Loft Conversions - Fire Doors & Building Regs

topcatz1

Hi,

I am buying a house that had a loft conversion in 2010 and has all the relevant building regs approved.

The owner since the work has replaced all of the fire doors in the house with standard doors as more appealing from a decorative perspective. She is now asking me if we want the fire doors re-instated or to leave the doors as they are. It is part of the building regs that all internal doors needs to be fire doors (apart from bathroom) for all conversions done since 2010.

If I leave the doors as they are (non-fire) am I likely to have problems in the future (e.g selling the house without fire doors)?
This wasn't flagged in my survey but the council have confirmed it is part of building regs.

Thanks in advance

PasturesNew

Fire doors are there to prevent you dying in a fire.... you might not be around to sell the house in the future if you don't have them in place.

Johnandabby

It will be the same issue when you come to sell as it is now, albeit your survey should have picked up on it. You just replace standard doors with fire doors when you come to sell.

Personally I would have the door to the loft conversion as a fire door, and leave the rest as standard. If you don't want them installed now but want to protect yourself for later, you could also get the vendor to buy the fire doors and leave them at the propery for you (if you have somewhere to install them), or to reduce the house price by the cost of buying and installing the doors later.

Johnandabby

PasturesNew wrote: »

Fire doors are there to prevent you dying in a fire.... you might not be around to sell the house in the future if you don't have them in place.

A 2-storey house doesn't need them and is fine, but 2-storey with loft conversion is a death trap without them?? I can understand providing protection for the loft conversion, but why change every door? Reality is that most people end up propping them open anyway because they are a pain in the a***

You need appropriate smoke detection on all floors, and escape windows at first floor level

topcatz1

Thanks for your help - yes we were planning on having the loft with a fire door. The vendor already has the fire doors and standard ones. She has just stored the fire doors.

Sinhanada

Yes you do need to have fire doors if you have a loft conversion. Apart from being in contravention of building regs I would strongly suggest that if you had a fire and the doors were not on then it would invalidate your insurance.

The appropriate smoke detection should be an interlinked smoke alarm system which is wired into the mains.

topcatz1

I was surprised that every door in the house needs them. I can understand the loft but everything else seems a bit much. All changed in 2010!

topcatz1

The home insurance point is a good one and something i thought of. A building regs inspection was carried out a month ago so I assume that would have captured the smoke alarm requirement (I know there are smoke alarms there)?

phoebe1989seb

Personally I would do the same as the current owner/vendor and store the fire doors time you intend to sell at which point you offer them to the prospective purchaser.

Whilst our house - a 200+ year old stone affair over three storeys with two bedrooms on the top floor - was built long before building regs stipulated fire doors for loft conversions, being a thatch we do worry about fires.

However, whilst not prepared to compromise on the character of the building by replacing original doors with ugly fire doors, we have tried to take as many other precautions as possible......we have fitted hard wired smoke alarms on every floor, have extinguishers dotted throughout the house and have easy opening windows with escape route planned

If not intending to replace the doors, I would at the least have hard wired smoke alarms fitted if this has not already been carried out.....

ognum

Once you have the Building Regs certificate you can actually do what you want!

A house I have has a loft conversion and before it was done we had beautiful stripped pine doors and were unhappy to change the fire doors were put up for the building regs inspection and we were going to change them back but didn't because we decided it was more important to keep them. we now have a garage full of Victorian stripped pine doors!!!!

sonastin

There is very little point putting a fire door on the loft and leaving all the others as standard doors. All that is going to do is serve to keep you trapped in the loft for longer.

The purpose of the fire doors is to create a protected escape route to allow you out of the loft. The logic is that you can escape from inside rooms on the ground or first floors without coming to excessive harm but if you try to jump from the window of your loft you're likely to be in trouble. So you need to come down from the loft and leave through a door or window lower down in the building. Most practicable way to achieve this, without knowing where the fire is going to start, is to change every door to a fire door. This is supposed to keep the fire trapped in the room it started in for long enough for you to get out.

OK - you're in trouble if the fire starts on the first floor landing but the only way to guard against that would be an external fire escape and (sensibly in my opinion) the authors of the building regs think that is excessive in relation to the risk presented by most landings / hallways. Common sense is usually enough to ensure that most fire hazards aren't stored in the hall.

Incidentally, a loft conversion in a house that was previously a bungalow does not require the fire door option provided the windows meet the requirements for emergency escape.