Garage Renovation

[Laurie Behnfeldt]

Help! My friend’s ex-husband is remodeling his garage to create 2 bedrooms for his new family. My friend’s concern is that the one bedroom will not have a door or a window. She is worried that should a fire occur and her young son is sleeping in that room that he could get trapped. A friend is doing the work, so we are assuming building permits weren’t obtained. Does anyone know if a building permit is required for something like this? We are in the state of Louisiana. Go LSU Tigers!!!!!

[Dodgeman]

YES, a building permit is required. YES, alternate exits are required from the bedrooms.

Do your friend a favor. Make a call to the local building inspector and explain the situation. I normally wouldn’t suggest something like this, but the childs safety is more important than saving a few hundred dollars.

Dodgeman

[Daniel E. Fall]

There are strict rules that require windows of a certain size and a certain distance from the floor that are designed to protect humans from unscrupulous or braindead contractors.

If you don’t know of a local building authority, call that state authority. In most areas, the state steps in when there is no local authority, or the local authority doesn’t want to get involved.

If you don’t make that call, and there was a fire and a child died, you’d be responsible for the death of a child just as much as the builder whether you agree with me or not.

Another important consideration is carbon monoxide/smoke. Let’s say it is a 3 car garage and they are closing up part of it. It must be done correctly to avoid CO2 poisoning (no commonways). This might sound silly, but I know of a lady that died from CO2 in the home. She drove her car in the garage to drop off the ice cream and she left the car running in an open garage. Somehow the CO2 built up in the basement and she was found sitting on the sofa downstairs with the door to the garage open. The authorities surmise that she went in and dropped off her groceries and breathed in a couple good breaths of CO2 and felt tired and sat down on the sofa to catch her breath and was poisoned rapidly and died. This may not have a lot to do with your story, but imagine a small child in a bedroom without smoke/CO2 detectors and windows and a home fire. Given this person plans to avoid the window, have they got smoke detectors?

Make the call.

[Author]

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