What are all the regs when having a loft conversion?

[WonderingAspie]

As I understand it, for a loft conversion to comply, there are a lot of regulations. Does anyone know what they are? I read something about fire doors, is that all over the house?

We are going through process at the moment. our house has previously had the wall between living room and hall removed. We have to replace it or install sprinkler system. Whole house also has to have mains wired smoke alarms.

Google it. You're going to have to get the real details anyway not rely on mumsnetters who may be fallible.

The staircase must have 2m clearance above it at every point.

There must be a firedoor which must not open directly onto a stair - there must be a landing to step onto before the stairs.

Those are the two I remember but I know there's more.

It may have changed since I had mine done in a house I used to own, but we needed fire doors to be fitted in certain places and a 'protected stairwell' so that you could get down the second staircase and directly out of the building. We originally had an open staircase and this needed to be blocked in with a corridor. It ruined the living room in my opinion so if you have an open staircase or a staircase in the middle of the house it is worth finding out how this will need to be altered before going ahead.

You can now opt for a mains-wired linked smoke alarm system instead of replacing your doors.

Thanks. Do you mean a fire door to the loft room couldn't open from the room directly to the stairs? What about if the door was at the bottom of the loft stairs on the main landing (which is not directly at the top of the main stairs)?

We have a side extension which has an open archway at the bottom of the main stairs which technically means the stairs are in the middle of the house. There are no doors downstairs, only oddly shaped archways. Wall between front room and dining room has been removed. We do have a hallway, which is where the stairs are.

I assume a mains linked smoke alarm isn't that difficult to get installed? It's just the standard battery type at the moment.

If I remember correctly, the loft conversion had a set of stairs from the original landing that came to a little landing area and then had a fire door into each room (there were two bedrooms.)
The original staircase in the house when it was just two storeys was an open tread one that went directly into the lounge in the middle of the house. It was a terraced house and the lounge was in the centre, with another lounge between there and the door, and a kitchen in the opposite direction. There were no hallways. The entire original staircase had to be boarded in and then there was a fire door at the bottom and they made me have a corridor built from there to the kitchen, effectively ruining my lounge space. I didn't even know about this at the start so get answers from your builder early on.

The conventional route to compliance is to have a fire door on every habitable room leading onto the stairs to create a 30 minute protected route to a final exit. You can have the fire door to the loft at the top or bottom of the stairs. If your stairs end up in a room, that won't comply.

There are several ways around this. Hard wired inter-linked smoke detection in every room with a ground floor sprinkler or automist system is one way.

Unconventional layouts can benefit from getting a fire engineer's solution. They will come up with a design to achieve compliance that suits your property.

Depends on how many floors up it is. It's different for a house than a bungalow.

I've always found our local building control very helpful.

Good luck. You can't have too much insulation in a loft conversion!

Getting your head around building regulations is a nightmare. Much better to get building control or a fire engineer to walk you through the process. There's a few examples of Open plan loft conversions here. If you are technically minded check out www.planningportal.co.uk, but as said above, best to leave it to a professional and get multiple opinions.

it depends on your local authority . Look at their website, under planning and building control . Are you in a conservation area etc. Your builder should know anyway. My BF is a builder and he's a wealth of info. If there's something specific I can ask?