I have heard that a bedroom is REQUIRED to have a closet, however I can not find a requirement in the 2006 IRC. Can someone confirm or deni if a required to have a bedroom closet exist?

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Rick Cantrell
Columbus GA

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I've had realtors tell clients that if a room does not have a closet it does not qualify for a bedroom per FHA- VA standards.

I do know of one home I inspected a few months ago that had been constructed with a "office" room. The owners of this home tried to pass off the house as a 4 bedroom instead of the actual description of a 3 bedroom when they bought it. The office room did not have a clothes closet.

They got called out on it and had to change all of the information on MLS for it.

rick

Yes, it needs a closet. This is a HUD requirement that also goes in to appraisal guidelines.

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Scott Patterson
Spring Hill, TN
http://www.traceinspections.com

Scott, do you have that HUD requirement or a link to it?

Thanks.

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
EastWestData (www.EastWestData.com )

If HUD requires a closet for a room to be considered a bedroom does that mean definitively that a bedroom requires a closet?

If that's the case then there are a lot of 5 den, zero bedroom homes out there.

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Chad Fabry, Rochester, NY
StructureSmart Home Inspections, Inc.
www.structuresmart.com

Good question! This is came from a HUD class I took many years back, I'll try to see if I can find it this weekend. Sorry, I just do not have the time to search for it right now.

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Scott Patterson
Spring Hill, TN
http://www.traceinspections.com

I have not seen any code or definition that requires a room for sleeping (bedroom) to have a built-in closet.

I've inspected many older homes that have bedrooms without fixed studded and door wall closets. They use free standing wardrobe closets for storage.

If someone finds a code that requires a bedroom to have a closet, can you tell me how big it has to be and if it requires a door, and what is the minimum size of the door opening? does it require a light? Is the area of the closet considered part of the bedroom minimum size requirement? -- HELLO! LOL.

A sleeping room requires 2 means of egress. Could be 2 doors. If only 1 door, then an openable window meeting minimum opening requirements should be present.

A room with a closet, but no window, is not necessarily a bedroom. It could be a bedroom if it meets other criteria for use as a sleeping room.
There is something about natural light - can't think of it right now. Could be a skylight instead of a conventional window.

The current FHA appraisal handbook does not list a closet as a requirement:

http://www.fha.gov/reference/4150-2.doc

I do not know of any requirement, pertaining to the home inspection side of it, that would qualify us to state a room cannot be used for sleeping purposes due to the lack of a closet.
Can a closet, or lack therof, in a bedroom change the habitable space of the property? That depends on your local tax assessor's and appraisers guildlines I would think however that is out of the scope of our inspection. As far as I know our duties to our clients do not include determining the user square footage of the property therefore our concern over a closet is probably mute.
The IRC does address certain requirements regarding minimum size, natural lighting, outlets, cieling height, egress windows etc., but not closets. Does that help?

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If I had two faces, would I be wearing this one?
Abraham Lincoln

Michael found it! I was wrong.

A bedroom (sleeping room) does not need a closet, but it does need to points of egress. This was a FHA lending requirement, but it was removed in 1993.

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Scott Patterson
Spring Hill, TN
http://www.traceinspections.com

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Jerry McCarthy
Construction Consultant
www.expertbuildingconsultants.com

Slight modification to Jerry Mc's post:

This "A source of natural light (8% of the floor area) a minimum of which 50% shall be openable" should be this "A source of natural light (8% of the floor area), a source of natural ventilation (4% of the floor area)"

You may have a window which provides more than the minimum 8% of the floor area for natural light, in which case less than 50% of the window needs to be operable.

For bedrooms which use that operable window for an emergency egress opening, the resultant opening must be a minimum of 21" wide, minimum 24" high, and 5.7 sf (which means that the minimum width is not allowed in conjunction with the minimum height), and, if the window is directly accessible from grade (i.e., the firefighter can climb in from standing on the ground or pull someone out to safety from standing on the ground - no ladder) the minimum opening size may be reduced to 5.0 sf.

The natural light and natural ventilation % apply to *all* "habitable spaces", with provisions for obtaining them from adjacent rooms through open wall areas (doorways with no door, archways, whatever you want to call them).

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
EastWestData (www.EastWestData.com )

Jerry P meant the minimum sized clear opening width on an emergency egress window is 20 inches, not 21.

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Jerry McCarthy
Construction Consultant
www.expertbuildingconsultants.com

I *used to* do that 21" instead of 20" all the time, I *thought* I had taught myself not to do that, but ... apparently ... I *am still* doing it.

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Jerry Peck, Construction / Litigation Consultant
Construction Litigation Consultants, LLC ( www.ConstructionLitigationConsultants.com )
EastWestData (www.EastWestData.com )

Well, Adam and Jamie, I think we can call this myth:

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