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Porches & Decks

Stairs to Grade from Back Patio

13 years ago

We're just finishing the build of our new house and I have a question about stairs from the back patio down to grade. This patio is on the lower level (walkout basement) off of French doors with a main level deck above it. There is another exterior door on the lower level which is at grade.

When the builder went for the Certificate of Occupancy, last week, the inspector said that even though the patio did not require a railing because it is less that 30" above grade, that there did need to be a set of stairs from the patio down to grade. Those stairs are not in the plan because we wanted to wait until we had lived there for awhile to see how we wanted use the heavily wooded and sloped backyard & then figure out how we wanted to finish it off. The kicker is that we will have more than 3 risers so we will need a handrail & I'm not sure how to keep it all from being unattractive.

I'm just wondering why we need stairs, right now, in order to get the C/O. I know that code varies from place to place, but I checked the county website and it looks like they follow the 2006 ICC Residential Building Code with variations for SC and a local variation dealing with radon gas. The builder was very surprised that the inspector said we had to have stairs. Is this a situation where we should ask the inspector to point to the paragraph in the code that dictates that we must have stairs?

Thanks for the advice - Jo Ann

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Comments (3)

deckman22
13 years ago
The inspector is always right whether he is or not. Do yourself a favor & just build the stairs.
dooer
13 years ago
Deckman is right, You should probably the build stairs, but use the cheapest materials available, and do the bare minimum to get by. You can remove them after you receive you cert, if you should so desire.
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drjoann
Original Author
13 years ago
LONG STORY SHORT: DH talked to inspector & we don't need stairs.

The cost to do the pressure treated stairs is $600 per the bid the builder gave us. We called another guy in the area and he did a rough estimate that was about the same. Sorry, but, that just seems to be a non-trivial amount of money from our point of view for what would likely be a throw-away.

We asked the builder exactly what code inspector cited that requires stairs & he didn't have an answer, but gave us the inspector's number. Hubby called the office late, yesterday, and talked to one guy who said, "Well, it's a good idea to have a way to get down to grade from the patio", but couldn't give him a paragraph in the code. He passed DH off to another inspector who said that he was the one that had done the inspection, that he hadn't written up anything about stairs & that there wasn't anything in the code to require them. Go figger!

So, the builder says he will get this straightened out. We shall see.

I appreciate the advice to just do what the inspector says. You get crosswise with an inspector on a relatively small thing & it might cost you on bigger things. I guess I was being contrary because I come from an aerospace background and manage manned spaceflight hardware projects. Inevitably in the build process, a QE or QA tells you either you can't do something or you must do something else different from what you are planning on. Usually, they are right and you thank them for their due diligence. But, it doesn't hurt to challenge them when the thing the are telling you sounds off. Plenty of times, they are just putting their own interpretation on the standards/regs/requirements docs.

BTW - in trying to figure this out, I went Google crazy & was reading the online available specs for places all over the country. I must have gone through 2 dozen & the only place I found that required stairs to grade was Naperville, IL where you needed stairs if the patio was 8" or more above grade.

Thanks for the help & advice. I'll update when things shake out one way or another, because it is likely a good data point.

Jo Ann

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