Fire doors in rest of the house once loft extension is done?

[samosamo]

Please help me.

Do I need fire doors on every door that comes off the stairs not only into the loft but the existing ground and first floor now?

My lovely existing doors all match, but are not fire, and I cannot find the style in fire door, I'm sad that it seems I have to lose them.

Does anyone know for sure?

Is this an HMO property?

I was told each habitable room so did bedrooms and lounge.
Still miss my 100 + year old door I practically gave away. Should have kept it to put back.
Some people put a temporary board over to get approval. Depends on inspector

Yes you do to pass building regs. We had to replace all ours . it is to allow the fire to be contained in whatever room until everybody on every level has time to escape so makes sense . We don't have spring closing ones just normal fire doors .

If there was a fire you wouldn’t care if the doors matched.

Building regs offer a few alternatives, like installing sprinklers or separating the staircase to the loft from the main staircase to the ground floor using fire resisting construction as long as there can be access to a fire escape window.

Generally though it is easier to just upgrade your doors. See it as part of the cost of the whole build. It is necessary and important.

Honestly, someone should start a business renting ugly doors for people to put on for the inspection. My attic was converted before the rules changed. All my doors are original. It's a bonkers rule.

Not HMO, standard single family dwelling.

Yes, ok, I will put them on the bedrooms, but not the downstairs then. Still sad, but not AS much.

I think different doors for first floor and loft (bedrooms) to downstairs (lounge / kitchen diner) won't look too bad.

Thank you!

You need them to the kitchen and living room too

Oh.

We were told that instead of for doors were could have linked wired in smoke alarm system, so we now have one in every room, if one goes then about 2 seconds later they all go. This was a while back though but might be an option.

This was the rule back in 2018 too when we did ours. Bloody nightmare when kids burn toast! But better than replacing every single door…

This is what has put me off getting a loft room done, changing original doors or other features, we had someone round a few years ago who went through things and i didnt like the thought of all the changes.

We dont have any fire escape windows on the first floor anyway, or at least none I would be able to fit through.

It’s still the rule, we had a loft conversion dome in 2020. We have kept our original doors downstairs but did change the bedroom doors due to the restructuring.

We did think we might have to put a kitchen door on but in the end we just had linked heat/smoke detectors.

We went for a wired in alarm in each room. In some cases to install a fire door you need to replace the whole frame as the thickness is different. Sounded like a bit of a nightmare!

Agree with the previous poster: we didnt need to fit fire doors everywhere just in the loft itself and ground floor with mains linked smoke alarms throughout.

Sorry, just to be clear it's only the ground floor doors opening onto the hallway

We had smoke detectors in almost every room and hallway instead of replacing the doors. Just a fire door on the new lift room

I'm replacing my door from kitchen to hall. It's a fire door now and I'm putting a glass and steel door (think crittal), which will not be fire rated. Fire doors only work if you keep the door closed and 80% of the time it's open. In fact I'm sure I read that a random inspection of X amount of residential homes and most 'fire doors' did not meet regulations for one reason or another.
I'll keep the door for when I sell.

We’ve just had to replace all of our doors on the ground floor and first floor

We’d put in a wired smoke alarm but the building inspector wouldn’t accept this. Fire doors are a lot thicker than our beautiful original doors so the builder has also had to make the door frames bigger - meaning re-painting them all and repairing damage to the floor
There was the option to paint the originals with fire retardant paint (at a cost of £1,000) but the panels on the original doors weren’t thick enough so would have needed building out
obviously we’ll be incredibly grateful should the worst happen but, it did seem excessive given the smoke alarms and fully opening first floor windows onto a flat roof extension..

Yep. Either replace EVERY door which leads to the hallway / landing or you need a wired smoke alarm in every room to meet building regs. We went with the fire door option as it was less disruptive (and ugly) and cheaper than the alarm route.

To be honest, having been in a (minor) house fire then the fire doors are very reassuring. They will contain the fire for half an hour giving you time to get out. One of those things - highly unlikely it will happen, but when it does then you’ll be thankful.

We had wired smoke detectors. We also had to rebuild a wall as they had knocked down the living room one and made it open to the hall.

We did ours in 2013 & had to have a wired smoke alarm in every room (apart from the bathroom) & replace every door that opened onto the hallway or staircase replaced - this was all of them.

I nearly cried when I had to get rid of my original 1930s doors!!

From reading others replies maybe it's less strict now and only main wired alarms needed now.

My tip to you - remove the one in the kitchen as soon as the inspection is over as it goes off a lot - opening a steamy oven, using lots of pots on the hobs, burning toast etc. It's a nightmare!

When we had ours done, admittedly in 2006, the loft company fitted mains connected smoke alarms on each floor, a fire door into the loft room and door closers on all the other doors. As soon they left and building regs approval came through the ugly door closers came off. The loft door is still a fire door and all the velux windows are escape windows.

We're currently part way through a loft conversion in a victorian house with origitnal doors.
We'll have a fire door to the loft and already have wired fire alarms on all floors plus in the kitchen.
Our building inspector said we could paint the doors with fire resistant paint instead of replacing the doors and extend the wired alarm system so alarms in each bedroom and living room.
This seems safer to us. Fire doors only work if they are kept closed! So many people prop them open, and (apart from at night time when i shut all doors) i like doors open in rooms during the day to allow air flow and not feel shut in.

Are all of you who have removed the “ugly fire doors closers” etc not concerned that your building insurance will be invalid in the event of a fire?

Just had our loft signed off by building regs.

Instead of replacing 15 beautiful period doors, we had to install wired smoke alarms in most rooms.
Definitely change the kitchen one to a special one that won't go off when you cook sausages though.