
Hi,

I would like help confirming the egress requirements of a single apartment on the third story of a building, with two separate business tenants on stories 1 and 2 below. The building is not planned to be sprinklered. The building code is IBC 2012 in Connecticut.


Story 1 – Business – 8 People

Story 2 – Business – 8 People

Story 3 – R3 (Apartment) – 3 People


Question #1: Assuming the apartment is considered an R3 Occupancy, since it doesn’t contain more than 2 dwelling units, is there a requirement that it has two means of egress? 1021.2 allows for only one means of egress if none of the three conditions exist. For condition #2, tables 1021.2(1) and 1021.2(2) don’t reference the R3 occupancy, and “NP” is indicated for the “Third Story and above”. Does this mean that R3 falls under a different table and/or section, or that it’s not permitted either because it’s excluded or because all occupancies aren’t allowed to only have one exit from the third story of a building? 1021.2 has an exception, #2, which states “Group R-3 occupancy buildings shall be permitted to have one exit”, but this is a mixed occupancy building. There isn't much space available, so not having a second stair would help greatly in creating usable floor area.


Question #2: Is there an exception that allows for a single interior exit stair to be open to the corridors of the three stories? The building is quite small at less than 5,000 sq.ft., but I don’t see any exceptions that allow for this.

Thank you
 
How do you not sprinkle the R??

Local/ state thing?

We're hoping to use an exception in our state code, since it was a conversion from a single family to a mixed occupancy. Would the answers to the above questions be different if the building was sprinklered?
 
Normally you can have two floors open to each other.

Will let the experts talk about exiting

What is your calculated travel distance for the R
 
We'll make our travel distance meet the requirements of the code, which should be easy given the small size of the building.

Can any experts chime in on the main questions?
 
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