Can a wall separating two flats be studwork? Or has it got to be a brick/block wall?
It's only a small wall, blocking off a 5ft-wide hallway. There is a small hallway on each side of the wall.
If it has to be brick/block, can the wall be built from the floorboards up (along a joist), or has it got to go down to the hardcore?
Thanks,
Jak
There's quite a bit of regulation surrounding fire protection of newly created flats, see:
The regs talk about minutes of fire resistance, but do give examples of how this can be achieved with common building materials. Yes - I would expect the voids to have to be closed off too.
Yes it can. The regs specify fire resistance and sound resistance, not how to achieve it. Some of the metal studding and board systems are good enough.
A
Yes. You find this on timber framed construction.
No. It only has to conform to regs on fire and noise, etc. How it's achieved doesn't matter.
and old walls are immune from any BR
NT
Indeed. And at sale time perhaps it should be a requirement that things are updated. Especially the noise one.
I'm not certain without reading up, but my understanding is that when an old building is converted to flats (i.e. change of use) - all the walls and floors that form the fire partition between flats must be upgraded to the standard required by BR, regardless if they're original or not.
Thats correct. BRs cannot act retrospectively, but any work carried out must comply with the regs in force at that time.
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