Building Regs - do they vary?

[BlackAlys]

Do they vary from place to place? We're having to make some changes to our design because the BR Officer says we cannot have open staircases in our home. We designed an open stair case from our dining room to first floor, then another staircase to our attic floor to access a large bedroom.

Now they say we can't have that as we have to have a fire door at the very bottom, so leaving us no option but to box in the whole bottom staircase with a stud wall; either that or a very costly sprinkler system.

There was an estate built in 2009 near to here with some 3 story townhouses and these have open staircases all the way up. I'm confused.

It isn't the end of the world but we're renovating a cottage and boxing in the staircase really closes down the dining room. Plus, we've spent a bit of budget exposing the old stone wall as a bit of a showpiece in that room. Bit of a waste if it's going to be boxed in!

You can look up building regulations here assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/937931/ADB_Vol1_Dwellings_2019_edition_inc_2020_amendments.pdf
Or on the planning portal but the site is down at the moment. Just ask your inspector why other recently built houses have been allowed and why a fire door in your attic bedroom isn’t sufficient.

Regulations change over time substantially

The regs will have changed since 2009.
I'm not an expert but I think for an attic conversion you have to have a fire door installed. It might be something to do with that.

Thanks everyone.
Fire doors are ordered for the attic bedrooms - we were advised at the time of planning that this would be sufficient.

Our BR Officer is a great bloke - really working with us, so I don't want to appear pushy. We've dedicated quite a lot of time to exposing the 180 year old stone wall and the joiner has already configured our open staircase so we're a bit gutted to have wasted time and money.

I'll check the portal linked above. Thanks again.

We have a loft conversion - completed about 6 years ago. The stairs go up to a very small landing, bathroom on the left, bedroom on the right. We had to put a fire door on the bedroom door in the loft but not the bathroom door.

We also had to put fire doors on ALL other bedroom and living room doors on the route from the loft bedroom to the front door.

Building regs do change all of the time so it's important to have an architect/builder who is up to speed with things like minimum depth of insulation or whatever.

I think it is the current regulation unfortunately and the idea is to have an enclosed safe escape route from the loft all the way down to an exit on the ground floor. Hence all doors of habitable rooms opening to this route have to be fire doors.