Smallest Egress Window

The 2009 international residential code irc established criteria for an egress window that include location and size.

Smallest egress window.

An egress window is a window that is designed to be used as an emergency exit. Minimum size double hung egress window. The international building code irc requires basements and sleeping rooms below the fourth story of a home to have at least one emergency escape and rescue opening this might be a skylight patio door or window but it must be big enough for you to escape through and for emergency workers to enter through. The area of a window well shall not be less than 9 square feet with a horizontal length width of no less than 36 inches.

The casement window with the washability hinge is an outstanding window to meet egress with windows with widths of 3 feet and heights between 42 and 60. Double hung windows with vertically sliding sashes that always fill more than one half the opening area have to be pretty big to meet egress requirements. The elite single hung or double hung windows do not meet the height restrictions of the egress for small windows with less than 66 heights. Well although egress window sizes canada vary you still can find ways of converting your basement window into the required egress window size in a basement.

The irc requires egress windows in basements and all rooms used as sleeping quarters. So here are the basics and some links to the anderson window catalog as a guide. Egress window details horizontal slider what is needed to convert my standard basement windows into egress windows. I realize that knowing the rules doesn t necessarily mean that you know the most common window sizes for each different window operation.

In such cases many window replacement companies recommend. For determining egress window sizes and placement the international building code holds that every bedroom must contain at least one egress window. Casement windows are minimally 2 4 wide by 3 4 high. The overall size of this smallest double hung egress window is 14 85 sq.

It must be at least 5 7 square feet that is at least 20 inches wide by 24 inches high with an opening no higher than 44 inches from the floor. When the sill height of an egress window is located below grade common for egress windows provided for a basement a window well must be provided. Egress window well code requirements. Make sure the basement window well has enough area to move around in and if the well is especially deep make sure you have a ladder attached to it for an easy.

Basement egress windows have special requirements. In many cases when basement windows are converted into bedroom basement windows to accommodate kids reading nook or playroom concrete wall cutting might be required in order to enlarge the existing window opening. Since you re below ground you have to make sure that the window can still fully open without obstruction. You need to hire the services of professionals.

Ft almost twice the area of the egress casement window. I recently posted an article on the rules behind egress windows.