Can someone help me with a couple questions regarding my loft extension quote?

JadeHighland

Hi all

I'm planning on doing a loft extension but the 3 quotes I've had so far, they've all said quite different things regarding what is required and what is not. The two main queries I have are in regards to fire doors and where the new stairs can go. For context, I live in a mid-terraced 2 bedroom house. The first picture is our current floor plan and the 2nd is a plan one tradesman sent (with another providing an almost identical plan). 

First question - Fire Doors

All 3 quotes have said something different. First one (who provided the pictures above) said we would need a fire door on the kitchen door and one in the lounge. 2nd quote said we just need one on the kitchen door and the 3rd quote said we need them on both doors downstairs and the bedroom doors upstairs, though he added "we might get away with the current doors" as they are solid.... (though they are definitely not fire doors).

Second Question - How much of the second bedroom needs to go.

On the second picture, the first two quotes suggested the same thing (though I appreciate it would be hard to tell without measuring things). They will cut a metre or so into the bedroom and remove the internal wardrobe to place the stairs. The 3rd quote has only suggested cutting right across and essentially turning that entire area into a hallway for the stairs (as shown in the last picture with the blue line). Asked him if it was possible to do the same as the other quotes and he said no.

Appreciate you may need more information, but would be good to get other people's thoughts on the above.

Doozergirl

What are these people quoting from?  Have you given them a specification?  There are no architects plans to speak of? Structural engineer's calculations? 

If you have given them nothing to go on the I am not surprised that the quotes are wildly differing.  

And where did you find these builders?  Are any of them registered with the Federation of Master Builders?  www.fmb.org.uk/fab

What conversations have you had about Building Control's involvement in this project? 

In order to meet the building regulations you need to have a fire protected stairwell from loft to front door.  You do that with 30 minute fire doors. 

You will need at the very least, a fire door on all three bedrooms (presuming the loft is a bedroom?!) and the lounge in order to satisfy Building Control.  The bathroom is an exempt room and your kitchen door doesn't form part of the protected escape route - the lounge door does that job.  However, given that the kitchen is often where most fires start, it would be prudent.  

You will also need a hard wired smoke alarm system through the house.  

https://labcfrontdoor.co.uk/projects/loft-conversions/what-are-the-fire-regulations-for-a-loft-conversion#:~:text=The%20escape%20route%20from%20your,rescued%20by%20the%20emergency%20services.

I'm only talking about fire protection here as well, there are many other things you need to satisfy building control.  

As far as I'm concerned, all of the people you have had out are wrong.  The third was the closest, but I had no idea where he was going with 'getting away' with the existing doors unless they knew they were fire doors.   

You need to start with due diligence and at least a trustworthy builder. Two need sacking off *immediately* and the third has a massive question mark. 

JadeHighland

Doozergirl said:

What are these people quoting from?  Have you given them a specification?  There are no architects plans to speak of? Structural engineer's calculations? 

If you have given them nothing to go on the I am not surprised that the quotes are wildly differing.  

And where did you find these builders?  Are any of them registered with the Federation of Master Builders?  www.fmb.org.uk/fab

What conversations have you had about Building Control's involvement in this project? 

In order to meet the building regulations you need to have a fire protected stairwell from loft to front door.  You do that with 30 minute fire doors. 

You will need at the very least, a fire door on all three bedrooms (presuming the loft is a bedroom?!) and the lounge in order to satisfy Building Control.  You will also need a hard wired smoke alarm system through the house.  

https://labcfrontdoor.co.uk/projects/loft-conversions/what-are-the-fire-regulations-for-a-loft-conversion#:~:text=The%20escape%20route%20from%20your,rescued%20by%20the%20emergency%20services.

I'm only talking about fire protection here as well, there are many other things you need to satisfy building control.  

As far as I'm concerned, all of the people you have had out are wrong.  The third was the closest, but I had no idea where he was going with 'getting away' with the existing doors unless they knew they were fire doors.   

You need to start with due diligence and at least a trustworthy builder. 

Heya, thanks again for the response. 2 of the 3 are on FMB and they were found from our neighbours doing their house, another neighbour working for one of the companies and the last one a Google search. I haven't given them any specification, plans etc. as I assume this will come when we officially commission the work and get the drawings in? Just for my understanding, do people usually give such works "something to go on"? Thought all of that stuff would be their job to sort out, unless you had a specific thing you wanted to achieve. 

Doozergirl

Could you rephrase your question, please? 

Are you asking if people will give ballpark prices? Some will because they are willing to take responsibility for the design work, others won't quote without full plans from an architect.  

What have you been given, exactly?  Quotes? Estimates? Guesstimates? Written breakdowns?   Verbal? 

JadeHighland

Doozergirl said:

Could you rephrase your question, please? 

Are you asking if people will give ballpark prices? Some will because they are willing to take responsibility for the design work, others won't quote without full plans from an architect.  

What have you been given, exactly?  Quotes? Estimates? Guesstimates? Written breakdowns?   Verbal? 

One is a quote one is an estimate. To clarify my question.

1 - Do we need fire doors on all the bedrooms? Looks like from your answer and my subsequent search on the internet that the answer is yes. I brought this up because 2/3 have stated that we'll just need fire doors for the downstairs lounge (next to the stairs and the new bedroom). The last one said we need fire doors on all bedrooms but "may get away with" the current solid oak doors we have. 

2 - 2/3 builders have stated that they will take just over a square meter from the bedroom to create the landing (as per the picture). However, the last builder said he'll be removing a larger section, essentially creating a new wall all the way to the front of the house (blue line, last picture). I wanted to get other opinions on doing it that way.

I've not been involved in a large building project before. From what I understand, once I've chosen a builder, that's when I/we commission architects, engineers etc to come out and do official drawings. This is all very much first meetings. 

MikeJXE

Personally I would want to see drawings and calculations before I went anywhere near a builder 

fluffymuffy

Sounds like you want the builder to design it without any survey drawings and then have an architect try to make it work and accept responsibility for it. This is why I refuse to do loft conversions. 

JadeHighland

MikeJXE said:

Personally I would want to see drawings and calculations before I went anywhere near a builder 

So how does the process usually work? To clarify, these are loft conversion firms that I'm approaching as opposed to a regular builder. Do people usually get architecture drawings independently first and pass them on to the loft conversion firms?

Doozergirl

Loft conversions are bread and butter for 'regular builders'.  A loft conversion firms is purely marketing speak.  The skills required to provide high quality workmanship are the same regardless of what is being built.  

I have no doubt that some loft conversion firms are run by proper builders, but there are others who are not and they don't work to the regulations.  I'm wondering if that's what you're looking at.  I didn't do loft conversions all the time but did plenty enough to be able to give you an answer.  If all I did was loft conversions, the regs would be tattooed on the inside of my eyelids.  

As a builder, we liked to be involved from the start so we could handhold clients, but we'd also have architects that we worked with as a team.  I think the team approach is a good one because the builder understands how much different ways of building cost - many architects do not and so builders end up being presented with plans that are wildly different to the client's budget.  

You can do it your way but I am worried by two of them and I wonder if they are intending to produce fully compliant conversions. 

Would you share who they all are and the prices, albeit briefly? Or via direct message? 

The question of where to place a staircase is always going to be down to design choice, ultimately.  There are usually many different ways to design and build anything.   Sometimes with loft conversions there is only one choice but you always need to do the drawings to find out.  

savergrant

We have recently had our loft converted and we are a similar mid terraced 1950s(?) house. The difference is we have a bathroom at the front and a third bedroom where you have a bathroom. We removed the door between our kitchen and lounge a few years ago. For building control we had to have a fire door into the loft, fire doors on the first floor bedrooms (all lead onto the landing)and a fire door into the lounge. Building control checked they all had three hinges and were the right material.
It took us a while to find a loft conversion specialist that had their own architect, so they did everything 
The issue we had was getting a staircase in and we ended up shrinking the bathroom a little so as to get the second stairs above the first stairs. We had to have a wall moved about 50cm forward. Our existing stairs start 1m in from the front door, the new stairs go in an L shape and start 1.8m in, with four straight stairs then four turning a corner, then five straight stairs. That gave us sufficient headroom without losing too much first floor floorspace.

gzoom

JadeHighland said:

I've not been involved in a large building project before. From what I understand, once I've chosen a builder, that's when I/we commission architects, engineers etc to come out and do official drawings. This is all very much first meetings. 

As others have said for loft conversions I would have thought a decent builder will know the regs can make recommendations on work needed without the expense of architects/structural engineers. 

We went down the architect route first, they produced drawings in conjunction with a structural survey and recommended 3 different builders who they had worked with. But our project was a massive demotion and rebuilt. 

The same builders we used is now working on my inlaws house, their ask is much smaller, move a few rooms around, new roof etc. So they are going without any drawings etc.

The builders prefers to have drawings but we spend £10k on architect fees/drawings/surveys before a single bit of building works started, for our project that cost was sub 3% of the total project cost, where as for my inlaws if would be near 20% so made zero sense to go down the architect route.

I would say the money we spent on the architect was worth every single penny, the vision they created was simply amazing. Nor me, the builder, or any of the trades would have laid out the space in our home the way the architect had done. But everyone who comes to the house loves the way all the spaces work and connect, and the first comment everyone makes isn't how good our builders have built the house, but we must have found a really good architect.

So budget pending, a chat with a good architect maybe worth your while......