Hi this is my first post so please be gentle. Am doing a garage conversion but I've suddenly realised the plans (and apparently the building regs) mean there will be a 4-inch step up into the new room from the house! This is obviously not great - I had just assumed it would be level access. Basically the garage floor is 9inches below the house floor, but with 6inch joists, 6inch sub-joist ventilation (apparently required), and about 1.5inches of flooring, things are not good!
Solutions I have toyed with:
a. Asking the BCO if he's prepared to interpret the 6-inch ventilation rule liberally (hmmm - optimistic?)
b. using a sleeper wall with a DPC in it to give a smaller joist span and so allow me to use 4inch joists (although I do actually already have all the timber and hangers, so that would mean returning them - a pain, and that only gets me 2 inches)
c. putting a membrane under the timber in the hope that may alleviate the need for the ventilation. (if this were possible why is't it clear in the regs; then again, if you can lay timber on the concrete floor which some people seem to think is OK, then why not?)
Can anybody help? I've already started the project (concrete arriving 8am tomorrow!), so in a bit of a fix
Solutions I have toyed with:
a. Asking the BCO if he's prepared to interpret the 6-inch ventilation rule liberally (hmmm - optimistic?)
b. using a sleeper wall with a DPC in it to give a smaller joist span and so allow me to use 4inch joists (although I do actually already have all the timber and hangers, so that would mean returning them - a pain, and that only gets me 2 inches)
c. putting a membrane under the timber in the hope that may alleviate the need for the ventilation. (if this were possible why is't it clear in the regs; then again, if you can lay timber on the concrete floor which some people seem to think is OK, then why not?)
Can anybody help? I've already started the project (concrete arriving 8am tomorrow!), so in a bit of a fix
