Loft conversion - fire doors

[SingingGoldfinch]

We are in the process of getting plans drawn up for a loft conversion on our 1930s semi. All was progressing ok but we've now been told by the architect that we due to building regs we're going to need a fire door between our lovely open plan kitchen/diner and the hall. There is currently no door there at all and no obvious way to add one without severely impacting on the kitchen and overall space of the downstairs of the house. We're happy to replace all existing doors with fire doors but adding a door/wall is going to be a bit of a show-stopper. Our plans include wired-in fire alarms too. Anyone with any experience on this? Is there anyway round it? I'm feeling gutted that we might not be able to go ahead.

We're having a loft conversion done soon and they are using a route through a bedroom. Planning portal says you need to protect stairwell from second to first floor as exiting above first floor is not safe, therefore exiting on first floor is safe.

That's interesting sleeping. Is your downstairs open plan?And what's the exit route from the first floor- is it vis a window or something more formal?

"...but kind of thought that's what we're paying an architect for."

It is.

If your Architect failed to spot this and advise you of it from the very first discussions, then my advice would be to get another Architect.

This is very, VERY basic building design.

Agree Sensus! We're really annoyed. He's claiming it's an easy mistake to make not sporting a missing door on a kitchen. I would argue not if it's such a fundamental issue for building regs. Very frustrating. For now we're seeing how he handles our request to explore options - if his response is rubbish we'll look elsewhere. We've paid him lots already though!

Just through a window. I think the rules are different for new builds and conversion. A new build must have a route from second floor to ground floor but it's not needed for conversions.

Thanks sleeping - that's really helpful. We have a first floor window which opens out onto a single storey extension so would make a perfect escape route if acceptable. Can I just check - are your stairs to the ground floor shut off by any doors and do you have a door separating kitchen from hall/stairs?

Yes, we do have doors downstairs but this doesn't seem to have been a consideration at all. None of them are fire doors and they have only told us to replace doors upstairs as firedoors

This has put us off having a loft conversion, ie not wishing to change our existing (glazed) ground floor doors. Really useful to know about using first floor windows as exits. Thanks very much for mentioning this, gives me food for thought.

So - I thought some of you might be interested in an update. A discussion with our local authority building control has confirmed that we either need fire doors throughout or a sprinkler system. Our architect suggested an advanced heat detection system alongside the smoke alarms but this wouldn't be acceptable. An exit via the first floor bedroom is ok as an additional measure but not acceptable as the only means of escape (and actually I can see why). So, we are now looking at an Automist system like Plumis and possible fire door options. I'm leaning towards Automist but think it could be rather pricey!! Any experiences of having this fitted would be really useful.

That's interesting. Maybe it's because ours is being authorised by an approved inspector rather than the local authority directly. Or as we have doors downstairs. It's definitely not an issue for the exit to be on first floor for us.

It's confusing the the regulations are interpreted in different ways - and unfair too as clearly depends how lenient your inspector is! I hate to admit it as it's making things tricky for us but be honest it makes sense to me that they're saying we need something to protect our ground floor. As things currently stand if a fire were to break out in the kitchen there would be nothing to stop it spreading down the hall and up the stairs to the first floor and it would be touch and go whether we made it out of the loft to the first floor escape in time. Having read the regulations, I'm really surprised that you're not required to put fire doors in downstairs sleeping - regardless of who's signing it off it seems to be standard.

We had a loft extension in our 1930s semi and has open plan downstairs with no kitchen door. We put fire doors upstairs to loft and installed a mains wired smoke alarm system throughout whole house.

Ah, I've just realised one of the fire doors upstairs will block the existing staircase from the new one. The new one will also have a fire door so that's 2 fire doors between downstairs and the loft so that's how we're getting round it. Sorry for the confusion!

That explains it Sleeping! Thanks for clarifying!

Lucky you Jcee. Sounds like your house must be similar to ours, also a 1930s semi. Our building control have been very clear that fire detection system is not an acceptable substitution for fire doors. The only possible alternative would be Automist but even then they've only said 'maybe'. It's infuriating how much this depends on your local building control's interpretation of the regulations - you got lucky Jcee!!!

I came on to suggest an automist system - but see you're looking into it.

Jcee your layout sounds non-compliant. I would query why it was signed-off.

We decided against converting our loft into a habitable space for this reason. There needs to be a fire safe exit from a second floor bedroom to an outside door. Instead we followed all regs apart from wall and fire doors but we can't sleep in the room. If we did and there was a fire, worst case happened, we wouldn't be insured. However, there are different interpretations of building regs in different authorities so you could phone local planning and ask them. Our architect insisted we had to have a downstairs disabled bathroom, building regs just laughed. Sometimes they see things differently. Tell them what your architect has advised and ask if they can suggest a solution.

So much misinformation on this issue.

A habitable room is a habitable room, regardless of whether you sleep in it or not.

Part M (access to and use of buildings) applies to new builds or material changes of use.

Sorry OP I didn't read all the thread and I've just repeated what others have said!

@BuzzKillington: "Part M (access to and use of buildings) applies to new builds or material changes of use."

Part M applies to material alterations which are a different thing entirely to material change of use.

Material Change of Use is a change in the purpose of a building - for example from an office to a dwelling.

Material Alteration is simply any change that might impact on matters that fall within the scope of the Building Regulations.

The application of Part M to material alterations, however, is simply that you're not allowed to make an existing situation worse. There is no requirement to improve existing situations, so if the house has no ground floor WC at present, you don't have to put one in... but if it does have one, you're not allowed to take it out.