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The Natural Philosopher[_2_]

Bob Minchin wrote:
wrote:
We're looking into providing our son with a separate part of our house
to use as his home (he currently rents a flat locally). It all looks
fairly easily do-able but one issue is the need for a new staircase.

I'm pretty sure there's enough space but looking at staircases from
Screwfix and such it's very difficult to workout how much space the
actually need.

We're aiming to put it in one end of our (very large) hall, the space
we'd *like* to fit it into is about 2.2 metres by 2.5 metres and has
one outside door opening into it. Is it practical to get a
conventional staircase into this space (with a turn if necessary) or
do we need to be thinking about some sort of compact/spiral one?

I'm not sure about this but I think I've read somewhere that if you
split a dwelling into separate dwellings, each will treated individually
for council tax and often the total tax will be greater than that levied
on the original property.
In your case there might be something you could do ie by having a
connecting door 'always unlocked' to avoid this.

Can't help with the stairs but thought it worth mentioning the possible
CT poo trap.

The building regs are very specific about stairs in many ways so having
a look there might help.

Bob

Yes. check out tax issues in making a 'maisonette' out of a house.

OTOH if he is simply sharing your house and you add a staircase, that;s
that. Likewise if he isn't paying rent exactly you can't be taxed on it.

There are exact limits on staircase and the smallest footprint is pretty
much what I did - a three section stair with two landings at about 800mm
and 1.6m above floor level and three short flights Its about 2 meters
square out of the lower and upper floor.

Its a steep rise but because it winds a bit the building regs can be
bent a little.

As straight staircase takes a LOT of room.

Squeezing staircases in means hand making as well. Suggest glued and
screwed MDF.

Finally watch out for fire issues..ma ned more smoke alarms. Definitely
this one is worth getting building control in on, and, if you cant do
the math, an architect.