Garage conversion (double garage split)

[sminky]

Hi

I am planning on converting half of my double garage into an office/workshop by putting up a dividing wall and then a ceiling and floor on one side to make it more habitable, leaving the other half as is, for the car.

When converting a garage, if it is attached to the house, you must have a fire door. If the garage is detached then there's no requirement (AFAIK). Well, my garage is attached to the house i.e. it shares a wall, but there is no direct access to it and hence no fire door.

To my question! When I split it in half, do I need (as far as regs go) to install a firedoor between the garage and the workshop?

Further to that, we are going to put up a conservatory which will have an opening to the garage/workshop (the workshop part) and an opening to the house (through the existing external doors).

Does anyone know if that will then require a firedoor from the garage/workshop to the conservatory? The conservatory installers don't think so.

Who are the best people to ask such things?

TIA

sminky

 

[^woody^]

Building control are not interested in conservatories, and so there are no applicable regulations for fire doors

For the garage, you can't have an office/workshop - it's one or the other. If this is a workshop, then you need the fire door between the house and workshop. If its more of an office, then the fire door goes between this and the garage - and you will need to maintain a step or higher floor level between the the garage/office or workshop/house

 

[sminky]

Thanks, I guess it's going to be more of an office in which case a fire door and step you say. The step could be tricky as the existing external door does not have a step. Do you know how high the step has to be?

Thanks for your help

 

[^woody^]

If you are doing this through building control as an office, then you will most likely have to insulate the floors and walls, and by doing this the floor is naturally raised to form a step.

Otherwise if floors are level, you need a barrier of 100mm height.

BTW, if you are going through building control, then "office" has some commercial connotations , so a "study" may be less onerous to an enthusiastic BCO.