fire regulations in a 3-storey house...?

4 years ago

We have a small Victorian end-of-terrace and installed a loft extension six years ago. Now we are considering renovations to the ground floor of the house, which is sorely wanting a layout-change.

The lounge and dinging room have had the wall between knocked out completely creating one through-room.

The original hallway wall, which at one time would have been a single wall with a door/s leading to the lounge and dining rooms- has been sloppily divided, with a 'general opening' cut into the hallway wall, thus creating a 1. narrow corridor from the front door to the lounge, 2. then the general opening, 3. and then a dodgily-built section of wall enclosing the stairs. The sections of corridor and hallway walls have been so badly built they don't even align.

I am desperate to get rid of the wall enclosing the stairs and put in balusters to open the narrow room up as much as possible. However, I have been told that because we have a loft extension-and so three stories-- we must keep the stairway wall-and the corridor wall- because of fire regulations.

Can anyone advise, please?

Thank you,

Pam

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Comments (5)

Ellie
4 years ago
I know that you wouldn't be able to have your stairs open into the kitchen in your 3 storey house, but can in a 2 storey. We have just done that ourselves. Can you post a floorplan so we can see the rooms/walls you mean
peckosmith thanked Ellie
PRO
i-architect
4 years ago
You need to have a fire protected route. There are a few ways to do that.

It is possible to create this as a more open plan look but it will be more expensive than just keeping the stair enclosed and having a door from the hall to the living/dining rooms. So it depends on your budget and how valuable it is to you to have that feel more open and spacious.

Your options are:

1. enclose the staircase with adequate fire protecting walls and doors

2. open up and use a mechanical system to provide fire protection

3. enclose the staircase as in option 1 but use fire rated glass to the stair to give an open look. However fire rated glass is really expensive!

If you want to go down a more complex fire protection route then I would recommend that you speak with a fire engineer who could design and spec the system for you. You might be able to use a fire blanket or a sprinkler system. I believe that the costs of sprinkler systems has come down a lot recently, and they do seem to be becoming more used in private residential, though still fairly unusual. I've not seen fire blankets used in houses, but I used to include them a lot in commercial and community building projects.
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Lots of ideas....couldn't resist adding my two cents. i copied your photos and did a little cut and paste- it's messy, but hopefully gets the main idea across. i'd put your sofa in front of the large book case, chair by the fireplace, tv on the stand on the wall opposite the fireplace - so you can either look at the fire or the tv. Someone suggested using frames of one color for your photos - an inexpensive way to do that would be to spray paint them all a dark color-black goes with everything. Since your shelves are a medium tone wood, display things that are dark or light so that they contrast against the wood. Limiting your display items pallette to a few values usually helps to unify things. (I think that's why so many people want to paint the shelves or put inserts in the back to help your nice things read more clearly...some get lost). If you want to "splurge" -you may consider having a carpenter make a few solid tall cabinet doors to provide a visual break in the shelving. I'm showing 3 doors - 1 on the right side of the fireplace and 2 on the left to leave two open vertical shelves for display on each side - with things arranged to frame the fireplace as the focal point. To add some height to your big vases, consider stacking some books beneath them. Enjoy experimenting untill you get something you're happy with - good luck!
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I would go with what the architect suggested. That was my immediate thought and also means that you will get light into your living area all day since the kitchen would be at the front and the living room at the back. It will be a nicer space to live in. If you really can't face bedrooms at the front though could you do something like this? It clearly isn't to scale!! You probably sacrifice a bit of space in that smallest bedroom but gain much more liveable floor space at the front of the house. It also gives your husband the open pan area he likes. It does sacrifice a separate entrance way though. I'd also shift the bathroom wall out and steal some space from the utility room so that you have a larger bathroom.
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You can paint the inside of FP opening charcoal and then I would go for a blue/grey and not greige. Those colors tend to be very dark. You have black furnishings and a blue/grey would look very fresh. Your art above FP has blue in it, so replace rug and get some pillows for sofa that will bring in the colors of the painting. Why not just put in some shelves, one big enough to hold tv. That would give a more open concept to room. If you need one enclosed to store components, that would fit also. I would not build up too high on the wall.
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peckosmith
Original Author
4 years ago
Dear Jane,

Happy New Year to you, and thank you for your kind reply.

If you don't mind, may I ask what No. 2 means, please? Would a 'mechanical system' be one which the fire engineer would have to advise upon, that is, the use of a sprinkler system, or blankets?

Glass sounds lovely, but our budget won't be huge as part of this renovation is also installing a new kitchen.

Thank you again,

Pam
peckosmith
Original Author
4 years ago
And Ellie, if you are able to receive this comment, thank you! I will see if the complete floorpans still exist from our loft extension project...
cfmatthew
last year
Hi did you ever find a solution for this? Wanting to do the same and been told that sprinklers aren't enough on their own. Would need to separate GF from rest of house

fire regulations in a 3-storey house...?

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Ellie

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fire regulations in a 3-storey house...?

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Ellie

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