Bedroom egress window

Description

Every bedroom must have at least one operable egress window with a net clear opening of at least 5.7 sq ft (5.0 sq ft at grade), minimum opening height 24 in, minimum opening width 20 in.

Why this exists

Provides a secondary escape route during fire when the bedroom door is blocked. Required for every sleeping room.

Categories

Source

Solver enforcement

The constraint solver runs check function ls-egress-01 as a hard constraint — layouts that fail are rejected outright.

Backed by research

• Every sleeping room must have at least one operable egress window with a net clear opening of 5.7 sq ft (5.0 sq ft at grade), minimum 24 in height, 20 in width, and a sill not more than 44 in above the finished floor.

  Council (2024), ICC — R310.2.1, R310.2.2 — view source ↗

See the full research bibliography for context. Our licensing principle describes how we cite published research without using the underlying datasets.

Plan symbols this applies to

These plan symbols invoke this directive when placed on a floor plan. Click any to see where it's drawn and what other rules apply to it.

Related directives

• Garage / dwelling fire separation · IRC R302.6
• Habitable space minimum ceiling height · IRC R305.1
• Egress window net opening dimensions · IRC R310.2
• Stair riser, tread, and headroom · IRC R311.7
• Smoke alarms required throughout dwelling · IRC R314