What are the minimum widths for habitable areas or in my case the bathroom entrance door minimum width?
Awaiting reply
Hi Theodore,
We had a look but couldn't see anything specific in the Building Code of Australia (BCA) ourselves, so we put your question to an expert on this topic. Here's his answer:
The are no minimum or maximum door widths for Class 1a buildings (houses) including bathrooms. The only consideration for bathrooms that contain closet pans is that there is adequate space from the doorway to the closet pan to allow the door to be opened in case of an emergency to remove an occupant. If there is not adequate clearance from the door to the closet pan the door must either be opened outwards or fitted with ‘lift off’ hinges to allow removal of the door. A sliding door would also satisfy the requirements.
Where door widths are regulated is in more commercial buildings and common and other areas of residential buildings such as apartments and hotels etc. including Class 1b buildings.
Class 1b buildings, which include holiday accommodation and bed and breakfast guest houses or small boarding houses require disabled access to a certain number of dwellings for holiday accommodation, depending on how many dwellings there are, and certain rooms, common areas and sanitary facilities in other Class 1b buildings; this requires minimum door widths be complied with.
More commercial and other residential buildings including common areas of Class 2 apartments and Class 3 buildings including hotels and motels require adequate widths for emergency exits and disabled access which control minimum door widths.
For more information about door sizes, read our article on standard door sizes.
It's also worth adding that even though there aren't any strictly defined minimum widths, it's not a bad idea to build in a way that takes into account the fact that there's a 60% chance that at some point during a house's lifetime, someone with a disability will live there.
LHA's guidelines on how to design 'liveable housing' are a good read - they suggest a minimum of 820mm to allow better access for people with mobility issues.
Hope this helps,
The BUILD team.