Title 24 Requirements for Salons and Spas
Salons are among the few occupancies the ventilation tables name outright. Barbershops, along with beauty and nail salons, carry their own outdoor air rate, their own exhaust rate and an explicit ban on demand control ventilation.
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Twice the outdoor air of a shop floor
Table 120.1-A sets the area rate for barbershops at 0.4 cfm of outdoor air per square foot, and beauty and nail salons at the same figure. A retail sales floor is 0.2; most occupancies are 0.15. At the table's default of 17 people per 1,000 square feet the per-person term comes to about 0.26 cfm per square foot, so in a salon the area rate governs. Adding chairs does not raise the requirement until the design density passes roughly 27 people per 1,000 square feet.
Exhaust is a separate requirement
On top of the outdoor air, Table 120.1-B sets minimum exhaust at 0.60 cfm per square foot for beauty and nail salons, 0.50 for barber shops; Section 120.1(c)4 makes those the design rates. The outdoor air dampers and controls then have to deliver whichever is larger: the ventilation minimum, or the make-up for exhaust required to control odours or remove contaminants.
Demand control ventilation is not allowed
Section 120.1(d)3 names barber shops, as well as beauty and nail salons, among the spaces that shall not install demand control ventilation. The Compliance Manual's reasoning is that these spaces carry contaminants people do not generate, while a CO2 sensor only measures what people produce. Salon air is also Class 2, so it may not be recirculated into Class 1 spaces — relevant wherever a salon shares a system with offices.
Lighting at the chair
Barber, beauty salon and spa areas are a function area of their own in Table 140.6-C, defined as rooms where the main activity is manicures, pedicures, facials, or cutting and styling hair. The category carries additional allowances for detailed task work and for decorative or display lighting. Both are conditional: the task areas and the luminaires serving them have to be identified on the plans, and general lighting fittings cannot be counted towards them.
Where a spa differs
The lighting category covers facials, but the ventilation tables name only barbershops and salons. A treatment room that fits neither takes the air class of the most similar listed space, a judgement that belongs in the design rather than at plan check. A heated spa pool brings Section 110.4 with it, including a cover outdoors and no continuously burning pilot on a gas heater.
Where to go deeper
The per-person and area calculation behind those rates is explained under commercial ventilation. Where a salon moves into space built for another use and the occupancy classification changes, it is a change of use, and the new occupancy's requirements apply.