Loft conversion fire doors.

[pilsbury]

Just reading up on some regs and would like to check something.

Regs say:
All doors on loft must be fire doors (30 min rating)
All doors on escape route must be fire rated.

Now my property has a central stair well which I would continue into the loft (if and when I start). Basically every door in the house comes off the downstairs hallway or the 1st floor landing. All 9 of them.

so are the regs saying every door has to be replaced? Seems mad as they are all nice old solid wood doors.

 

[johnny2007]

Unfortunately/fortunately so.
You have to create an escape route which is fire resistant all the way from the loft to outside.
Most inspectors allow bathroom doors to be non fire rated, so standard doors.
However, I don't like mismatched doors, so...

 

[jacko555]

Am sure I read somewhere, although no idea if correct, old solid wooden doors could be allowed / argued for to remain?

 

[pilsbury]

Lord have mercy. So a knotted rope that can be slung out of a velux is not going to do.

Worth exploring if my current doors cut the mustard. 2” thick solid wood.

All those fire rated doors only work if they’re all shut every night. Ideal, but I bet most don’t.

 

[johnny2007]

The idea is that you would shut the doors as you go downstairs and contain the fire.
Or, if the fire has already spread on the stairwell, you can shut the fire door and wait for the fire brigade to rescue you from the window.
Solid hardwood doors are very though and possibly last longer than 30 minutes in a fire, however they're untested, so cannot be sure unfortunately.

 

[jeds]

Your doors might be acceptable but would probably need some upgrading; steel hinges, intumescent strips, etc. If they are not deemed acceptable as they are you can sometimes upgrade the door by painting with intumescent paint. Alternatively you might be able to avoid changing the doors by including a sprinkler/mist system to the stairway.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Lord have mercy. So a knotted rope that can be slung out of a velux is not going to do.

It was changed because most people who haul themselves out of a loft window and fly off the eaves typically get pretty badly injured. Even worse if you have a dormer in line with the rear wall and then if your rear garden was lower than the ground floor .....

The doors issue is fair but then if I had a loft room I'd like to think that if the smoke alarm goes off in the middle of the night I'd be up pretty smartish and if my kid was fast asleep in the loft room (as young kids do actually typically sleep right through smoke alarms) I'd like to think I'd have a few seconds to shut the offending door at least and then know I could get my kid out.

 

[pilsbury]

This 20/30 minutes fire protection seems more than ample to me. Smoke alarms will go off with a wisp of smoke. I’d be out with the family in under a minute.

 

[johnny2007]

This 20/30 minutes fire protection seems more than ample to me. Smoke alarms will go off with a wisp of smoke. I’d be out with the family in under a minute.

They might save the house from being totally destroyed.

 

[pilsbury]

They might save the house from being totally destroyed.

True. But they don’t stop me being miffed at replacing 10 old doors I like for doors I don’t want for £1.5k.

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Sometimes, bureaucracy is there to save us from ourselves. What's your wonderful solution?

 

[pilsbury]

Sometimes, bureaucracy is there to save us from ourselves. What's your wonderful solution?

A solution? Bucket of water by each door? I’m full of issues with no solutions. Kind of got my head round the floor. The more I investigate this loft conversion malarkey, the more I’m wondering if it’s for me. I spent about 2 hours in my loft today mulling things over and poking around….. still none the wiser. Hacking out the rear rafters and building some sort of dormer is the easy bit. Stopping the rest collapsing is my problem. I’m sure experienced loft converters will have no problem, but I’ll be on my Jack

 

[johnny2007]

A solution? Bucket of water by each door? I’m full of issues with no solutions. Kind of got my head round the floor. The more I investigate this loft conversion malarkey, the more I’m wondering if it’s for me. I spent about 2 hours in my loft today mulling things over and poking around….. still none the wiser. Hacking out the rear rafters and building some sort of dormer is the easy bit. Stopping the rest collapsing is my problem. I’m sure experienced loft converters will have no problem, but I’ll be on my Jack

Take the essential and inevitable first step: employ an architect to draw the plans and a structural engineer to do the calculations.
Once you have the plans (building control plans, the detailed ones) in your hands everything will start to be clearer.
I promise.
But you can't do without architect drawing and SE calculations, you simply can't.

 

[tony1851]

Fire safety is down to risk. Some inspectors allow you to retain existing doors around the stairwell if you have alarms/detectors in all habitable rooms as well as the circulation spaces.
When fire doors are incorporated as part of a loft conversion, they are not required to have self-closers. The reason is that if a fire door on - say - the lounge was closed and had intumescent seals, it's likely that the fire could take hold before the smoke got out to activate the alarm in the hallway.
The only instance where a full 30 minute fire door + self-closer is required is between a garage and the house.

 

[pilsbury]

But you can't do without architect drawing and SE calculations, you simply can't.

Hmmmm…… I know this is the obvious route at a cost. Someone to design and calculate. But I’m the sort of person who hammers removed nails back straight.