West Virginia Residential Code: Stairs & Guards

West Virginia’s statewide code, the West Virginia Residential Code, is based on the 2018 IRC and was adopted by the State Fire Commission effective 1 August 2022. It sets the statewide standard, but — as in a handful of other states — enforcement requires local opt-in: a municipality or county has to adopt it before it’s actually enforced there, so it isn’t automatically in force everywhere.

For a house stair, the figures follow the IRC baseline — 7¾ in max riser, 10 in min tread, 6 ft 8 in headroom, 36 in min width, 34–38 in handrails, 36 in guards, the 30 in guard trigger and the 4 in sphere. No West Virginia-specific stair or guard amendment is confirmed here. See the US stair & guard rules for the shared figures, and confirm with your local building department whether the code has been locally adopted and enforced.