Door at top of loft stairs - building regulations?

zoothornrollo_2

martinsurrey wrote: »

you are reading a bit too favorably.

EVERY flight of stairs needs a landing, per 1.16, and that landing must conform to diagram 6

Diagram 6 tells you that the landing must be ATLEAST 1 step width deep.

diagram 7 tells you that if a door opens onto the landing (from diagram 6), that the door must open no closer than 400mm from the top of the steps.

you cannot get away from having a landing.

Thanks, I knew a landing was necessary, but not that there had to be a prescribed landing space on both sides of the door. In many pre-regs houses you see what is the equivalent of a top step or slightly more as a stairside landng, with the door opening into the room, but that wouldn't pass now it seems.

martinsurrey

zoothornrollo wrote: »

Yet somehow houses up and down the land managed with them for centuries...

and we managed without sanitation for thousands of years, true a lot of people died, but...

Hermione_Granger

zoothornrollo wrote: »

Yet somehow houses up and down the land managed with them for centuries...

In the past, homes up and down the land also managed with water pipes made from lead and insulation made from asbestos.
Just because something was done years ago doesn't imply that it's safe.

zoothornrollo_2

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

In the past, homes up and down the land also managed with water pipes made from lead and insulation made from asbestos.
Just because something was done years ago doesn't imply that it's safe.

And just because something is dictated by building regulations doesn't mean it is in practice necessary for and essential to safety.

societys_child

Hermione_Granger wrote: »

In the past, homes up and down the land also managed with water pipes made from lead and insulation made from asbestos.
Just because something was done years ago doesn't imply that it's safe.

Indeed, and thousands of homes and buildings throughout the land still have drinking water supplied through lead piping.

glasgowdan

Please don't stick up for every dot and cross of buildings regs just for the sake of disagreeing with someone on here. Another week and you'll be putting up posts about the absurdity of BR.

zoothornrollo_2

glasgowdan wrote: »

Please don't stick up for every dot and cross of buildings regs just for the sake of disagreeing with someone on here. Another week and you'll be putting up posts about the absurdity of BR.

Well said.

Stanley821

As long as you have a landing and the door opens into a room and not onto the landing, I can’t see what the problem is. Did you find a resolution to this? I’m in a similar predicament.

azf41263

My architect suggested the same thing, that an inward opening door adjacent to the top step of a staircase is in breach of building regs because it is less than 400mm from the top step. However, he was WRONG. This is a MISinterpretation of Part K of the Building Regulations. As the original poster quite rightly suggested, Part K 1.18 refers to 400mm clearance for doors opening OUTWARDS across a landing, NOT doors opening inwards away from a landing. As one of the respondents pointed out, Part K 1.16 stipulates a staircase must have a landing as long as the staircase is wide. However, it DOES NOT say there can’t be a door opening off that landing. (As a point of academic interest, Part K DOES NOT stipulate a minimum stair width, so you could have a staircase as narrow and a landing as short as your heart desires, although that wouldn’t be very practical 😉). Local Authority Building Control confirmed my architect was wrong and approved my plans with an INWARD opening door off the landing adjacent to the top stair and less than 400mm from the top stair.

DevilDamo

Talk about reviving an old thread!!!

That regulation is clearly stated and shown in AD K, so I’m a little concerned as to how your architect interpreted that any differently.