I am fairly certain that CITY Building Codes require Bedrooms to have a sufficient ratio of operable window to room size to insure an occupant light, ventilation and escape (in the event of fire or catastrophe).
The requirements are for light and ventilation only -- not escape.
Windows do NOT need to operate if the building has a central HVAC system.
Smoke in bed and increase your chance of death.
The fire company will be slow to find you as there is no window to reveal
the flicker of flames and you will be overcome by smoke in your room
before it gets to a detector in the hallway.
There must be a smoke detector in each bedroom according to current code,
unless (maybe even if) the building is sprinklered, and the detectors in a
dwelling unit must be interconnected.
[A sprinklered building (especially any multi-floored high-rise) is MUCH
safer than any building with detectors and/or windows. And, windows are
worthless to the Fire Department above the 3rd or 4th floor -- max height
of the extension ladder! This is why the National Fire Code now requires
all "non-single-family" construction to be sprinklered. Philadelphia's Fire
Code incorporates, I believe, ALL of the National Fire Code, at least it did
as of about 7 years ago. I don't know if the current Phila Fire Code
automatically incorporates changes from the National Code or not. It didn't
used to, but required separate local action to incorporate changes.]
Or imagine that a boozy (or merely tired) roommate falls asleep after
starting to cook a midnight snack and you wake up to smoke alarms. If
your door knob is hot, what do you do? Burrow through sheet rock into an
adjacent room?
Actually, nobody uses sheet rock anymore, except in rare situations
-- everybody uses drywall board, it's MUCH cheaper both as to purchase cost
and cost to install and maintain. (One person can lift and install a sheet of
drywall, while it requires two to lift a single piece of sheet rock.)
While it IS difficult to punch through Sheet Rock (hence its name),
virtually anybody can punch through drywall simply by "lurching" against it
... especially when drunk! (Been there, done that.)
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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