Why Interior Designers NEED to Know the Residential Codes

It is critical that designers who are producing residential floor plans understand the relevant code requirements. Codes are the law, and the requirements must be followed. 

Most often, if a designer draws a floor plan or lighting plan that misses code compliance, the licensed plumber or electrician, or the experienced carpenter or installer will recognize the deficiency, and make a correction on site or during installation. Within their specialty, good contractors are well aware of the requirements and keep up on any code requirement changes. Or, during a plan review for a building permit application, a code deficiency might get tagged for revision. And, even if something is installed or constructed incorrectly, a building inspector should catch it during an inspection (but then, of course, there may be a hefty cost to the homeowner to reconstruct the element per code requirements!!!)

This is all very comforting to designers. Mistakes and improper applications get caught and fixed along the way during plan reviews and construction. So, the real risk when a designer is ignorant of the codes is that they lose credibility with contractors and installers. AND, that gives the entire industry a bad name. 

Can you almost SEE the contractor rolling their eyes when they see a designer’s plan that has missed a basic requirement???

Can you almost HEAR the men on the job site chuckle over the silly designer’s scheme that misses the mark with plumbing, electrical, or life safety codes?

Yeah, right. This is why some designers get a bad rap.

And this is also why we at Dakota Design Company have developed the Residential Codes Handbook, which includes summaries and diagrams of ALL codes related to single-family homes. Additionally, we update it every three years when the International Residential Code (IRC) and the National Electrical Code (NEC) are revised, and we send all purchasers an update to keep them informed about any code changes.  

But in this post, we will cover the key areas where designers might miss the mark when it comes to code compliance. 

We received a great question from an interior designer. 

“When a potential client is working with a builder or GC, how can I compete for that project if the GC offers design services through their company?”

Many larger home-building companies DO employ an interior designer so they can provide design services directly to their home-building clients. Whether it’s for a new build or a remodel, having access to an in-house designer through the builder CAN be a great convenience for clients. 

But typically, the in-house designer's services extend only to items that are part of the build: flooring, paint, light fixtures, cabinets, hardware, plumbing fixtures, etc. By employing an in-house designer, a builder can ensure timely selections and procurement for the items that need to be installed during the build. However, in some rarer cases, these in-house designers may also offer services to assist homeowners in selecting furniture, window treatments, wall coverings, and decorative accessories—the items added to the home after construction is complete. 

In either case, but particularly the latter one, it may be difficult for an independent interior designer to compete for that client’s business. But, it just may be the case that a home-building or home-remodeling client can get a wider and more complete range of design services if they hire their own interior designer rather than work with the GC’s in-house designer. And, an independent interior designer may be better positioned to provide greater scrutiny, oversight, and personal attention to the client’s project than one aligned with the builder. 

But how can an interior designer communicate those benefits to the client?

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Recently, we offered a brand new training on how to create and format construction documents and spec books. If you missed it, be sure to add your name to the waitlist here to know when we’re hosting it live again..

In the live training, we covered:

• Industry standards for formatting CD sheets, and numbering and sequencing sheets within a construction document set

• Utilizing recognized drafting symbology appropriately, and ways to format construction and fabrication notes on construction drawings

• Standard formatting for plans, elevations, sections, and detail drawings, and how to cross-reference related drawings between sheets in a CD set

• How to distribute appropriate materials and finish information between schedules on a CD sheet, and within a Spec book

• The most thorough and efficient ways to format information and links within a spec book

• How to document your process and standards for CD and spec production so you can more easily outsource that work

One designer who attended the training provided this feedback:

“The level of detail discussed in this training was 🔥. I had no idea an interior designer should be producing documents at the same level as an architect. I earned a certificate in interior design, so none of this was ever taught. I am thankful that my eyes have been opened to what I should really be doing.”

We thought this was a great opportunity to discuss the differentiation between an architect’s role and an interior designer’s role, and the competencies an interior designer should have regarding construction documentation. 

Join me inside The DTS Files for insights based on my work with hundreds of interior design businesses.

What do you do when the worst contractor you’ve ever worked with sends you a dream client? Take the job? Run for the hills? Here's how to protect your business, your boundaries, and your bottom line.

Join The DTS Files to read my advice. 

Often—when specifying lighting fixtures for a space or designing a lighting scheme for a new construction project—interior designers select and locate fixtures based on a best guess approach. This often results in success because one bulb can be swapped out for another with more or less intensity fairly easily, OR dimmers can be used to adjust the light intensity to what works best. This latter approach—relying on dimmers to tweak the lighting intensity—is particularly useful, as the residential building codes and energy codes now require dimmers in residential new construction and renovation projects. 

Pro Tip: The 2024 edition of the International Residential Code, Section 1104.2.1 requires that all permanently installed luminaires (light fixtures) in habitable rooms (which excludes closets and hallways) be controlled with a manual dimmer or automatic shutoff control (motion sensor). Not all jurisdictions may be enforcing this requirement, but wherever dimmers are used, there is great latitude to control light levels. Need a codes refresh? Check out our codes handbook here.

The rationale behind dimmer and sensor mandates is not to accommodate inaccurate lighting level calculations. It is rather to reduce energy consumption when lighting levels are too bright, or when lights are left on in rooms that are not occupied. 

Is There a Formula to Compute Appropriate Lighting Intensity?

Join The DTS Files to learn exactly how to calculate how much light a space needs.

An interior designer recently reached out to us with a frustration. She was in the process of putting together a scope of work for a full-service design project that involved construction, and she was spending quite a bit of time researching the answers to several questions about what could/should be done in this home to meet the homeowner’s needs.

This interior designer didn’t go into a lot of detail about the nature of the questions she was trying to get answers to, but, yes, in a project that involves construction, often there are several considerations that need to be evaluated before the project direction and full scope of work can be developed. 

The interior designer indicated she was putting in a LOT of uncompensated work merely to get a reasonable and workable SOW developed for her client.

Unpaid work???? Uh, no!

In a situation like this, where the appropriate design direction needs to be investigated, and questions need to be answered (perhaps getting conceptual pricing from contractors) BEFORE a SOW for a project can be definitively determined, a designer should ….

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One of the questions interior designers ask us all the time is, “How should I help my client budget for their construction project?”

At Dakota Design Company, we're all about knowing your numbers and ensuring your clients have a full understanding of what their project will actually cost. 

Because let’s be real, there’s nothing worse than starting a project thinking it’ll be $40K, only to find out you’re actually looking at $150K by the time everything's done. 

No one wants to get hit with a surprise like that.

So, let’s dive into this: How do you help your clients budget for projects with construction?

Join The DTS Files for my advice and insights.