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I’m going to be building a third story fire escape. This will include a small 3’x3′ deck at the third story window and a set of stairs running down to a second story landing.
The landings and deck will be over a sidewalk on a narrow city lot so there is no chance of doing stilts (even if I did want 24′ legs on this thing)
The best idea I’ve come up with to attach it to the house is to lag it to the rim joists and studs and lag brackets below the stairs into a 2x also lagged into rimjoists and studs.
I really don’t want to open the wall to tie into the framing just because I don’t want to have to worry about water infiltration.
Does anybody have a better suggestion?
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Ryan, will the Building Inspector/Fire Inspector allow a wooden escape? I've always seen these as steel.
*Yes, a wooden escape is allowed there. I've never seen any reference in the code to material for a fire escape. I guess if the fire's so bad that the fire excape has burned, you probably won't be getting out that way even if it is steel.As far as I know, in single family residences, all means of egress only have to meet the fire ratings of the rest of the structure.However, I'm open to welding the whole thing together in my shop and craning it in place. I've still got the same problem, I don't like just lag bolting it to the side of the house and hoping that in fourty years, it's still safe to use.
*Ryan, I drew a picture of an idea for your fire escape, converted it to jpg and promptly lost it. Let's see if the file it's supposed to be in will transfer.If it does not...... Can you suspend the landings from above? Attach a giant eyebolt between or to the rafters above the third floor top plate. (I'm assuming a roof over the third floor). Below that eyebolt, about 3 feet, attach a stand off (a steel pipe such as used to stiffen power poles against the weight of their cables) equal, in length, to the width of your landing. Attach a steel cable to the eyebolt, run it over the standoff and down to another plate attached to the bottom of the outside corner of the landing. Attach another cable to that same plate and run it down to another plate under the second floor landing. Use two cables, one for each outside corner. Attach inside of landings to building using simple ledger. Also run the cables thru the tops of railings, sort of like a porch swing.Comments? Ralph
*HEY, waddayaknow, it worked. Ralph :-)))))
*Is the second floor landing already there? Forget the cables from the third floor to the second. At midnight I forgot they won't line up unless you are using a ladder rather than stairs. Or are you?Comments? Ralph
*Ryan - What's the scoop on those fire escape stairs? Did my "off the wall" idea give you any ideas?Ralph
*Here's the scoop:They must be stairs, not a ladder.The escape is on the gable end of the house so the fly rafters are not likely to be solid enough to support the deck from above.There is an existing second floor landing on stilts around the corner from where the new second floor landing will be.So, I do need to build a new landing that will be attached to the existing one.I've pretty much decided on welding something out of steel. It will be more ridgid than wood will be and if painted will last longer than exposed lumber. With a steel set of stairs, bolts into each stud and rim joist at railing height, stringer, and at a bracket 3' below the stringer should make a pretty solid structure. I'm waiting for an answer from the building inspector on how wide the stairway needs to be. This are only serves one family and if I can get away with a 2' wide stairway, it will sure be easier to support than one that is 3' wide.I'm not crazy about my idea but so far, it's the best one I've got.