Peter Hemmings wrote:
He had a side window on the first floor approved then after it was
completed the BI said it was too high for a fire escape (new
regulations).

I got caught by that one too. The architect who designed the loft
conversion was aware of the maximum sill height of 1200mm for a
designated escape window, but his drawings were not sufficiently
explicit. When the builder framed the opening for the Velux window,
1200mm became the height from the floor to the top edge of his nogging.
Then along came the BCO, who quite reasonably measured to the bottom of
the installed Velux frame; and of course he found it about 80mm too
high.

We 'negotiated' about this. The BCO agreed that it would be very easy to
climb out using the solidly built desktop that was fixed to the wall
below the window, but that wouldn't count because it's 'furniture'.
There had to be a step on the floor. Then I asked him how he wanted this
step to be fixed, and he didn't answer that question... or not exactly.
Instead, he looked me straight in the eye and said, very slowly and with
heavy emphasis, "I want to *see* a step in place, when I come back to
inspect."

So this was duly done - but come re-inspection time, it was a different
BCO! Having duly verified that the height from step to sill was now
within regs, the next thing he asked was "Is that step fixed?" This
time it was *my* turn to do the looking-in-the-eye and heavy emphasis:
"What your colleague asked for was... and that's exactly what you see
here."

It got me a very dirty look - but also a completion certificate.


My neighbour had to fit a wooden box to stand on, but when the BI did
a spot check my neighbour had put the box in his loft!!

The fixed desktop is still here (I'm typing on it now). It provides an
admirably solid means of escape, in two equal steps of less than a metre
each.

As for the step on the floor, I couldn't possibly comment further...


--
Ian White