Loft conversion - fire doors

[bringonyourwreckingball]

Anyone recently done a loft conversion and/or knowledgeable about fire doors and building regs? We've had several quotes but inconsistent information about whether we need to replace all the internal doors with fire doors, or just the ones on the existing first floor. It makes quite a difference as the doors are all 1920s and a non-standard size so replacing will be difficult and expensive. I'd be really grateful for any advice.

[SarahSea1]

Your Building Control Officer should be able to answer this - I'd take their word as final as they'll be signing it off.

[Floggingmolly]

I thought they just had to be repainted with a special fire resistant coating? (no idea of the technical term!).
We shelved the whole idea in the end; but there was no question of the whole doors being replaced.

[Eebs]

We are in the middle of having ours done and all doors to the main exit have to be done that lead to living or sleeping areas. So in our case- the new loft, the existing 2 bed rooms, the living room and the dining room. The bathroom does not need doing and our kitchen is accessed through the dining room. So it is each room that has to be passed by except bathroom. The doors and the frames have to be fire resistant. But as pp says take the final word from your building inspector. Apparently it is quite common for houses to get signed off and then the owner replaces the old doors. This way you can buy cheaper doors which aren't so nice. I think I would feel funny about doing that if I was selling the house though.

[TeddyBee]

You can sometimes get signed off with intumescent seals and special paint. I had to replace all mine thanks to the fuckwombles who had cut an inch off the bottom of each door (and nearly two off our bedroom door) but found a great stockist in south London for one over three FD30 doors. It cost about £1500 for 7 fire doors and 5 standard doors and they are bloody lovely. Well worth spending the money on.

[Imperialleather2]

Or you can have mains smoke.alarms in each room.which is what we did.

[JT05]

We gutted and restored a 3 storey house, internally it was classed as new build. All the doors, except the bathroom and en suites had to be fire doors, with self closers and intumescent strips! It was Scottish building regs, so England might be different.

[PigletJohn]

"doors are all 1920s and a non-standard size "

What size(s)?

How many panels do they have?

[OnePlanOnHouzz]

Please please please NEVER just add fire doors to get signed off then put the non fire doors back on !!!
Fire doors are there to help keep a fire out of your escape route for up to 30mins - this could mean the difference between getting all your family out or not - ITS NOT WORTH RISKING YOUR FAMILIES SAFETY!!!!

[AfternoonNapsAreTheBest]

We had to replace all of the doors which opened out on to the route down from the loft.... which meant all of the internal doors! I was a bit brassed off about it initially, but the building inspector was insistent, and I'm really glad now, as it makes the house much safer (live in England btw).

[HollyMaingate]

Another here who kept original Edwardian doors but had mains wired smoke alarms instead.

[PlanD]

We've just finished our loft conversion. We didn't want to replace original 1930's panel doors so had mains wired smoke alarms in every room too.

[Frazzled2207]

We got fireproof paint on ours except for kitchen door which got replaced at vast expenses because we wanted to keep the glass panelling in