On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:53:03 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, John Rumm
randomly hit the keyboard and
produced:

The Medway Handyman wrote:

I looked at a job last week, in a loft conversion. Proper stairs went up
from the landing, solid wall one side, handrail the other side.

The stairs emerged roughly in the middle of the conversion. The stairwell
was 'boxed in' on three sides by a waist high solid partition. No door at
the bottom or top of the stairs.

IIRC, that can be acceptable if there is only one room in the loft, and
the stairways themselves are protected (i.e. door to other habitable
rooms that open onto the same landing or hall are fire resisting)

It's not really. The stair itself needs to be separated by a full
height enclosure with a door at the top landing, or separated from the
floor below by an enclosure and door at the bottom.

Decoupling the floor would reduce foot fall noise and general creaking etc.

Yes, but the 2m² hole in the floor would probably overwhelm any such
effect.
--
Hugo Nebula
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just how far from the pack have you strayed?"