Building Code Issue re: Cellar
I would like know if the building code has a clear opinion about this: This is a two family, the garden floor for rental and the duplex upstairs. I want to renovate the cellar and make a direct access from the duplex to the cellar. The garden apartment wont have access to the cellar. I…
I would like know if the building code has a clear opinion about this: This is a two family, the garden floor for rental and the duplex upstairs. I want to renovate the cellar and make a direct access from the duplex to the cellar. The garden apartment wont have access to the cellar.
I would like to remove the walls enclosing the stairs. The boiler will have a brick wall room and a fire door.
Do we need any type of fire door between the cellar and the rest of the house? Again, the boiler room will be enclosed in a room with a fire door.
The idea is to make the access to the cellar as open as possible, right now with all the doors and walls is not really welcoming. What the code of the DOB is saying about that?
And yes, when I decide to do the job I will hire an architect and a licensed and insured contractor but I don’t have any of them yet to ask questions. Before hiring anybody, I would like to know the DOB limitations about walls and fire doors separating the cellar and the rest of the house.
But yes, I will admit i can be insufferable.
MF – the code doesn’t care about the side of your house. it is only concerned with average grade at the curb.
Fungible, equivocal, completely grey – doesn’t matter. The OP is asking a question about code and i’m replying within that frame of reference.
Is this any more insufferable than making sweeping statements about how cellars should be treated?
young archi
remember that building code geeks are insufferable,
the truth is that the codes are endlessly fungible.
a floor level can be more than 50% underground on one side of the house and less on another side. Making it sound like the building code is straightforward and black and white as it applies to hundred year old buildings is perhaps a way of making yourself look smart to amateurs, but don’t mess with me son.
While I agree that ML is a bit of a hard ass, he’s on to something important. How long have you owned this house? What do you know about the unique microclimate of your cellar? I occasionally dream about renovating our “cave” (workshop space, wine cellar, sauna, god-knows-what-else) –then I think again. While we have never had a real flood in our cellar, both our neighbors have bad ones. There’s also the potential for a waste-pipe back up from the mains(again, luckily, this hasn’t happened to us in 10+ years). It’s very humid down there too which would have to be addressed. So many potential problems that I’m happier leaving it as a kind of buffer btw the habitable areas of the house and the uncontrollable enviroment outside.
JMCQ – Code doesn’t prohibit using the Cellar for habitable space OR for rec. rooms (separate concepts). Housing Maintenance Code, Zoning, Building Code, MDL all have specific sections wherein one can habitat the Cellar. The problem is that people don’t count it as floor area, don’t meet the code provisions (light and air) and then habitat the cellar. That is illegal.
Minard – for the purposes of this discussion (Building Code related) a cellar is more than 50% below grade, a basement is below grade but not more than 50% below grade.
Number of windows, dirt floor, etc are irrelevant to the definition.
jmcq
if an indoor space has numerous windows it is NOT a cellar.
There is always confussion between the terms “basement” and “cellar”. people think they mean the same thing but they do not. The basement in a brownstone is partially underground and often referred to as the “garden level”. Below this is a cellar. this is a totally windowless, totally subterranean level used originally to store root vegetables as it is a dark, humid cave. Later on, this level was used for mechanical equipment such as hot water heaters or boilers. some rowhouses have full cellars, some have partial cellars and some have no cellars. originally, cellars had dirt floors. Many still do.
“Denton – if there are numerous windows, it sounds like a basement, unless more than 50% is below grade.”
In my case, it is more than 50% below grade. A few hundred feet from the highest point in Brooklyn.
As already noted, you don’t need fire rated construction separating the stair from the garden (basement) apartment if it is a 1 or 2 family. However the code precludes you from using the cellar for anything but utilities and accessory story – i.e. accessory to the main function of the building which is residential. No home theaters – playrooms for the kids, etc. There’s no fresh air down there!
Denton – if there are numerous windows, it sounds like a basement, unless more than 50% is below grade.
-you do not need a fire rated wall separating the boiler in a 2fam house.
-ML, give me a break. When these houses were built they cost 10k so it wasn’t an issue using the cellar or not. When the house is now worth $750 psft it makes sense to reclaim that space and turn it into something usable. Not all cellars are alike, mine for example is bone dry, has a concrete floor, and is 7.5′ high. With numerous windows. It is now been finished and is useful for the purposes that I intended.
You’re mostly likely also wrong on the stair enclosure. See brooklynexpeditor. I removed mine, it was filed (under the old code), approved by the DOB, and signed off on.