Minimum ceiling heights are defined by the building codes for “habitable rooms.” This means rooms intended to be occupied, as opposed to storage spaces, and the minimum height is 7 feet, per International Residential Code (IRC) and the residential edition of the Florida Building Code (FBC R305). However, there are exceptions allowed, along with qualifiers: 

1. Bathrooms, toilet rooms, and laundry rooms can be as low as 6 feet 8 inches.
2. Rooms with sloped ceilings must have a minimum of 50% of the room at seven feet high or taller. 
3. Because the minimum square footage of a habitable room is 70 square feet, there is also a qualifier that any area of a room with a ceiling below five feet does not count towards habitable space minimum square footage.
4. Also, sloped ceilings in a bathrooms must be a minimum of 6 feet 8 inches in front of the plumbing fixture, such as a sink or toilet.

    Also see our blog post Can you access or exit a bedroom through another bedroom?

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Here’s links to a collection of our other blog posts about STRUCTURE AND ROOMS:

• What are the building code requirements for notching and boring holes in a wall stud? 

• What causes dark or light "ghost" lines on ceilings and walls?

• Can you access or exit a bedroom through another bedroom?

• What is the difference between a carport and a garage? 

• What are simple ways to find the cause of a ceiling stain?

• What is the minimum size of habitable rooms in a house according to the building code? 

• Why is my garage ceiling sagging? 

• How can I identify what kind of wood flooring I am looking at?

• Why does my concrete floor slab sweat and get slippery?

• Why are there score line grooves in the concrete floor of the garage?

• How much can I cut out of a floor joist? 

• How can I tell if my floors are sloping?

• Why do the floors slope in this old house? 

• What are the common problems when a homeowner converts a garage to conditioned living space, such as a family room?

• How can I tell if a wall is load-bearing? Which walls can I take out? 

   Visit our STRUCTURE AND ROOMS page for other related blog posts on this subject, or go to the INDEX for a complete listing of all our articles.