<nitpick> Weisshund - it should be written as per se not per say<nitpick>
I know that I have lived in places that had the fusebox/breakerbox in a closet. In fact, the house I lived in when I went to high school was like that. I know several of the apartments in converted houses that I lived in when I went to college were also like that (asking where the fusebox is, as well as the water cut-off, are two questions I always asked when I was looking at an apartment).
The first “apartment complex” apartment I lived in was in Houston, TX. It was built in the late 1970’s. The breaker panel for it was in the kitchen closet (perhaps called a pantry?).
Not that I am disputing ECG’s code quotation, just saying that it hasn’t always been that way.
:smack:
My fuse box in my current house was in a closet in the garage. The closet held nothing but the fuse box, and made it weirdly awkward to work on the fuse box. I was told it was (when I bought the house) a code violation, because the electrician is supposed to be able to jump/fall back from the fuse box, not risk slumping onto it if he’s knocked out.
When I did some other work in the garage I had all but one wall of that closet knocked down, and my fuse box is now to current code. But yeah, obviously the codes have changed.
True but then once upon a time the norm for electric was bare wires insulated in only cloth running up the outside of your walls and ceilings attached to bits of porcelain.
Any time you repair modify or remodel something though, they will make you do it in a way that meets or exceeds current code.
It can be a pain in the butt sometimes, you could find that in order to remodel just the bathroom, you are force to rewire the entire house, depending on what your existing wiring looks like.
Grandfathering old work varies in application. Commercial buildings usually can’t get away with anything. Inspectors may use their judgement in residences. Fire dangers get enforced more strictly than other codes. I know one local drinking establishment that was purchased a few years ago. The owner couldn’t fix the exhaust fan in the small kitchen without redoing the whole thing. He had to redo all the wiring, add a fire suppression system, and add a grease trap. Once one thing had to be brought up to date everything else did also. He was stuck, if he didn’t fix the fan he couldn’t use the kitchen, and he was required to serve food to be open for all hours.
This quote uses real estate agent and ethical in the same sentence.
It is to laugh.
Where are you getting all this nonsense from? We’ve already shown clearly in this thread that buildings codes have certain requirements for what a a bedroom must be. And while it’s sometimes required to update things to code when they are fixed or remodeled, it’s often not the case. Especially on the “repair” side, as it is often impossible to bring something up to code but safety requires it be fixed. Rarely does the remodel of one room trigger the need to bring an entire house up to code. I’ve never seen that in practice.
There is no need to post in a thread in GQ on a subject you are not familiar with.
I’ve never seen this extreme imposed by the local code enforcement agency either … however, I do know of a situation where the electricians’ bonding company required it … every electrician the homeowner brought in refused to repair the existing wiring and insisted on a complete replacement …
This was a situation where pennies had been welded into the fuse sockets and a number of splices behind the wallboard … a sad tale with a happy ending, the homeowner though the new electrical system was wonderful and believed the money was well spent …
You aren’t reading what i am saying.
Code will happily consider a room with no closet a potential bedroom, and require things like smoke detectors.
They have their own criteria for their own reasons, safety being a big one, which is more based on potential
The real-state agent on the other hand, wont be convinced something is a bedroom
if it does not have a built in closet regardless of the fact it contains a king size bed two chests of drawers, a dresser, a vanity, and the wardrobe to narnia.
So while the real-estate agent might say i can not sleep in my library because i haven’t a closet in it, the building code guy has made sure that if i do fall asleep in it i wont die of smoke inhalation.
He also made it have a window, which was kind of useless.
As far as the other, begin doing some work on a structure and find that it has a 2 circuit ungrounded 40amp panel all wired in cloth bound aluminum, the joys of rewiring ensue.
You also seemed to have missed the word Sometimes
The above is one of those fun Sometimes events.
No, it’s not useless. If there is a fire and you need to escape, you need to be able to get out of the window. I listed the things required by the building code in post #10. This applies to CA, which used the IBC, but I’m sure other states do, too.
If you meant “sometimes”, you worded it poorly. Look at the first sentence in that paragraph:
“Any time you repair modify or remodel something though, they will make you do it in a way that meets or exceeds current code.”
Not true. There are times when you need to repair something, but it can’t be brought up to code. The building inspector has some discretion on the matter. You can, for instance, repair a broken board in a step without bringing the entire staircase up to code.
As far as “sometimes goes”, the way you wrote it, it applies to the “pain in the butt” part. Sometimes it is a pain in the butt, but they make you do it anyway. Again, wrong.
There is nothing wrong with either saying you don’t know about something or admitting you made a mistake.