Builing regs and loft conversions - can we avoid them?

[pavlovthecat]

We just want to put some stairs up and make the floor safe, which I beleive would involve a couple of additional beams, then board over, then couple velux windows, lighting and power.

Do we need building regs for this? We don't want a fully converted loft that can be marketed as a bedroom or anything so fancy, just a space that we can chill out in of an evening.

How might we be able to get around it? Would the council 'know'?

Tamon - we have an architect friend who is going to draw up a basic plan for us, and we are thinking of doing it bit by bit, some of it ourselves. We just want a builder to put in stairs and floor really but all this building regs business is a pain.

We are thinking we can maybe do 'temporary' stairs and re-enforced floor as I don't think we need steel strutts for the floor.

If you have the 2 metres needed I would really have it done properly as a habitable room. Our room is mainly used just as storage as we used to end up and down the loft ladder every day and it drove us nuts!!! Our house is tiny with no storage space as it's open plan and we have no hope of moving in the next 15 years!

elsie - so for building regs - we need fire doors throughout the whole house? Mains fire alarms? Doors at the top of the stairs? What is the 'minimum' we can do to pass building control?

yes we have 2 meters clear headroom, its huge up there!

That was our other problem - open plan staircase so would lose 1/3 of our lounge to enclose it!!!

What ever you get done in each stage ensure it passes building regs. The firedoors you can do last, mains fire alarms you get done with the electrics and is a fab thing to hve anyway.

Problem with fire doors, as we live in a converted flat, we will have to all the ones for the flat downstairs, as well s the fire alarms - think that will be costly?

You only need 2 metres on the stairs - the actual room itself has no minimum.

You have to have a protected route to the outside from the second floor. So you have to replace or upgrade the doors to fire doors.
Doors at top of stairs not needed. Fire alarms have to be mains wired and interlinked.

Any alterations to the structure would require a engineer design and calculations.

You can expect to pay about £500 for building regs on a loft.

So, we can do it one step at a time? ie, just the stairs, no doors, with the view to get the doors done once the floor has been finished? And that would meet building regs? I just have this vision of starting it, and then finding building regs wont pass it until it is all done, and that is going to cost us a fortune in one go.

You get the building regs done at the end when it is finished. However if a mistake is made or the building regs change then you may never get it IYSWIM?

oh Elsie - 'You have to have a protected route to the outside from the second floor. So you have to replace or upgrade the doors to fire doors' - if there is a fire escape on the first floor, which is our way out, would we only need fire doors on the first floor?

How about door at the bottom of the loft stairs?

Mains alarms - that won't cost that much, as cargirl said, we will be getting electrics put in anyway, can be done at the same time.

and what happens if building regs is not approved? do we have to undo it all?

No idea tbh, guess you'd be back to calling it a storage room!

It is sounding less daunting that it has been! I thought we had to have a fully enclosed staircase for building regs and that is really expensive, so we have been told in our enquiries! If we don't need a door at the top, we can have it open plan up there, that is much more simple.

and yes we have 2 meters stairs too, we have really high ceilings, so high I am wondering how on earth I am ever going to paint the drop on the stairs!

Perhaps they were talking about your existing stairs being enclosed?

I would get several companies around to give you proper quotes etc, see what ideas they come up with etc then pinch the best ideas!

Thanks Cargirl - we did get a few quote about 3 years ago, but at that time we knew nothing about anything, and were getting quote for the entire loft conversion from start to finsh (including architect etc) and were given up to £20k for a basic room -but we are not fussed about an exact 4 week rotation, or fancy spacecraft insulation, and we are almost certain now we don't need the steel beam re-enforcement (which was about £5k on its own).

Well once you start work you can take as long as you like to complete it - you just have to start within 3 years of making your application (and that could be just telling the authority that you are starting, nothing more so long as they record it!).

You can do it retrospectively, but I wouldn't recommend it. We would make you uncover the structural elements which could be a mare.

If you can show that you can satisfy the means of escape requirements on the first floor, that should be OK with regard to ground floor doors not being upgraded. If you are keeping door at bottom of loft stairs, it would have to be a fire door to stop the spread of fire from 1st to 2nd floor.

I agree we will get some more quotes, we are going to range from the fanciest companies, to the basic builder and see what is offered, for what prices, and then how much we can do ourselves and we must pay for.

DH has just bought the Haines Manual for Loft Conversions (today) to give us a hand, but its a big book!

I have to say £20k does sound about right though, although I think in this area you pay a premium being the SE. My friends loft conversion was absolutely huge, lots of velux windows, a bathroom etc etc and was around that price.

Oh well that is good news about the fire doors. So, we don't have to have a door at the bottom of the loft stairs?

So, to start the application for building control - do we just submit architect drawings of what we are planning?

See, we don't want a bathroom, or lots of velux windows, we want 2 windows. Just to get some light in. Its not going to be a main room or anything so tons and tons of light is not essential. And if it ever becomes essential, we will add some more!

I have no idea about your questions, look at your council website.

No, you don't have to have a door - I can't remember ever seeing one, in fact.

You have to submit either a 'full plans' or a 'building notice' depending on if you want your drawings approved. They both cost the same but will a building notice you pay the whole amount up front, with full plans you pay 1/3 when you submit the form and 2/3 when works start.

Different authorities ask for different things. We would ask for drawings (you don't have to use an architect, just soemone that can 'do' drawings) and usually structural calculations, and if beams are being put in, an engineer's design.

If you do it on a building notice, you can usually get away with the bare minimum but you don't have the peace of mind of knowing that structural complications will have been resolved at the plan checking stage as with full plans.

I would check out the website of your local authority building control - they usually have good advice on there about the 2 types of applications.

Elsie - thank you for your great replies! So, we submit drawings, then, they get approved, we do the work over a period of time (slowly knowing us!), and then when we have completed, we get it signed off? We need fire doors in the flat, but not doors on top or bottom of loft stairs, we need interlinked mains powered fire alarms, we need 2 meters headroom for the stairs, the loft floor needs to be structurally sound for load-bearing weight, it needs insulation (what needs to be insulated - floor? roof?). And that would get us building regs approval, in theory? Right? Anything else we have missed?

It will help when the builders come around and tell us we need xyz and it will cost more than we might need.

You can do it without as long as you don't market it as a room when you sell.