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I’m re building my front porch and have a code question regarding height of guard rail. I live in CA (Berkeley) and Taunton’s Code Check book states that guard rails should be min of 36in and are required for walk offs greater than 30″. Hand rails can be from 34-38″ and the way I understand this is that one builds a guard rail, railing, posts, newels etc and then the code requires that you run a hand rail along the inside at the required height (34-38 in)and they have to curve around (return) at the bottom so things won’t catch and all that. Thing is, I cut my first post yesterday, sizing it so that it’s height is 40 inches above the landing to allow for the 36 in railing height placement and 4 inches extra (part of the decoration). It just looks terrible. Too tall. If I lop of the extra 4 inches I have no relief above the top of the railing. No one else’s home has posts that come that high ( I live in an older neighbor hood and figure this is due to code changing over time) and I wonder If I have read the code right. I frankly would like to have the railing be lower, say 32 -34 inches. Anyone in CA or the Bay Area able to comment on what they are doing? What does code really say and are there allowences. The top landing is 4 feet above grade and the steps are 50″ in width. Code is code and all but it looks so bad. Am I confusing the issue? Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much
Charles
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I'm re building my front porch and have a code question regarding height of guard rail. I live in CA (Berkeley) and Taunton's Code Check book states that guard rails should be min of 36in and are required for walk offs greater than 30". Hand rails can be from 34-38" and the way I understand this is that one builds a guard rail, railing, posts, newels etc and then the code requires that you run a hand rail along the inside at the required height (34-38 in)and they have to curve around (return) at the bottom so things won't catch and all that. Thing is, I cut my first post yesterday, sizing it so that it's height is 40 inches above the landing to allow for the 36 in railing height placement and 4 inches extra (part of the decoration). It just looks terrible. Too tall. If I lop of the extra 4 inches I have no relief above the top of the railing. No one else's home has posts that come that high ( I live in an older neighbor hood and figure this is due to code changing over time) and I wonder If I have read the code right. I frankly would like to have the railing be lower, say 32 -34 inches. Anyone in CA or the Bay Area able to comment on what they are doing? What does code really say and are there allowences. The top landing is 4 feet above grade and the steps are 50" in width. Code is code and all but it looks so bad. Am I confusing the issue? Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks much
Charles