This past week, a toddler girl fell from a fourth-story apartment window in South Minneapolis. She’s doing better, but is still in critical condition, according to this Star Tribune story.
An issue in this story is the conflict between fire-safety codes (bigger, easy-to-open windows are better) and commonsense child-safety principles (hard-to-open, not-so-big-that-they’re-close-to-the-floor windows are better). As far as I know, there aren’t any requirements that upper-story windows should be difficult for children to open. It seems that the fire-safety code wins this particular conflict.
The building’s developer, American Indian Community Development Corporation, will do a full investigation and ask the city to review its window codes, said Jim Graham, the corporation’s development director.
"The building conforms with city zoning codes and requirements," Graham said. "If there’s a safety issue, then we should do something about it."
Some of the windows, which open from the bottom or top, are less than 2 feet from the floor. Development Corporation officials had tried to screw down window screens at a similar building down the block but were told by city inspectors that doing so wasn’t allowed because of the fire code, Graham said.
Wrought-iron bars across the lower halves of some windows on the building’s third floor were put there for architectural design, Graham said. He wondered how those could be allowed but securing the screens wasn’t.
We built a new house in Minneapolis last year. In our bedroom, where the whole family sleeps, we planned to have three front windows over the porch roof, and two windows over the bed, just large enough for light and air, but small enough and high enough so there wouldn’t be a risk that a child standing on the bed could fall out. All would be double-hung windows, a design that is very nice if you have small children, because you can unlock them to open them from the top for air, while still preventing the bottom from opening by wedging a dowel between the window and the frame.
Here are our three front windows. The porch 
roof is just below. Perfect for escaping from a fire, right? They are certainly the ones we will use if we ever have to escape from the bedroom (onto the porch roof).
Except — these three double-hung windows are not large enough, according to city code, for them to function as egress windows. (Everyone in my family could fit through them, even me, eight months pregnant.) So — instead of my high-up, child-safe double-hung windows over the bed, I have these:
These are our city-mandated egress windows: Given their size, they have to be casement windows, according to code, and they have only a single lock, a flip-up latch — you can see it faintly through the curtain at about the level of the reading lamps. We have never opened them, because (unlike a double-hung window) it is impossible to open them just a little bit without making it very easy to swing them open ALL THE WAY. The sill is about eight inches above the top of the bed. The screen pops right out. No porch roof here — it’s a straight drop to the pavement two stories down.
(And no, we can’t move the bed. We designed the bedroom to be barely larger than the bed.)
What I’ll wind up doing, of course, is bolting a steel fence over these windows, making them impossible to use as egress windows (not to worry — we can still get out the front) but at least removing my fear that my toddler will open them up and fall out.
In our old house we had an attic bedroom. The sill of the lone window was abut nine inches from the floor (not atypical in attics). The frame was bent so it didn’t have a screen and the lock sometimes failed. I saw my eighteen-month-old son toddle over to that window once and open it up almost effortlessly, standing a few inches away from a three-story drop — something I’ve seen in a few waking nightmares since! I made my husband screw a metal screen across that window, that very night. Good thing we didn’t have a fire.
My point here: Fire safety codes that don’t take into account the needs of families with small children to keep the windows secure, wind up defeating themselves, because parents will defeat the codes one way or another:
One woman said her children’s father pounded nails into the window frame near the locks shortly after they moved into the building so that her 3-year-old son couldn’t get them open.
Wouldn’t it have been better if the windows were simply securable to begin with? It would be nice if they could function both as fire escapes and as barriers to children’s falling out.
It’s not just the master bedroom. Here’s Superman, cape and all, standing next to the window of what will (someday) be his bedroom:
Yes, we were required to put the windows that close to the floor. I haven’t the foggiest idea how to safely fit a bed in this room where jumping on it won’t risk a collision with the window.
Fires are probably, on the whole, more dangerous to little kids than windows are. But I would have liked some more freedom to arrange the windows in our own home, according to the needs that our family has. If it’s harder to sell it later, fine — I’ll take that consequence…
UPDATE: Two commenters point out that the reason for large, easy-to-open windows is not so that inhabitants can escape, but rather, so that firemen plus all their equipment can get in. I’ll cede that point, but I still think there’s competition of two legitimate safety principles here. It’s because one of them is enforced by the city and one’s not that a kid fell out a window last week.
Here are some window safety tips from the National Safety Council. Including this one:
Keep your windows closed and locked when children are around. When opening windows for ventilation, open windows that a child cannot reach.
In other words, never open your bedroom windows. Ever. Oh, and by the way,
Do not install window air conditioners in windows that may be needed for escape or rescue in an emergency. The air conditioning unit could block or impede escape through the window.
never have air conditioning in your bedroom either, unless you are fortunate enough to be able to afford an apartment or house with central air conditioning.
Set and enforce rules about keeping children’s play away from windows or patio doors. Falling through the glass can be fatal or cause serious injury.
Keep children’s play away from windows. Uh-huh. See the picture from what will be Milo’s bedroom. Above.
Keep furniture – or anything children can climb – away from windows. Children may use such objects as a climbing aid.
What’s the point, when your two-year-old’s center of gravity is above the windowsill anyway? See above.
The fire safety issue is well taken. Yes, it’s important to have egress windows in every sleeping area (although, perhaps, if firefighters’ dimensions are the controlling factor, we should be calling them ingress windows). But there’s clearly a revenge effect at work here.
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