I've been reviewing a number of plans lately, plans for 'small houses.' The author claims that the plans meet IBC standards, but is not an architect.

The typical design will have less than 1000 sq. ft., and the sleeping area will be a loft (not counted in the square footage) that is accessed by a ladder. Or, in some instances, the sleeping area will be a mattress-sized cupboard without any margin around the mattress or additional shelving.

The lofts, I am told, are not considered as 'habitable' on account of the low head clearance and ceiling slopes.

So ... here's the question: would you consider it required to add receptacles (using the '6-ft rule') or a lighting outlet in these areas? WOuld you require AFCI protection? Can we avoid applying these rules in a sleeping area that is not 'habitable?' Or, is it your osition that a sleeping area is, by definition, a habitable space, whatever the layout?

The 2008 makes that a moot point. All of the receptacles are going to be AFCI even if you ignore the bedroom aspect.
If that loft is not a separate room it must be part of the living/family/recreation (or whatever you call it) room at the bottom of the ladder.

It could be argued that you should have a receptacle up there, particularly if there was any horizontal space beyond a bed.

I would not think a receptacle would be rquired as this would promote the use of a lamp or (i cringe) space heater. If one were to have a receptacle up there yes to afci, as well as any lighting.

Ob

If houses get any smaller, we'll all be living outside!

Receptacle(s)?? Yes! AFCI?? Yes! Habitable space?? You Bet!

The building guys may have an issue with the ladder.

It's an interesting twist ... I mean, imagine just a mattress, with but three or four ft. clearence at the highest point, sloping to nothing at the margins of the mattress. Your only access is with a ladder, down to the main roob below - you're sleeping just above that room's ceiling.

If the loft was served by stairs, and had clearance for any manner of furniture, without a doubt it would be a habitable room. As such, the other codes would institute egress requirements.

Then again, where is it written that a home must have a 'bedroom?' Has this designer found a loophole?

That is why I asked if there was any horizontal space up there that could be called a "floor".


If there is less than 2 feet of wall along the floor, no receptacle is required.

If it is a home it has a bed room exchpt in the kitchen so you would need AFCI protection

Folks usually look at the 'six foot rule" and ponder whether there is enough wall .... here I guess we need to ask whether there's a floor.

I have seen one of these "Loft/rooms" and the HO said it was a play area for their children. (I thought that strange, a play room where kids can fall out of and drop 6'-7' to the floor below.) I asked them to install receptacles as per code, just in case someone wanted to put a small light up there or vacuum the area.

Studio apartments are considered dwelling units, but they have no actual bedrooms.

Re-reading Renos description, no head room, and only a mattress fitting, and no 'walking area'....I have to say nothing would be required.

That said, without actually 'seeing' this space, it's a tough call

We had these at a beach house when I was a kid. I will never foget sleeping in this it was awesome. We were small enoug that 2 of us could sleep in a twin. My parents said we didn't have to ask us to go to bed we couln't wait. And also there was a rail. Like a bunk bed.


Ob

My kids had one of these "lofts" in the trailer/cabin/RV they lived in for a while when my son in law was moving around the state with the Florida Park Service.

Quote IRC, the residential excerpt of IBC:

SECTION R304
MINIMUM ROOM AREAS
R304.1 Minimum area. Every dwelling unit shall have at least
one habitable room that shall have not less than 120 square feet
(11 m2) of gross floor area.
R304.2 Other rooms. Other habitable rooms shall have a floor
area of not less than 70 square feet (6.5 m2).
Exception: Kitchens.
R304.3 Minimum dimensions. Habitable rooms shall not be
less than 7 feet (2134 mm) in any horizontal dimension.
Exception: Kitchens.
R304.4 Height effect on room area. Portions of a room with a
sloping ceiling measuring less than 5 feet (1524 mm) or a
furred ceiling measuring less than 7 feet (2134 mm) from the
finished floor to the finished ceiling shall not be considered as
contributing to the minimum required habitable area for that
room.

A "loft" is not a habitable room, and can't be considered one for real estate purposes. I'm not aware of any laws specifically prohibiting someone from sleeping in a storage loft, but I'm pretty sure it can't be advertised as a bedroom.

There are other requirements for egress and ventilation for bedrooms that a loft can't meet, either.

I suppose that's where the issue hangs: does a house need to have a 'bedroom' at all? Where does it say that a 'sleeping loft' is a 'bedroom?' As the author of "The Small House Book" is constantly reminding us, his lofts are too low to be considered as habitable rooms - but that doesn't seem to preclude their use for sleeping areas.

Similar semantics are at play with the ladder to the loft; since it's not a 'stairway,' it need not meet stairway requirements.

I think he's found a loophole.

These are the houses that we're talking about: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/houses/

Looking at the ad I'd rephrase the original post to "considerably less than 1000 sq. ft." - rather looks like 100 sq. ft. on the 1st floor.

Techie, give yourself a pat on the back; that is, indeed, the first book I looked at that got me thinking.

I didn't link to it because I've been loking at plenty of other designs. For example, there was a Scandanavian prcatice a few centuries back where each person had a 'sleeping shelf' in the perimeter wall of the main (and often only) rom. Each such area had some means of closing it off from the main room for privacy- but was essentially nothing more than a very large bench seat.

Another reason I've avoided direct links is that much of what is out there has an overt political focus, and this is not the place to go down that path.

It's not purely academic for me, though. I've taken on the repair of an older, smaller home .... and the wiser move might be for me to build quarters 'within' while I work on the rest.

It's a sleeping area so it becomes a bedroom. When you have an area that has multiple purposes, we must build to the most restrictive of the rules. Not only should the loft have receipts 12 feet apart, but smoke alarms, AFCI protections, egress window and stairs. How many of us in the middle of the night can safely maneuver a ladder to hit the head? It's hard enough using a ladder during the day when we are being paid

You notice in the ad Techie linked, they call these things "RVs". That gets them out from under HUD rules and until you actually take the wheels off and hard wire them to the utility, most building department rules. When they set this thing in a trailer park near me the park owner was mad at me because I insisted they get a permit and a real electrician. Most of the units in there were installed by the park staff, without any permits.
This was a 362 square foot unit and I think they only paid $18,000 for it. Those Tumbleweeds seem very expensive.

My toolshed is larger than most of those "homes" and it only cost me $1000

I've fielded a number of questions about DIY building tiny homes like these from people (mostly idealistic young college kids used to sharing a tiny dorm room and riding buses everywhere) who think a tiny house is a good idea. Most get frustrated when reality strikes (McMansions are popular for very good reasons!) but some genuinely want to live this way and it's no sweat off my back.

Being built off site puts a different spin on it. Just like trailers, modulars, and RV's they are to be built under "factory" type setting, the wiring needs to be under the supervision of an electrical engineer. Sad thing is that if its good enough for the engineer, it's good enough. Bunk the code. In their eyes

Well, that's the issue, isn't it?

Look at Techie's link closer; you will note that the 'small houses' ARE houses, and not RV's. I didn't open this thread to discuss camping trailers.

The plans for the 'small houses' (not to be confused with the trailer plans) are asserted to comply with the UBC. This would suggest that there is no requirement for there to be a 'bedroom,' and that an area that did not meet 'habitable space' requirements could be used as the sleeping area.

Following the designer down this primrose path, the sleeping area would not have any requirements applied to it - be they lighting, access, whatever - that would kick in were the area considered 'habitable.'

I think Greg hit on it when he noticed that receptacle spacing is measures 'along the floor.' If there's no floor, only sleeping space, then there's no requirement for receptacles. A similar logic applies to lighting, which is required only for habitable spaces. No lights, no receps ... no AFCI requirement. As you might guess, you don't need any floor space to climb onto a bed from and adjacent area- so the bedd need not be in a 'room' at all.

I think we see a similar 'loophole' when 'hunting cabins' are built. That is, standard practices and codes are routinely ignored - indeed, local codes specifically exempt such structures from regulation. The difference here is that these structures ARE intended for permanant occupation.

Reno This is clipped right from the site under "tiny houses"




They use the RV designation to avoid the HUD rules for park model trailers and manufactured homes.

Look, I don't want to get side-tracked in dissecting one site. That's not the only source I'm looking at ... and that same site has actual house plans for stuff too large to put on wheels.

I thought I was pretty clear when I said the homes I was discussing were asserted to meet building codes - not HUD rules, trailer rules, camper rules, or any other sort of rules. To attempt to apply the NEC, or other building codes to something that was outside their scope would be a meaningless discussion.

The small homes bring up many other issues ... for example, the tiny, nearly counterless kitchens often also have the laundry equipment- which can open an entire discussion about SABC's. That's what this is, though - another discussion, perhaps for another thread.

Look at that site's plans for the larger homes, and you'll see that the use of lofts as sleeping areas is not limited to the trailers alone. Alternatively, some designs have raised platforms in cupboards as the place to stick a mattress (cupboard dimentions match standard mattress sizes, with no open space), or a similarly tight 'bump out'. The author is quite open in stating that his sleeping areas often do not qualify as 'habitable rooms' under the building code. In several instances, only the central portion of the sleeping area is 'habitable,' with the margins also in use. So, there, in effect, we have a 'habitable' area without either walls or a floor - quite a feat!

I will admit that I am in no position to evaluate the authors' assertions that their various schemes 'meet code.' I have neither the information nor the competence to make that call. I also note that none of these various designers make any claim to being architects, or having any professional expertise at all- so their assertions may be in error.

Architects are forever designing things in a manner that seems intended to confound codes. Perhaps that's the best reason for codes to stay out of the 'design' business.

One room homes will always pose a problem but that is where good cooperation between the building department and the builder will make things work out OK. There are some hard rules that will have to be met (2 SABCs, 20a bathroom circuit plus the 20a laundry and the 3va per sq/ft under AFCI) but you are still talking about a fairly modest requirement in the minimum 100a panel. These problems should be able to be worked out.

:rant bit on
Unfortunately the problem may be the front office people will not actually let the builder talk directly with the building official and some checklist will replace reason.
:rant bit off