I’m what you’d call “advanced DIY”, meaning I try to read the relevant code and I actually pull permits.  I’m working on a modification to my deck.  See attached photo and drawing.

Here’s the question… the old deck extended all the way to the building edge.  I started demolition to install some stairs as speced in my plan.  I was pondering the electrical panel, and wondered if I’d just violated 110.26 of the NEC.  Essentially, is it legal to have stairs like this under the box?

I’m guessing that it’s one of only a few answers:

1) nope: NEC requires 30″ clear horizontal space, so you’re in violation.  The floor below the box cannot change levels within 15″ on either side of the center of the box, so this is a problem.  You can fix this by making the first step 30″ wide, centered under the box.

2) you’d be OK on the first step (because the distance from the first step to the top of the box is <78″).  However, that second step falls within the 30″ and that exceeds 78″, so you have a problem which you could fix by extending the first step to the building edge.

3) No, you’re fine because (there’s some other part of the code that covers this, etc.)

4)  the inspector’s going to flag it no matter what.

If there’s an option i missed, feel free to let me know.  My plan was signed off and stamped “complies with code”, but then again, the electrical box wasn’t marked because I wasn’t planning on moving or changing it at all.

Thanks in advance.

DJS