Egress Requirements for a two floor apartment

[Mike Cartier]

I plan to confirm with the town building department but I wanted to ask what the egress requirements are for a home I am considering. The property has an attached one bedroom apartment that currently has interior access from the other part of the house. It has a separate entrance/exit as well. I would like to seal off the interior access that connects the two units as they both already have separate individual entrances. The apartment is two floors, it has the bedroom upstairs on the second floor. Currently none of the windows in the unit would meet egress requirements. Do I need to replace one of the windows upstairs to fit an egress window so the apartment then has 2 means of egress? 

[Jon Holdman]

You need to discuss this with your city.  The likely answer is that you will need to put in egress windows, one in each bedroom.  The current windows may be grandfathered, but as soon as you start making changes they will mandate certain safety related changes.  Egress windows are often one of those changes.  Interconnected, hard-wired smoke detectors are another.  Your city building department is the place for specific answers, though.