Loft conversion - fire regulations query

martinsurrey

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat wrote: »

Mine were just wood, but I am sure there's a solution out there - public and stately homes which have such features must have got this through building control.

approved document b1 section 0.29 "Buildings of special architectural or historic interest"

basically, they do need to meet a standard of fire safety, but this doesn’t need to be to the letter of the law, they can balance out their approach on a reasonable and practical basis, a none listed house doesn’t get such treatment.

Also, as building regs only apply prospectively, and most stately homes are not changed at all, they are not covered by them (when was the last time you heard of a stately home having a new loft conversion?).

Kiran

You are able to upgrade existing doors if it is "undesirable to replace existing doors......" however I don't know how this would be possible with stain glassed windows unfortunately.

cherie63

3) I strongly suspect that this would invalidate the buildings insurance. So if any other problem arose with the house, the insurance co. could probably refuse a payout on the basis that it was in fact an uninsurable property.

2 years ago we had a fire on the ground floor and even our loft conversion was smoke damaged
The loft conversion was done over 10 years ago and so no fire doors fitted
We had electric smoke alarms fitted on ground and first floor

We had to live in b&b for 3 weeks and then 7 months in rented accomodation

We spent over a month where the insurance debated whether we could claim as we never thought about telling them about the conversion-stupid oversight and then as it was not the same as our plans
Never been so scared that we would lose everything and then be homeless but thankfully as we hired our own claims adviser everything was paid for

Dave_the_Ginger_Cat

martinsurrey wrote: »

approved document b1 section 0.29 "Buildings of special architectural or historic interest"

basically, they do need to meet a standard of fire safety, but this doesn’t need to be to the letter of the law, they can balance out their approach on a reasonable and practical basis, a none listed house doesn’t get such treatment.

Also, as building regs only apply prospectively, and most stately homes are not changed at all, they are not covered by them (when was the last time you heard of a stately home having a new loft conversion?).

Maybe not a loft conversion, but am sure they will have alterations which will necessitate fire safety considerations. I now have some odd images of homes with unusual and inappropriate building changes...

I was just (trying) to illustrate the point that buildings with interesting doors probably have been considered for fire safety.

I did find, surprisingly, that my Building Control officer was very helpful on the topic, and was willing to offer advice to help me - after all, they are the ones who'll sanction in due course