Finishing the attic

There is a staircase in the closet of the main bedroom that goes up to a very large, open attic. I've had a reliable contractor that has done various work on my house, and I asked him to make an estimate for finishing our attic. The estimate hasn't arrived yet, but in the meantime he brought up a few things that could be even more headache and expense than I had anticipated [and I should be getting used to this by now with an old house, shouldn't I? ;) ]. For one thing, I'm concerned about whether the joists need support. I'm not sure how to find out if there's a one-size-fits-all specifications or if it's possible to determine whether the existing ones will work (and for building regulators to accept ). And then about whether our steps to the attic would have to be redone because they wouldn't be to code (the top step only has a rise of 6 inches while all the others are 8 1/2, which I guess is a no-no). And that's just the beginning; we may have to raise the floor level, etc. etc.

What does one do about making reasonable safety precautions when finishing an attic of a very old house, without removing all it's character to bring it up to code? For example, this past summer we put in 36-in. tall railings around our wrap-around porch although an old photo showed that the originals were much shorter (but had subsequently been replaced by 36-inchers that were deteriorating). Although I might have decided otherwise were I a purist, I decided that railing height was something that I didn't feel so terribly strongly about so went ahead and put them in.

If anyone has some of their own experiences on this they would like to share, I would be happy to know.

Comment by Phil on January 14, 2010 at 10:32am: I added railings to the stairs on my front porch (there were none there before). I matched them exactly to the original low style ones on the porch. That said, my town doesn't really inspect small construction projects. Paying for the permit, however, they are very interested in! Modern code is messing up a lot of old houses.

On your attic, if the stairs don't meet code, and access is only through your closet anyway, maybe you could consider adding some of those precast spiral stairways (advertised continuously in OHJ for the past 15+ years), maybe through a hole cut into your 2nd floor landing? That would solve a couple of problems at once.

Comment by Red Queen on January 14, 2010 at 11:16pm: Funny thing how these building codes and permits work in small towns like ours. Contractors will sometimes mention that we really have no choice but to get a permit because my house happens to be kitty-corner to the Village Hall (and in fact the only house that can be seen from their front window)! Assuming that most people just don't get a permit, I guess. And sometimes they will say that there would be no problem getting a variance for placing the garage in this location or that because doing an improvement...ANY improvement, in our little town is a bonus. And everyone knows EVERYONE in this town, to the extent that construction projects on my house would not go unnoticed, and word would spread around. Not to mention that my good friend is the building inspector's wife! You would think that's a plus, until you realize that once a question is asked, there's no turning back on whether you want to do the project on the sly... ;)

Our contractor just spent a LOT of time looking at the staircase today and he said he will stop by Saturday and let us know what he's thinking about with it. The suspense...

Comment by Sandy Strehlou on January 25, 2010 at 2:14pm: Check to see if your town has adopted the IBC or International Building Code, and within it, the Existing/Historic Building Code provisions. If it has, your stairway might be allowed. It is worth checking out.