Thread: Chicago Basement / Deck Question

Was wondering if someone could help me with a Chicago building code question. We have a single family home. The basement in our home has two stairways - one internal one that leads from the basement to the first floor, and one that goes from the basement to outside. We are currently looking to install a deck, and the position of the basement stairwell that leads outside makes this tricky. We were thinking of building the deck over the stairway/door (since we don't use it too much). We would have about 4 ft. of clearance.

Since we have the internal stairway, would this be legal? Any advice would be appreciated.

Bob

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Originally Posted by bob allen

Was wondering if someone could help me with a Chicago building code question. We have a single family home. The basement in our home has two stairways - one internal one that leads from the basement to the first floor, and one that goes from the basement to outside. We are currently looking to install a deck, and the position of the basement stairwell that leads outside makes this tricky. We were thinking of building the deck over the stairway/door (since we don't use it too much). We would have about 4 ft. of clearance.

Since we have the internal stairway, would this be legal? Any advice would be appreciated.

Bob

It should not be a problem as long as you have a permit.
The actual design and build is most likely easy as it is very common.

There are many good qualified builders to do this for you.Unfortunately many of the decks I see are not built properly with no flashing behind the ledger and or proper lag bolts,improper footings,no hangers,etc.

Do not recommend doing it yourself if you need to ask this question or do not understand any of the terms I used above.

Originally Posted by Bob Elliott

It should not be a problem as long as you have a permit.
The actual design and build is most likely easy as it is very common.

There are many good qualified builders to do this for you.Unfortunately many of the decks I see are not built properly with no flashing behind the ledger and or proper lag bolts,improper footings,no hangers,etc.

Do not recommend doing it yourself if you need to ask this question or do not understand any of the terms I used above.

Thanks for the answer. We were planning on getting a permit, and we are not going to build it ourselves. However, we were unsure about the stairway - because it looked like you need 6' 8" of clearance (this is from memory, but I think it is right). So you think because we have the internal stairway we don't need to have the second stairway exactly to code?

Thanks.

Bob

Answer depends on the basement space.
Is it finished,is there a bedroom,is it living space?
I think there are workarounds to keeping it as including possibly moving the rear kitchen door to keep full head space.

If you have a bedroom then you need egress there .
If it is not living space then you may be fine however this forum does have a ex Chicago Code Inspector named Markus Keller so you may try contacting him through the forum information links here for exact code but as I said the qualified contractor should be aware and file for a permit anyway.

Seems to me even a door where you duck may meet egress code but refuse to speculate here.