Robert,

I know this post is a little late but I have been out of town for a week and am just catching up on some of the threads.

You are correct, the 2000 IRC states handrails are required for two or more risers in Section R 315.1. However, this is one of the sections of the 2000 IRC that the City od Austin has deleted and then revised to read stairs with "...three or more risers..."

Hope this helps for future issues.

Here is a link of the amended IRC 2000 that the City of Austin uses for residential construction:

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/developme...esidential.pdf

If you have a copy of the IRC 2000 it is a little time consuming but helpful to go through the IRC book making reference notes as to what has been deleted/amended according o the PDF file at the above link.


Eric