Another advantage of the RCO was that my top unit, which shares the 2nd and 3rd floors, did not need a second form of egress; however each bedroom still needs a second Emergency Escape and Rescue Opening (EERO) to be counted as a sleeping room. To the layman, this means that I didn't need a second stairwell or fire escape to use the upper floors, but each bedroom needs a window that meets certain requirements. On the 2nd floor, this meant just making sure each bedroom was designed with an existing window next to it; pretty easy. On a typical 3rd floor, it would be the same, because a fire fighter could get their ladder to that window for emergency rescue if the primary form of egress (bedroom door) were blocked. In any room other than a bedroom, you only need that one primary form of egress - the idea being that you'll be more alert in rooms that you aren't asleep in and therefore can get out the primary egress door before it becomes blocked by fire (this becomes a dubious assumption when you consider how many times you've fallen asleep on your couch watching TV or used a pullout couch). This meant that I was free and clear to use the 3rd floor space ,with just the staircase, for anything as long as it didn't involve sleeping.
The problem that arose in my design was partially around the need for another bedroom and bathroom to make my financials work and also around the shape of my roof plus how it interacted with the 3rd floor layout to allow a compliant EERO for that bedroom. I have an approx. 4 foot high parapet wall before the roof rafters slope upwards. This parapet wall also has frieze windows inset in it and holds my cornice onto the exterior, so from the street the whole 3rd floor is well hidden as this form wraps around the north and west side of the building. The east side is also a shared party wall with my neighboring building. Due to the layout of the rest of the building, this top end of the 3rd floor was where I needed to add the 3rd bedroom and also a 2nd bathroom to this unit, which made very tight conditions for fitting it there from the start. You can get a sense for this below:
Due to ceiling heights, I had to locate the bathroom next to the party wall and away from the sloped side walls. This mostly left a sloped side-wall as the logical place for an EERO to go, but all of them had challenges in meeting the requirements to count as an EERO (minimum sizing of window height and width, minimum overall window area, maximum distance of the window sill from the floor [44 inches], and that it remain operational). I had a few options to consider:
- The first obvious one is a roof dormer that would allow for the roof to be raised and a typical window to be install in the side wall. Besides the fact that it would have been a serious fight with the historic preservation office, it also would have been difficult to implement due to how high the parapet wall was located. It would have effectively needed to be inside the gutterbox to retain a window that had a low enough window sill.
- The next most obvious option was to expand the size of the frieze windows located in the parapet wall. This again presented a fight with the historic preservation office in altering the existing window sizes, but also presented other issues in meeting the EERO requirements. Even if I could expand the frieze windows to a large enough size to meet the minimums, these windows would still need to remain fully operational and they would likely be between 1 and 3 feet from the floor level. This meant that pets and toddlers would be at risk of inadvertently operating the window and of falling out. In the international building code, operable windows are banned below 2 feet for this reason, however in the RCO they conveniently have "deleted" this section. Strange and dangerous. Next.
- Since I couldn't make any option below the parapet wall work, I looked for a way to provide an EERO above it through a roof window (skylight) that met the requirements. They sell egress roof windows for this purpose when they can be put in a roof opening that is within the 44 inches of the floor, however given my predicament of such a high parapet, I would need to have some extension to get to this height.
In reading Section 310 of the RCO, there seemed to be a logical solution in just the next section detailing how window wells from a basement can use permanently affixed ladders or steps to rise more than 44 inches when they are deeper underground. I figured that this was a similar case in reverse - instead of going through a window then up a ladder/steps, this would be going up a ladder/steps and then out a window to escape and be rescued. Here is what I came up with and it also served a practical purpose of clothing storage:
I knew there would be push-back from the plan examiners since it did not follow the letter of the building code. I worked on multiple iteration of this storage-steps concept and they couldn't make up their minds on whether it was more important to have steps that met the rise/run in another part of the code (even though the window well section specifically said this wasn't required) or to have the size of the landing meet the stairs section. I could either have too steep of steps with the right-sized landing or too small of a landing with the right-sized steps. They preferred to punt on the decision and make me go before the board of building appeals for a ruling. They kept pushing me that the design was too difficult for a user to get out of and I kept making it as easy as possible due to these concerns. They were also simultaneously concerned that a user would hit their head on the window as they went up the steps and also that they would not be able to operate the window latch while on the stairs (there was an actuator to make sure the casement roof window was not heavy while opening it too). To the side before the appeal, they told me that personally they thought it could pass, but had to have the board rule on it to cover themselves.
Lost in all of the fine-tuned design tweaks of the stairs was the overall concept of providing a second way out for EERO for the entire 3rd floor in case of a fire. An entire floor would benefit from any of these designs.
When appeal day finally came (after a month of waiting), I was hit with a series of bad luck. First, the plan examiner that had been handling my case went on vacation and handed off my case to a supervisor (who now was rehashing old concerns and was a much bigger hard-ass). Then when I showed up to the appeals hearing, the entire board of building appeals had just been reappointed (literally getting trained on what to do when I arrived) and this was their 2nd case ever.
I argued my case and the plan examiner's supervisor even seemed to side with me on many of the points that he had pushed back on previously. In the end, they went into private deliberations and then just said: denied. After prodding for more feedback, so that I could decide on whether to resubmit and come back or not, they basically explained that it came down to the idea that with stairs it was too easy to access the roof. Given the one board-member's experience as an architect at UC they'd had problems with students hanging out on rooftops and thought that what I had designed would encourage that. Never even asked a question along those lines in the deliberations for me to respond to.
Needless to say, I was a little blown back by that response that had never even been mentioned by the plan examiners as a concern as they continued to push for easier access to the roof. Now caught in a Catch 22 between too easy and too difficult of roof access from different parties in the city, it became hard to see how I was ever going to get their blessing for a certified bedroom with an EERO for this floor. Waiting another month and probably wasting it to end up in the same spot didn't make a whole lot of sense.
It was now time for plan B: label this room as something else that doesn't require an EERO and then let people use the room however they will (not something that I can control). In a flip of the script, I actually ended up getting approved on the first blank space with a skylight (and a 3rd floor with only one way out!) rather than the meticulously designed storage steps that could save your life someday. Instead of a bedroom with a en-suite bathroom, I will now be marketing an odd "bonus room" with an en-suite bathroom.
To me, this is a prime example of when common sense didn't prevail against the building code's thousand well-intentioned individual constraints. The intricate box that they tried to create to control the dimensions of the world's buildings didn't have a rational answer to reality. It's not my windmill to fight; I've just got a building to build. Boy, it was frustrating though.
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