Please tell me about laundry chutes

[indiegrrl]

Hello,
We are planning a utility room in the cellar of the house we are buying. It is the only floor of the house where we'd have space for this. It will mean carting washing up and down stairs, but I wondered if we can at least save some hassle by having a laundry chute from the first floor to the cellar. Never had one, but drooled at them in magazines for years. How do we go about this? Is it the kind of thing a builder can do? Thank you!

I've got one from one of the bedrooms into a cupboard in the utility room.

It's bloody great! It was just done by a builder when we had extension.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I think (and I could be wrong but friends had one) that they are banned under building regulations as they can channel fire from one floor to another. Our friends had one put in and were told to hide it by the builders when the building control officer came round. They pulled a chest of drawers in front of each end. Would love one, however.

Oh wow! That's one to check, then. Presumably even if they allow it then it may add to the cost...

I want one, i want a human sized one, to save on carpet wear!

do they come in spiral?

Yes, the slide is next. I saw an architect designed house with one, but it was only capable of taking the weight of a child. Ridiculous.

I've had a quick google and it looks like they are allowed by building regs if they have fire doors at both ends.

They let the noise travel around something awful....

Thanks, nocake! Discrete, we are a pretty quiet bunch...quite like the potential for eavesdropping actually...

Ours was all checked by building control when extension done no issues, all signed off. Also not noticed any noise from it.

My MIL had one in the house they built for themselves I thought it was pretty cool.
They had what looked like a cupboard door in the hall by the bedrooms, and when you opened it, the bottom of the cupboard (about waist height) had a handle and the bottom of the cupboard pulled up on a hinge. The chute came out in the utility room down below, it was open and she put a laundry basket under it on the counter top. She said that they could have put a door on that end too, and it would be a pull down door and the laundry would fall out when she opened it. I don't remember if she ever did put a door over it. They sold up and moved again.

We had one in the house I grew up in. It went from first floor to cellar with an opening off the dining room for kitchen linens too. Hard to use as a builder had run some wires up it, co clothes were always getting caught. However, it was excellent for shouting at someone on another floor to get the phone, etc.