3 Car Garage with no entry/exit door?

14 years ago

We recently purchased a new construction home about a month ago. After living here, we realized that we have a 3 car garage with no entry/exit door. Every other house in the development that has been built has one. We have been looking at other houses out of our neighborhood and they all have one. We find it odd that our house with all the extra amenities is missing a door in the garage. Is there some kind of code for this? Should we have the builder put one in? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Comments (13)

casey_wa
14 years ago
I am not sure if it is code in your area or not...but I would expect that it could be. My house has a large garage and has an entry/exit door, and our house is 22 years old. Our door is at the back of the garage and opposite of the door going into the house. I think it is a good idea to have another escape route out of the garage. Since all the other houses have this door it makes sense that yours should.

Casey
"Sean McDonagh Racing"
bas157
14 years ago
If it is new construction, can you just look at the floorplan of that model and see if it had a door? Maybe they just 'forget' it? If the plan shows it, I would talk to the builder and ask them what happened to the door shown in the plan.
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sonepi
14 years ago
How funny, I never thought about this before I read your post. Our house, which is 9 years old ,also does not have an exit from the garage except the overhead garage doors. My mother has one in her 50 year old house, but it never even occurred to me to look for that when we were house hunting. Ummmm, now I am going to have to check out the other houses in our neighborhood.
mike_kaiser_gw
14 years ago
I had a house, newer construction, with a 3 car garage and no exit beyond the overhead doors. I suppose it met code but in your case, check with your local building code folks. They should be happy to answer your questions and fine the heck out of the builder if he screwed up. ;-)

Generally it's pretty easy to add a door if you want one.
andrelaplume2
14 years ago
Hmmm....I can see this being nice. As far as an escape, could you not run back into the home and out the front door? Are tehre windows in the garage? In ours. there would be no place to fit a door...
bobismyuncle
14 years ago
Is this a detached garage? If so, ever seen a post, "After electrical storm, our garage door openers quit working. How do we get in?"
columbusgardener
14 years ago
in our new construction it was an extra that could be added. I never understood having one - it just becomes more more entrance that you need to secure or at least worry about.
pjb999
14 years ago
I think it's essential for safety, overhead doors fail and jam all the time, and not everyone in all circumstances can lift a door manually (or knows how) if the power goes out.
brickeyee
14 years ago
"I never understood having one - it just becomes more more entrance that you need to secure or at least worry about."

If there is a garage door opener you will not be able to open the door without electric power, or access to the inside of the garage to disconnect the door from the opener.

A very few models of openers used to have a key lock in the door to allow disconnecting the door from the opener from outside, but they do not seem very common.
don_1_2006
14 years ago
The key lock in the door is an accessory that is readily available and will work with any opener.
brickeyee
14 years ago
"The key lock in the door is an accessory that is readily available and will work with any opener."

Not the crappy one previous owner left in my place.

You have to remove a hitch pin to disengage the traveler.
don_1_2006
14 years ago
Oops sorry. I forgot about that elusive exception to the rule.
Elizabeth
3 years ago
Not all new construction homes in Arizona are built with side entry doors anymore. I don't quite understand it and seems like a potential fire trap. What if the garage caught fire with someone in it and the door entering the house was locked? Sure, you might be able to remotely open the overhead if you could find the remote in time or manually pull it open, but how long could that take? Not everyone is capable of lifting up those heavy doors. I see many homes in the community where I live that don't have side doors. Buyers usually don't notice until they move in and go to take the trash out (usually through the garage).

3 Car Garage with no entry/exit door?

Comments (13)

casey_wa

bas157

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