# Garage/Landing Door Question...



## Joe Murphy (Jan 25, 2020)

Hey all...noob to code requirements, figured I’d ask some pros before I boogered something up. I have a drive under 2 car garage with a finished 1/2 basement next to it, spilt by a staircase that leads to the main level of the house above. At the top of the landing is an exterior grade door. The basement portion was previously finished out with standard interior doors. 
What I’d like to do is add another door at the garage portion of the landing, further separating it from the rest of the house (esthetically, etc)
What I’m unsure of is do I NEED to use an exterior grade door here (currently one at the top of the stairs separating the house from the garage and one at the side entrance of the garage) and is there a code requirement that determines how this door would swing? 
Thanks in advance!!!


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## cda (Jan 25, 2020)

Welcome 

About how old is the house ?

Surprised there is not a door between the garage and rest of the house already.



Take your pick


R302.5.1 Opening Protection: No doors allowed from a garage to a bedroom. Doors between a house and a garage can be one of three types, take your pick:


Solid wood, at least 1-3/8″ thick
Solid or honeycomb-core steel, at least 1-3/8″ thick
20-minute fire-rated

I don’t think door swing matters.

Wait a few days for more replies.,

So are you Santa or the Anti-Santa??


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## Joe Murphy (Jan 25, 2020)

•The house was built in 2001
•No bedrooms in the finished basement
•I’m the anti-Santa (Fallujah, 2006)

So, even with a steel door at the top of the landing currently separating the garage...if I additionally separated the garage once over with another doorway at the bottom of the landing...it seems I would need to heed the code requirements again...am I reading that correctly?


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## cda (Jan 25, 2020)

Without seeing a floor plan, hard to say

I do not understand why a door is not there already...

Does not matter about a bedroom.


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## Joe Murphy (Jan 25, 2020)

https://imgur.com/a/ZfWLZQC


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## Joe Murphy (Jan 25, 2020)

Posted up an Imgur link to a quick floor plan a fat fingered. Hope it clears up my mud.


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## cda (Jan 25, 2020)

Thanks, kind of what I though you had.

Still not clear why a door was not required, in original design.

Anyway, you may wait a few days for others to reply


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## e hilton (Jan 26, 2020)

My BIL has a house in western NC with that exact situation, except the study door is on the other side and opens directly to the garage.  The bottom of the stairs open right into the garage.  House was built in the late 70’s.


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## ADAguy (Jan 27, 2020)

So, you are seeking  to add a vestibule/mud room separation?


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## tmurray (Jan 27, 2020)

The drawing shows winders adjacent to the proposed door. Is this a landing, or are there winder stairs there? A door opening onto winders is typically a no-no.

The energy code usually requires an exterior grade door between the garage and the house. Depending on the code, it may also need to be self-closing to prevent carbon monoxide from entering the home. 

Local codes can be a little different though.


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## Joe Murphy (Jan 27, 2020)

Yeah you’ll need to excuse the drawing lol. The staircase does end in a landing at the bottom. 36” stairs. Landing is 46” x 46” with 2 stairs at each end, one set to the garage one to the finished basement. My plan was to build out a small “mud room” sort of off the garage side and place a 32” metal inswing door there. But wondering any swing requirements and now any issues with there already being a metal door at the top of the stairs, which would have originally been separating the garage/unfinished basement upon original construction.


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## ADAguy (Jan 27, 2020)

Need a 36" door to achieve a min. 32" clear.


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