Loft Stairway

[Mark D]

Hi All, I live in a very small 1930s semi and I'm in the process of converting the loft space to a usable space...floorboards, ceiling and velux window are installed...

I'm currently using an aluminum ladder for access. I want to install a stairway but there is too little room for it to be obvious how best to do it.

One option is to use a modular spiral staircase as seen at my local dealers but the amount of room on the landing is minimal (with two doorways to the kids bedrooms to contend with so access to these rooms will be blocked). ;-(

A friend had their's done professionally and the installers took a chunk out of their bedroom to run a stairway and repositioned the hatch at the top of the new stairway. Is this my only realistic option?

Have you got any ideas or are there any sites that deal with loft conversions in small houses?

Thanks in anticpation,

Cheers, Mark M/cr

to reply by email please take the michael

[Mungo]

No way to run the second stairway above the first (parallel to it)?

How do you get a bed down a spiral staircase? (okay, someone will let us know how it's done, it's the issue I am raising here ;-)

It's probably a lot to contemplate, but it may be the only reasonable way.

Whilst others here may reply with chapter-and-verse, there are regulations out there intended to ensure that you don't build a fire death-trap. I would have thought that your Building Control Officer would have insisted on a planned permanent stairwell, not as an afterthought once the loft has been boarded and Veluxe windows installed.

As much as I too complain about the cost of Building Warrants and the extra hoops that I have to jump through to comply, often these regulations have common sense at their base. Trying to convince folk with little experience that these hoops are mandatory is often a regrettable episode.

You may care to use Google to search here for other people's thoughts on similar predicaments.

HTH

Mungo

[Bob Mannix]

The installation of a permanent stair is the general "rule of thumb" that defines the loft space as "habitable". Once it is habitable it will be reqired to fulfil all the fire protection requirements etc., for a habitable loft conversion. These fire regulations would not allow an unenclosed spiral stair, as a 30 minute fire door will be required to separate the loft from the rest of the house (and that's just the start). I have no objection to the regulations and abided by them for my loft conversion - when you have 6

9 year olds sleeping up there on a sleep-over, you may be glad you did! Nonetheless, if you want to keep within the law, your existing access may have to do!

[ashnook]

Screwfix do a Space-Saver stair, no: 33669.

[John Rumm]

Floor strengthened as well I hope!

The rules for stairs into loft conversions are relaxed - more so if there is only one habitable room up there. A "space saver" stair or even aspiral may be permissable in these cases.

Without drawings / photos it is impossible for us to say.

Try:

My site may also have something of use:

[River Tramp]

Consider whether you are likely to sell your property within 10 years. We have had loads of people who can't sell because they've something like this without permission, trying and failing to regularise the works. The usual big issue is the means of escape layout, but there's the usual structural/insulation type issues.

You may not consider what you are doing is making the loft habitable, but if a purchaser's mortgage company does, you could have problems.

IanC

[Peter Johnson]

And also: