Geeking Out on Building Codes | Handrails

hey I'm Eric Perkins welcome to our YouTube channel about construction stuff today is another video in the series of inspectors will fail you for this every time today we're going to be looking at handrails that's something you really need to know about if you're gonna build a house alright so it's about 5 o'clock on Friday it's another time but we're gonna walk through our house through our project and show you a couple things about the codes on handrails here we go let's start right here okay since this stairway has more than four risers it has to have a handrail and in this case we use a rectangular handrail made out of metal and you can see that this is smaller than this and that's because there is a grip size requirement and the code says it has to measure between four and six and a half inches around the circumference if you measure all the way around which this measure is six and it grips pretty nicely so the most common thing I've seen that people do that doesn't pass code in this case is to use a 2x4 as a top cap and then not have a secondary handrail like on the inside of that this doesn't pass code as a handrail it's too big if you were to use it in this orientation though you could route slots in it to where you have somewhere to grab and there's very specific things about that as an exception for something like this that's larger than six and a half inches in circumference now here in the mountains every good-old-boy builder likes to do something else use a cedar log as a top cap in a handrail about this size you can see that that is not a good thing to grip either okay so I'm going to throw this in here as well it's not really handrails but it's for railings code for residential is thirty six inches this one's thirty seven and I'm pretty sure commercial is forty inches for railings [Music] okay that about does it for rectangular handrails let's go inside and check out round okay we're on the inside of the house now we have a stairwell behind me and you'll notice it as a handrail on one side and that's code that you have a handrail on at least one side of a stairwell it doesn't have to be both it could be either side it doesn't really matter I've got a round handrail right here for the stairwell there's a couple codes on grip for that the diameter of this round handrail has to be between one and a quarter inches and two inches if it's smaller or bigger it doesn't meet the grip size requirements and it won't pass code so there's another code that's interesting the inside of a handrail has to be clear of the wall surface by at least an inch and a half we have about an inch and 3/4 on this one all right another important code is that handrails have to return into a wall at the top and the bottom where they end and that's mostly so you don't get yourself snagged on this thing as you're walking by all right back up a little bit okay here's another good one your handrail has to extend past the vertical line from your top step nosing and your bottom step nosing and in this case we go by by about six inches alright this is a really important one here so I got my tape measure out the handrail has to be between 34 and 38 inches measured vertically from the line that connects the nose ian's of your stairs and right here we're about thirty seven and a half and that's pretty comfortable dude you keep touching the walls with your dirty hands oh you don't know how many times I've already had to have rape thank you keep touching it one last thing about this stairwell and this handrail is that it has to be continuous down the stairwell because there's no landing you can break a handrail at a landing and there is one exception though if you put the handrail within six inches of another that is considered continuous all right here's a pretty common problem you have a handrail that butts into a new post and then keeps going while that's not allowed in a straight run of rail it is allowed if it's in a corner it will pass code there alright guys that just really gets the tip of the iceberg when it comes to codes and handrails but hopefully that'll get you through the most common problems so you can build an awesome house see you [Music] you

Channel: Perkins Builder Brothers

Views: 42,953

Rating: 4.9702601 out of 5

Keywords: better, builder, codes, rails, hand, handrails, railings, inspection, pass, questions, build, home, house, stairs

Id: 50b0ufx0ELU

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020