Mark D wrote:
Hi All,
I live in a very small 1930s semi and I'm in the process of converting
the loft space to a usable space...floorboards, ceiling and velux
window are installed...

I'm currently using an aluminum ladder for access.
I want to install a stairway but there is too little room for it to be
obvious how best to do it.

No way to run the second stairway above the first (parallel to it)?


One option is to use a modular spiral staircase as seen at my local
dealers but the amount of room on the landing is minimal (with two
doorways to the kids bedrooms to contend with so access to these rooms
will be blocked). ;-(

How do you get a bed down a spiral staircase? (okay, someone will let
us know how it's done, it's the issue I am raising here ;-)


A friend had their's done professionally and the installers took a
chunk out of their bedroom to run a stairway and repositioned the
hatch at the top of the new stairway. Is this my only realistic
option?

It's probably a lot to contemplate, but it may be the only reasonable
way.


Have you got any ideas or are there any sites that deal with loft
conversions in small houses?


Whilst others here may reply with chapter-and-verse, there are
regulations out
there intended to ensure that you don't build a fire death-trap.
I would have thought that your Building Control Officer would have
insisted on
a planned permanent stairwell, not as an afterthought once the loft has
been boarded and Veluxe windows installed.

As much as I too complain about the cost of Building Warrants and the
extra
hoops that I have to jump through to comply, often these regulations
have
common sense at their base.
Trying to convince folk with little experience that these hoops are
mandatory is
often a regrettable episode.

You may care to use Google to search here for other people's thoughts
on
similar predicaments.

HTH

Mungo