On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 05:22:00 GMT, a particular chimpanzee named
"brugnospamsia" randomly hit the
keyboard and produced:
I handnt thought about building regs - I was half planning to fit fire doors
in any case - prefer the appearance too - though no doubt the buying public
will require I swap them for cheap panelled (fire-rated) doors if I were to
sell.
Two things;
1. I would agree with a previous poster, a permanent corridor to the
bathroom would certainly be a better resale prospect.
2. Building Regulations will apply to your work, as at the very least
you are adversely affecting the means of escape in case of fire. On
your existing layout, there is the choice of two separate escape
routes from the bottom of the stairs, whereas in your proposed layout,
you would have to go through the front lounge. If this was where the
fire was, you're screwed. In order to comply, the windows to the
bedrooms would need to have minimum clear openings of 0.33mē and a
minimum clear opening dimension (width or height) of 0.45m, with the
bottom of the opening between 0.8m-1.1m above the floor. You _could_
fit fire doors, but IMHO there's not much point. The greater safety
improvement would be mains-wired, interlinked smoke detectors on both
storeys.
--
Hugo Nebula
'What you have to ask yourself is, "if no-one on the internet wants
a piece of this, just how far from the pack have you strayed?"'
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