Question.

How are people out there handling 3 season rooms. By that I mean a room with out heat. It could be an enclosed porch or deck. It might have have have windows or just screens. It could be a premanufactured conservatory kit.
Do you install receptacles using the 6'-12' rule in the NEC?

Harold:
210.52 includes 'sunrooms' within the text. Quite a few in my town have heat and ac, and zoning refers to then as 'sunrooms'. So, they are treated the same as any other room in a dwelling.

I had a 'gazeebo' last week, which actually looked like a structure at a scout camp, that conformed to 210.52 from the factory. (pre-fab unit)

You're describing a common sort of "creep" in building design.

The 'creep' occurs when a porch with a simple handrail first gets the spaces under the rails closed off .... then screens put up all around .... then glazing added. As this takes place, the porch begins to be used more ... from summer BBQ's, to a play area for the youngsters, to overflow seating for holiday meals or sheltered 'outside' smoking, to suddenly being used as a full-time, year-round room.

To a certain extent, the same issues can arise in mudrooms.

I think the key is the term 'habitable.' Such an enclosed area in the front of the house is unlikely to ever be a proper room - not with entry traffic constantly passing through. When the same happens to a patio in the rear, or a balcony, the picture might change.

That still leaves the matter of enforcement. With such an incremental series of changes, I don't see where permits are ever likely to be requested.

In a similar manner, I suspect that very few basement remodels are aver inspected. I think we have to recognize the limits of inspections, and accept that this sort of thing simply can't be regulated.

Otherwise ... if asked for an honest opinion, I'd look at the specific layout, and try to imagine it's possible uses. Even if they're calling it an office,' for example, circumstances might lead me to consider it as a bedroom.

When I went through permitting they told me they will go for the highest usage level they can get (probably for the tax man). I replaced a "finished enclosed porch" with a room on the same footprint and will have the same use. They still said it was going to be permitted as "Bas" (regular habitable space). I had to show egress routes just like a bedroom but they did give me a break on <no> AFCIs.
In real life I have to live there so I exceeded 210 on lighting and receptacle outlets but they did give me a handout that said I needed to meet it. My electrical plan was the only thing that went through without a hitch. We went round and round for 6 weeks on structural engineering.

I can't really say I fault the city's position.

At another site, I am ALWAYS confronted with folks wo seem to delight in 'being clever.' Like the basement remodel, where every room was designated for something besides 'sleeping;' after all, those egress windows are a lot of work!

Yet, I bet when the house is placed on the market, it will include those rooms in the count of bedrooms- thus upping the price considerably.

Indeed, if those folks are to be considered the norm, then it seems a lot of folks consider it a sport to 'game' the system. In my work, I have very little patience with such nonsense; either they come clean on their true intended use, or they will not be happy with the result.

John,

OK, a "sunroom" is mentioned in 210.52, and I have seen sunrooms with all the outlets including heat and AC in them. So they can be used all year round. However what about those "porches" that can not be used in the winter? As Reno stated, these kinds of rooms, seem to creep from not being used all the time, to rooms that can be used. As Reno also stated, maybe the key word here is "Habitable". If the room is habitable at the time of inspection, then it should meet the requirements of 210.52. If the room is not habitable at time of inspection, then 210.52 doesn't count.

Harold:
Yes, I agree with what you say.
When I'm there a 'porch' is a 'porch'
What happens to an 'area' after the inspections is between the HO and a 'higher being'....until it becomes time for a CCO inspection. Our CCO guy is pretty good with finding 'non-permitted' projects. (NOTE: I said 'pretty good'!)

I think we are talking about a few different things.
A screenroom is more of a deck with screens and a roof.
They have wood planks for flooring with gaps to let water out. Maybe they will have a screen under the planks to keep the bugs out. They might not have any finished walls or cielings or some sort of sidding / paneling on the inside. Sometimes the wall is about 2" thick plus the sidding. Many times the structural members are exposed.
Some enclosed decks are the same but have more windows. I seen a mix of windows and screens. Sometimes they are not too different then a gazebo. The doors outside are a screen door. The door into the house is a exterior door. The room sits on posts set on cement piers. IMO these are not living space.

A finished sunroom has finished flooring, insulation, drywall, and maybe HVAC. They have at least a 2x4 wall and many times the cieling joists are taller to acomidate the required insulation. Sometimes they are wide open to the rest of the house. The doors outside are exterior or patio doors. The ones I seen always had full foundations on a slab, crawel, or basement. IMO this is a living space.

I might be possible to build one of those screened in porches with a roof attached to the house in Florida but Lee County sure was not making it sound possible to me. They wanted engineering for wind code compliance for anything I wanted to build and hanging that big a roof out there without wind code walls and windows seemed to be an impossible obstacle.
I guess all those "cabanas" and car ports scattered around the neighborhood has tightened up the rules.
By the time I got out of engineering I ended up with BAS zoning.
For the purposes of 210.52 it was not really important to me tho. My thatched roof tiki bar out by the pool meets the 6 foot rule.

Greg:
Good to know you have a compliant tiki bar!

Up here we have 'sunrooms' ranging from what active described above to the 'conservatories' that rival a lot of family rooms and living rooms. It slowed down in the last couple of months, but I had plans in the office today for a fairly 'large' one, two Sanyo type split system HVAC units, fireplace, a8 recept; 22 lights, 3 fans, and 8KW elec heat.

Now, that's a 'sunroom'!!

When I priced out impact windows we decided there wasn't going to be all that much "sun" in this room. They are something around $45 a square foot, wholesale in the box

As luck would have it, I've just come from a 'sun room' addition, installed over an existing patio.

This sunroom was part of an assembly, and not something cobbled together by the homeowner. I noticed that receptacles were installed on every major partition divider, giving a distance of about 8' between them. Cables were routed through an integral channel, sort of a variation of the "Wiremold" concept. The receptacles were GFCI protected.

John,

I hope this message goes through. The last time I posted the computer puked and locked up.
As for the 3 season room, II was not really talking about the "conservatory" style of room. They do have heat, and can be used year round. I was talking about the porch that is converted to a "room" by the loses of terms. The "room" might have screen windows, might not, might even have 1 panel storm windows. Maybe some insulation in the wall, maybe not. They are rarely used in the winter., Would they need outlets as per code?

Harold,


I think the "sunroom" that John mentioned above defines the subject well.

We in California, Arizona, Hawaii, and Florida can use the screen rooms, etc. year round.

Harold ... at some point, one has to apply "common sense," consider the context, make their call, and be prepared to persuade a dozen strangers to agree with them.

West of Chicago, an "adult" bookstore converted part of their store to a place where one could watch the films. The store said it was just a 'viewing room,' thus exempt from movie theater requirements. The AHJ replied that the room had 25 seats, the seats were on an inclined base, the screen was 12 ft. high .... as far as he was concerned, it was a theater. Litigation began, but the store owner had to conceed that it sure looked like a theater! Issue resolved.

The same issue arose in one home, were the 'flipper' was trying to present a garage conversion as an additional bedroom. The only problem was, that in order to get from the kitchen to either the patio, or the detached new garage, one had to pass through the converted garage. Pretty hard for that to be a bedroom (Though I was raised with such an arrangement for a few years!)

Again, when visiting my Grandmother, I was usually 'put up' in the room that had originally been a porch. With just enough room for a bed and a space heater, this completely enclosed space was a 'room' in every sense of the word. Later, it was filled with shelving, and you could honestly say it was a 'pantry.'

That's why I placed the stress on 'habitable' space. Closets, pantries, mud rooms, etc. do not need to meet the same requirements are actual 'living' space. You really need to take things in context.

Customer cleverness aside, it does seem that architects delight in designing spaces that blur distinctions. Article 90.1 aside, the NEC is most certainly being used as a 'design manual,' and even the most exclusive properties are built to 'code minimums.' At some point, the market has to kick in, and reign in these excesses.

Like the experience of that 'flipper,' who listed that house as having three bedrooms. Viewers who really wanted three bedrooms walked away in disgust; whatever that room was, none could imagine sleeping there!

Again, AHJ judgement has to enter the fray. As Reno said, Grandma's area transitioned from a 'sleeping area' (in a pinch probably) to a storge area (pantry).

We had and still have 'flippers' and we also have HO's that finish basements, some of which are used as sleeping rooms, although they signed affadivits that NO sleeping rooms would be within the basements.

As I said above, after a 'pass' on the final insp., I have no further jurisdiction.

Harold, I would lean toward the 210.52 side, no matter how many months this is habitable space. What? we don't care about summer only hazards? The intent is not to have extension cords strung about the place.
I might give a guy a break if he had a place in his cabana, virtually impossible to get a wire to but he better have one as close as he can get.
I had my elecrical plan done before my structurals but I am an electrical inspector.
"Here are my outlets, build walls around them"

Just to bring this thread back to life .... I recently had a chance to see a professionally manufacturead and installed 'sun room,' covering what was once the patio. Here's a pic:



As you can see, at every other window is a receptacle.

Reno:
That is one of the 'styles' I see here.

BTW; what's the wide mullion type thing to the left of the receptacles??

I think that they simply made that area wider, to accomodate the wiring.