I’m thinking of getting a loft conversion done in my house, a small two-floor late-Victorian London terrace.
I’ve read a few threads on this forum regarding the associated fire regs, particularly those about the requirement for 30-minute fire-resistant enclosed access from the loft down right to the front door. This situation is posing a few problems for me, as our existing staircase opens into an open-plan ground-floor area, which includes a kitchen. The front door is on the other side of the house from the foot of the stairs: to comply with loft-conversion/three-storey-dwelling fire regs, I’ll need to erect some fire-resistant construction right across the house, thereby creating an enclosed escape route.
The obvious solution would be a stud wall with a fireproof door in it, spanning the whole open-plan area: a spectacularly hideous and claustrophobic option, given the already compact nature of the house, and which would frankly render the entire loft scheme a non-starter.
There’s been mention of sprinkler systems, but it seems they’re an expensive pain (I’d need to upgrade the size of our piping etc) and in any case unlikely to win approval from the building-regs people as a standalone solution (ie no enclosed barrier).
But I’ve just heard that a drop-down fire curtain could be acceptable – something like this:
http://www.coopersfire.com/documents/literature/Fire/FireMaster10.pdf
These things are linked to a detection system and automatically drop down across an opening (in my case, the 3.5m wide by 2.3m space between a boxed-in steel frame which spans the house, just beyond the open-plan cooking area – there’s a door out into the rear garden from the area thus left enclosed behind the fire curtain, granting the requisite separate escape route). The fire-curtain roller mechanism would be fitted across the back of the top beam, with the curtain’s runners down the side beams.
It seems like an unobtrusive solution, but is it:
(a) likely to satisfy building/fire regs?
(b) not going to cost the earth (I’ve seen vague mention of “a couple of grand”, but no idea if that would include the detection system and so on… no prices on that Coopers Fire website or any of the others)?
I’d be very grateful to hear from anyone with experience of fitting domestic fire-curtains, or who’s had them fitted as a solution for a similar problem to mine...
I’ve read a few threads on this forum regarding the associated fire regs, particularly those about the requirement for 30-minute fire-resistant enclosed access from the loft down right to the front door. This situation is posing a few problems for me, as our existing staircase opens into an open-plan ground-floor area, which includes a kitchen. The front door is on the other side of the house from the foot of the stairs: to comply with loft-conversion/three-storey-dwelling fire regs, I’ll need to erect some fire-resistant construction right across the house, thereby creating an enclosed escape route.
The obvious solution would be a stud wall with a fireproof door in it, spanning the whole open-plan area: a spectacularly hideous and claustrophobic option, given the already compact nature of the house, and which would frankly render the entire loft scheme a non-starter.
There’s been mention of sprinkler systems, but it seems they’re an expensive pain (I’d need to upgrade the size of our piping etc) and in any case unlikely to win approval from the building-regs people as a standalone solution (ie no enclosed barrier).
But I’ve just heard that a drop-down fire curtain could be acceptable – something like this:
http://www.coopersfire.com/documents/literature/Fire/FireMaster10.pdf
These things are linked to a detection system and automatically drop down across an opening (in my case, the 3.5m wide by 2.3m space between a boxed-in steel frame which spans the house, just beyond the open-plan cooking area – there’s a door out into the rear garden from the area thus left enclosed behind the fire curtain, granting the requisite separate escape route). The fire-curtain roller mechanism would be fitted across the back of the top beam, with the curtain’s runners down the side beams.
It seems like an unobtrusive solution, but is it:
(a) likely to satisfy building/fire regs?
(b) not going to cost the earth (I’ve seen vague mention of “a couple of grand”, but no idea if that would include the detection system and so on… no prices on that Coopers Fire website or any of the others)?
I’d be very grateful to hear from anyone with experience of fitting domestic fire-curtains, or who’s had them fitted as a solution for a similar problem to mine...