Please, shut the door!

This is one of the (many) things that makes me miss being a project manager. In days gone by I would have directed the doors be changes out and self closers installed. Period!

Alas, now I must simply suggest it, to help improve safety, and I always do. I would offer the same response as you did when asked about a time frame for making the comment in my reports.

As many/most home inspectors do, we do not quote code, since it is often difficult to determine exactly what code might have applied at the time of construction. We report on safety, functionality and likelihood of failure. In fairness code is often an ongoing attempt to help improve safety and, in some cases reliability, so we certainly pay close attention to it.

You're right when you say that an interior door shouldn't be used between the house and garage, but "one hour burn through fire rated door" ?   National codes require a 20-minute fire rated door -or- a metal door -or- a solid wood door.  As far as I can tell, your area has adopted the 2009 IRC.  Is there some exception/amendment in your area that requires a one-hour door?  If so... I'm sorry to hear it ;-)

The requirement for auto-closers on garage/hour doors was removed from the code a long time ago because they found it did more harm than good - too many people were getting their fingers broken from the door closing on their hands.  

Less than 10%of the homes around here have them, and less than 2% will actually close the door all the way to being latched.

Reuben

Where he resides, the town, city or municipal that has jurisdiction may have additional or change code requirements for fire rated doors. The same for auto-closures (light door hinge type - that don't crush fingers or cause physical harm).

Sorry to hear it you need to rip through someone to get your day going. Be nice for a change 

Excellent point, I see this far to often

I'm not an inspector nor would I try to quote code. If you are an inspector, you need to know the code for your area, whether it be city, county, or state.  Inspectors I know in my area are very informative. Life is priceless. Make sure it's up to code for your area.

Thanks for the reminder - getting the proper door and closer on our house is on our 'to do' list.  But just an interesting note - it's actually against the law here in our town to let your car warm up unattended.  It's called puffing, and those cars are a major target for thieves.  Since creating that law, puffer thefts have dropped dramatically.

Sounds like common sense. I don't think the code here requires the auto closer but it makes so much sense and would save lives I am sure!

Interesting..

I'm pretty sure that we don't have this requirements as well( LA county, CA), but it does has a lot of sense. Now I'm going to pay attention on all garage doors:) Thanks for sharing!

@Dave - "be nice for a change" ?   I thought my comment was perfectly nice.  Please read it again.

Do I know you?  Did I hurt your feelings at some point?

Hi Vince, very good post.  We had not thought about that!

This is great advice. Can't tell you how many time I've actually seen this situation.

Vince,

Good point, Fire, Co, not to mention the cold air from a poor door.

I just LOVE at night when showing a home, turn the garage lights on. Turn off the lights in the house. You see the garage light showing around the seems into the kitchen. All the gaps that fumes can seep into the house are so easy to show to the buyers that way. They FINALLY "get it".