Paranoid about our house layout in case of fire

[Canadiangeese]

My DS’s bedroom is in the attic, he is 7.
We live in a Victorian mid terrace from 1901.
It’s tall and narrow like most around here.

The only way we’d get to him if there was a fire is via the stairs (the room has stairs access) but even then there is no way to escape the room. It has a sky light - I have attached a photo to this post to you can see what I mean.
There's no way we’d get out of there. It does open quite wide but my DS would be unable to reach it and I’m plus size in build, so wouldn’t be able to get out. My DP would be the only one likely to.

The other floors would be easier to get out of (the bathroom window opens right out and we could jump) but my main concern is my DS. He does have a fish tank in his room that’s running at all times (it’s freshwater and contains his pet fish) I’m thinking of moving that downstairs now. I turn all other plugs off and we have a smoke alarm on every level of the house.

The second photo is the stairs we access to the attic rooms.

Beyond adequate natural light and ventilation, there’s no strict legal definition on what counts as a bedroom, so take any advice you receive on a forum with a pinch of salt. There is also an awful lot of misinformation (even with experienced surveyors) such as toilets needing two doors between them and a kitchen – it just isn’t true, but historic misunderstanding. This can lead to a lot of incorrect classifying and unnecessary building work. Most people selling, buying and surveying homes are far from absolute experts.

Many local authorities expect glazing to be at least 10% of floor area – but this is guidance rather than legal requirement.

Building regulations for fire safety for bedrooms are:

• The window must be big enough to climb through
• They must have a clear opening of at least 450mm
• The bottom of the opening should be no more than 1100mm above floor level

But if your attic conversion predates these regulations, then it’s not enforceable to change them, but they still have to be judged by modern standards for selling and renting – eg, marketed as a ‘loft room’ instead.

From what you have said, it’s worth investigating:

• get your facts straight first - a building control officer to inspect the rooms. I wouldn’t have also said a surveyor, but it seems as if your previous surveyor let you down (did you get an independent survey?)
• Find out when the conversion took place and if there was any building regulations certification passed on - your conveyancer should have done this when the sale was going through. under Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) estate agents should not knowingly mislead a sale, even if agent says ‘buyers must check …’. Crucially, the agent does not need to intend to mislead and the* *test is whether the average consumer would be misled.
• Gather evidence that the property was marketed as a 3 bed – not Zoopla now, as anyone can change that info online. The marketing from the estate agent at the time of selling. Your survey report should have also listed the number of bedrooms. Did the surveyor flag anything in their report?
• if you then want to take it further, you need to quantity the financial loss – selling price of a 1 bed with two loft rooms, as opposed to a true 3 bed. Also the cost of making the rooms compliant to modern standards. Once you know what would need to be done, get a quote from a builder, plus cost of building regs sign off.
• The agent, seller and surveyor may have shared liability for this.

Your next route for redress is to complain to the estate agent (formally). Written complaint citing CPRs 2008. Ask for: compensation or contribution toward remedial works.

Agents take this seriously because option b is to escalate to the redress scheme. Most agents belong to the Property Ombudsman or the Property Redress Scheme. These bodies can Award compensation, make findings of maladministration and put pressure on agents hard.

This is often the best cost-effective route as to make a legal claim could be lengthy and expensive.

Best of luck.

If the rooms were converted legally at the time then they can be marketed as bedrooms and habitable rooms
Rooms do not lose their status with building regs changes or most houses wouldnt pass as houses

Or a surveyor with a specialism in fires if the fire service aren't helpful. Have a friend who was a fire surveyor with a specialism in older buildings and conversions.
Just seen previous post. Please ignore.

You buy an internal ladder, and a rope ladder, the ones created for this purpose. If you're unable to get out of that window yourself, then are there older siblings who could be designated to help your son in case of his father's absence?

Estate agents have to comply to modern standards when advertising. However the work having been done before modern standards indemnifies the new owner from having to make changes.

If a conversion has approval and certification then it’s approved.
If a three storey town house was built 100 years ago the top floor can still be marketed as habitable space because it was lawful at the time

We’d lose most of our housing stock in this country if everything lost certification at every building regs upgrade. Properties are not required to constantly upgrade

Hence me prefacing the reply with the advice that OP gets her facts straight first – investigate when it was done and whether building certification was sought.

A bedroom that was properly signed off by Building Control at the time does not lose its lawful status just because regulations later change — but that still doesn’t give an unlimited right to market it as a bedroom today. Both things can be true at once.

Estate agents are regulated by consumer protection law, not building regs. The legal test is ‘Would describing this as a bedroom be likely to mislead the average buyer today?’

If modern buyers, surveyors, or lenders would reasonably expect A different fire escape standard, a different layout, a different safety profile then simply saying it was signed off years ago does not automatically defeat a misrepresentation complaint.

If all the correct documentation does exist to say it did once meet building regs, then marketing it as a 3-bed is much easier for the estate agent to defend and complaints are much less likely to succeed. Hence OP needing that information first.

Once again, I didn’t say houses required constant upgrading to be legally habitable, but they do need upgrading and documentation to be marketed to a consumer.

For clarity, you can read here:
www.propertymark.co.uk/resource/attic-descriptions.html

How old is your son? I had a rope ladder and regular climbing out the window practice from age five. My parents were quite nuts, but it was physically manageable.

Your comment ‘they must be judged by modern standards’ is incorrect though in terms of marketing bedrooms in a roof that complied at some historic period.

(Of course anyone can ‘judge’ as they see fit when they view a house )

They do not have to be marketed as store rooms though by estate agents if they complied at the time.

Thinks I, you and others have already mentioned checking building regs etc in OPs particularly case though.

This might be a long shot but would you know anyone in the fire brigade or maybe a friend of a friend? They may know someone who would come out informally to have a look. I have a couple of very good friends who were in the fire service and I know a few more people still in it. IME people in the fire service are very passionate about these things and want to help.

Sorry, but estate agents cannot market a bedroom as a bedroom if it’s known that it does not meet modern standards as a bedroom. It should be marketing by another name by consumer protection act. We’ll have to agree to disagree on that. Please provide evidence to the contrary if you have it, as I’d be interested to see it.

Everything NOT up to modern standards should be uncovered and disclosed by your surveyor and conveyancer before purchase – outdated conversions, fire doors, inadequately supported chimney breasts, inadequate loft separations in terraces/semis, the list goes on.

Estate agents cannot list elements as fire safe if they are not, and marketing a room as a ‘bedroom’ implies it meets standards as a bedroom. Hence them requiring to list it as ‘converted attic room’, ‘converted loft room’ etc etc.

Conveyancers should unearth all of this, disclose, and then buyer should receive indemnifying or accept it as is.

Sounds like OP has not received any of this information, so something is amiss.

Try phoning the fire service OP, not on 999 obviously; but on their website they will have an admin number, and your local station may even have a direct line. I am sure they will be keen to do a check, make sure you highlight it is a childs bedroom.

my old house used to really scare me are all the windows although big only had a small window that opened - nobody would be able to get through - barely a cat! and as double glazed would be really hard to break.

Thankfully our new house has windows that can be fully opend. One in our room overlooks the wooden bin store so we would be able to jump down to that, DS1 has the flat porch roof under his window and DS2 and the bathroom have the conservatory - so would have to put mattress out and be very careful). DD doesnt have anything under her window but there is grass so she would have to chance jumping and a broken leg if she couldnt get into one of the other bedrooms.

We have a smoke alarm on every floor.
I’ll have to do some research and contact the estate agent if it was falsely advertised as a 3 bedroom house.
Most of the terraces along here have the same set up.

The skylight window opens fully and you could climb out but it would be tricky considering it’s high (especially for a child) and you’d end up on the roof.

3rd fl opening window is more for the fire brigade to come and save you
First fl is considered safe enough to jump if it’s an emergency

What you have shown in the photo is a Velux window set into the slope of a roof. We have these and they are not what I would class as skylights. Skylights are set into the ceiling of a standard cube room and you can't look out of them unless you are the BFG.

Building regulations have changed over time. We had a loft conversion about 8 years ago and since then rules have changed again - little things like gap between the bannister of the stairs going into the loft would have to leave more of a gap to the wall now than when we did it. But that does not mean our loft does not comply - we have all the paperwork to say that it did at the time. We have fire doors and hard wired alarms but there is no way I am climbing out of the Velux windows onto a steep roof, 10 metres or more in the air

If you are really concerned about this OP - and the fire brigade have said you are low risk - then you sleep up there and your child sleeps on another floor. Plus all the usual safety advice about not smoking, no chip pans, no dodgy chargers from China, not leaving things charging overnight etc etc.

Oh and on the Velux/skylight thing - the building control officer was more interested in whether we could open the window, lean out and scream for help than whether climbing out would be possible.

Don't think you meant to tag me 😁

The obvious option is for your 7 year old to use a different room if that's feasible.

Have interlinked alarms - for smoke and for heat in the kitchen, and whilst youre about it, co2 at boiler/ gas appliances.
Make your easiest escape route as protected from fire & smoke and as easy to navigate as possible (fire doors kept shut, battery lighting etc).
Have a plan. Discuss with DC.

Know that smoke alarms probably won't waken DC into action.

Can you make the velux easier to climb out of? Add a fireproof door to give more time, install a good escape ladder, have something sturdy and safe under the window to make clambering out easier?

You can ask your local Fire Service to come around to check. The service is free and bookable on line. Just done one having moved into a new apartment and they are coming on the 2nd January. Have had one done in my previous apartment and they are absolutely top notch.

Our Victorian terrace has a large attic room with a full staircase leading up to it but the room couldn’t be considered a bedroom because of the fire regs. We use it as an office. I wouldn’t be happy with my young children being up there to be honest, adult children maybe who could climb to adjoining roofs but not young children.

What you need to do is have total coverage with connected smoke detectors. That will be your best protection. They'll give you early warning of a fire, so that you have time to evacuate everyone safely.

You can get smoke detectors that are hard wired (probably the best and most robust option) or you can get battery operated detectors that connect to each other with Bluetooth or WiFi.

I recommend that you have one in every bedroom and one in every area downstairs where a fire might start - so in the kitchen, in the utility room, in the living room, in the dining room - and one in the area where your fuse box is. You'll probably need at least 6 detectors.

It's important that the detectors are connected to each other, so if a fire starts on the ground floor, the detectors in the rest of the house will sound an alarm - and if your son is asleep in his room on the second floor and you're asleep on the floor below his, the alarms in the bedrooms will wake all of you up at the first sign of smoke.

I recommend Nest Protect. I have six of them in my own home. I have the battery powered type. They use 6 x AA lithium batteries each. Batteries last for a couple of years at least before they need changing. The units themselves have a use-by of 10 years, after which time it's best to replace them.

It's made me worry too,so so awful. will do fire alarm practice at home this weekend in a non scary way and I at show the kids his to get out of their windows and make sure they know too to now switch off stuff as we didnt do that before.ive also thought about fire retardant paint for the stairs and doors-no ones me turned that here I don't think - anyone else used that??

I don’t know what we can do as the only other way we can manage this is that he has the room we are currently in and we have the attic bedroom, there are no other rooms suitable for bedrooms in the house.

Is that the most sensible solution? I feel worried I’m putting him in danger. But the set up of the house is a real nightmare in this scenario (which I hope never happens!)

I will look into the full coverage smoke alarms.

I am so anxious it’s making me struggle to sleep the past few days. Keep thinking the worst and catastrophising! Paranoid but turning everything off each night at the mains.