What Peter Parry said & Noise reduction

[The Medway Handyman]

>>It won't be safe, although this has nothing to do with floor strength

or other minor points. The usual reason for avoiding Building Regulations on converted lofts is because the conversion won't meet fire safety standards. It's not unusual to find a completely unprotected stairwell and an open plan kitchen/living room.

Some very interesting points there Peter, thanks - I am a wiser man.

I looked at a job last week, in a loft conversion. Proper stairs went up from the landing, solid wall one side, handrail the other side.

The stairs emerged roughly in the middle of the conversion. The stairwell was 'boxed in' on three sides by a waist high solid partition. No door at the bottom or top of the stairs.

The client said there was a terrible noise problem from this room (occupied by teenager) & wanted me to either lift the floorboards & install insulation or fit an insulated sub floor.

I turned the job down because IMO neither would solve the noise problem & I didn't want to be in a situation where I'd charged for the work and not sorted the problem. My thoughts were that the large opening on the stair well was allowing the noise transmission & insulating the floor wouldn't achieve much.

It now occurs to me that the room is a fire trap? Only escape via a Velux. Is that the case?

[John Rumm]

IIRC, that can be acceptable if there is only one room in the loft, and the stairways themselves are protected (i.e. door to other habitable rooms that open onto the same landing or hall are fire resisting)

There is quite bit on this in Approved doc B1:

The client said there was a terrible noise problem from this room (occupied

That may deal with some types of noise, but by no means all.

Decoupling the floor would reduce foot fall noise and general creaking etc.

Was it a means of escape velux? Close enough to the eves so as to permit a ladder rescue?

[Hugo Nebula]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:53:03 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, John Rumm randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

It's not really. The stair itself needs to be separated by a full height enclosure with a door at the top landing, or separated from the floor below by an enclosure and door at the bottom.

Yes, but the 2m² hole in the floor would probably overwhelm any such effect.

[John Rumm]

Would not a hall/landing that has all rooms that open on to it protected by fire doors not count as such an enclosure?

[Hugo Nebula]

On Sat, 11 Aug 2007 13:57:09 +0100, a particular chimpanzee, John Rumm randomly hit the keyboard and produced:

Is there a door between the loft conversion and the stairs to the ground floor?

[John Rumm]

In this hypothetical case, no. The front door opens onto a hall with stairs to first one landing then the loft conversion. All doors opening onto the same hall and landing being fire doors.

[The Medway Handyman]

Actually no.

[The Medway Handyman]

In this actual case, none of the doors are fire doors, just el cheapo B&Q jobbies.

[dom]

Several times when I've talked through with friends (that are about to move) about the house (or particularly flat) they're thinking of buying, they seem to have a complete disregard for physical fire protection - even when it's pointed out to them.

Even the ones that are over-protective of their children and very risk- averse, don't seem to think fire doors and compartments as an essential if they're living in close proximity to other flats.

Maybe the message about smoke alarms has been too loud - to the point of many people trusting one bit of technology to the exclusion of being concerned about any need for fire-resisting and fire-limiting buildings (and the need to not over-stuff their own house or flat with junk to the point of it being a ready-made bonfire).

[Tim Southerwood]

[e-mail] coughed up some electrons that declared:

It's human nature. When I had my flat and was living as a bachelor, I found the self closing hinges on *every* internal door (except cupboards and bathroom) to be a right royal pain, so I took the setting pins out. Previous owner had been in the habit of wedging most of the doors open. However, I am exceptionally paranoid about turning stuff off and not allowing wall warts or equipment to get buried under cushions or stacks of paper, so I mitigated my own risk in different ways.

Rightly or wrongly that's what people do. I gave the pins in a little bag to the next owner.

The best solution IMO is self closers held open with a mag catch linked to a fire alarm system, but that's proably a bit expensive for most people in a domestic setting.

Not so sure - I still see many houses with no or very poor fire alarm arrangements.

Cheers

Tim

[tim.....]

But sometimes the rules (IMHO) go too far.

In my flat all of the doors (except the bathrooms) have closers, and all of the doors are stopped open in order to stop the rooms getting stuffy.

And this isn't just me, the stops were in place when I viewed the flat so were used by the previous occupant as well.

If I owned this flat the closers would come off. The regs may make them a requirement, but the reality is that the average occupant finds them a pain and would rather that they weren't there. As the doors are stopped open all the time, they don't serve their purpose, so what's the point of having them?

tim

>

[John Rumm]

Perhaps this is why regs now no longer require them?