Railings and the 2018 IRC

hi everybody Dave yella Vic with homes built right welcome back to another edition of getting a green tag as we walk through the 2018 international residential code today we're gonna be looking at railings and if you have any questions at the end reach out to me at Dave at Dave yella be calm and see if I can reply as quickly as I can so let's get started railings railings unlike guards are things that if I'm walking up or down a stair or a ramp if I fall I tripped by stumble a handrail is gonna save my life or keep me from breaking an arm or something but that's what I'm going to grab if I'm falling it must be graspable so it's not a guard it's a handrail so we're gonna talk about railings a little bit here so in this case I'm going to use a wall rail as my example but briefly it just says when do I need it after four or more risers again if it's a interior stair exterior stair I don't care the code says it shall have a railing handrail after four risers four or more risers okay so if I have four risers or more I'm gonna have a handrail on at least one side of that stairway okay so where does it go pretty simple code says 34 to 38 inches that's a little sweet spot right here you can kind of figure that out with your own hands but 34 to 38 not 32 not 42 but 34 to 38 inches is measured from the nosing of the stairway up to the top of the rail that's where the inspector is gonna measure from nosing to top of rail 34 to 38 you can hit that sweet spot a couple of other little notes on that wall rail code says there must be a minimum of inch and a half clearance between the actual railing itself and the wall most brackets that are put out will almost get you there naturally but don't assume that the carpenter got it right make sure you got that at least inch and a half in there and then all wall rails are going to return to the the wall okay so these railings are supposed to be continuous from the bottom riser up to the top riser I have to have a continuous handrail if I close my eyes grab that railing I should be able to go up that stairway and follow that railing all the way around it's a continuous handrail there are a few exceptions if they're the most common one is a landing I'll go up maybe eight risers there's a landing maybe it turns 90 or 180 degrees and then goes up behind me that one that's considered two flights so I will have one handrail on this first flight it will stop at the landing I'll walk around I'll go up the next flight and there will be another railing on that one again a minimum of one rail on one side of the stairway you're gonna have to but the code says at least one side she'll have this thing so pretty simple rules like continuity so really that's about it handrails are pretty simple rules but we get a lot of red tags on inspections and I hope this will help you understand the basics of handrails in a residential rest project sorry about that Dave yellow vague with homes built right we'll see you on the next one

Channel: Dave Yelovich

Views: 22,160

Rating: 4.9043064 out of 5

Keywords: 2018 IRC, Rails, Railings, Home Built Right, Inspections, Home building, Homebuilding

Id: R3-uQDUFQvI

Length: 3min 21sec (201 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 19 2020