toilet under the stairs

[Londoncityslicker]

I live in a small Edwardian terraced house.

I plan to extend out the kitchen into the garden and create a small toilet/laundry room under the stairs. The underneath of the stairs adjoins the kitchen. And the plan is to take a small piece of the kitchen to create the room.

However, there is gas and electricity meters and supply and the water supply all underneath the stairs. The plan was to move the meters outside and house them in a box. The water pipe is infact lead and leads upstairs to the loft but we wanted to remove this and fit a new condensing combi boiler in the kitchen.

While we are removing the floorboard and digging up the path to remove the lead pipes and move around the gas and electricity. Is there anything else we shoudl think of doing. the soil for the toilet will not go out of the front of the house but towards the back through the kitchen to an existing sewer.

Any tips on how we can go about this cost effectively and what else we should think about doing as we are upheaving everything.

A

[Phil L]

You'll need toi make it a fairly large piece because you can't have a toilet adjoining a kitchen without an ante-space...unless you can put the door into the toilet somewhere else - in the hall perhaps?

The electricity and gas suppliers will charge you for moving meters, you'll need to check with them and find out how much.

You don't need to remove the lead water main, you only need to lay alkathene to the front boundary and the water board will connect it up for you for free, it's up to them to remove the dead leg, if indeed it is a dead leg, it may go on to supply other houses in the street....see above WRT the moving of mains gas and electricity and meters.

There's no limit on what you can spend or what you can do, you'd be wise to find out the pros and cons of moving the meters first, work out whether you can actually have a toilet in the proposed area and get rough estimates for the work including the extension, and *then* get plans drawn (plans can cost upward of £600 to have drawn, a waste of money if the lowest 'guesstimate' is 20k over your budget)

[Owain]

Yes you can, provided you have a washbasin in there as well as mechanical ventilation linked to the light-switch.

Owain

[Roger]

The message from "Phil L" contains these words:

Last time I checked (several years ago now) that had ceased to be a requirement along with some other restrictions such as ceiling heights which now only apply to stairways.

[Phil L]

Different LA's must use different variations of it then, because it's still in force around these parts!...although you are correct WRT building regs. That is to say, when plans are drawn and submitted thery always have an ante-space in this situation, whether they would pass or fail on this is unknown.

[Roger]

The message from "Phil L" contains these words:

Where is "these parts"? LAs is England and Wales just don't have the discretion to depart from the rules in that manner.

[Phil L]

When you are dealing with BCO's every day, you soon learn to do what you are told, regardless of any rules, otherwise life becomes hard, very hard.

[<me9]

I thought that had been superceded, as long as there were hand washing facilities in the toilet. ICBW.

[Christian McArdle]

It was a relatively recent rule change. You just have a Luddite BCO who isn't up to speed.

The previous rules were that you needed two doors. The new rules are that you only need one door and a wash basin. This was done after tests showed that it was contamination of the hands that was significant. Aerosol contamination was an urban myth.

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

My understanding is that they had been superceded without exception.

You need hand washing facilities between the toilet and the kitchen. You may not rely on the kitchen sink for hand washing facilities, even if there were

100 doors between them. Maybe I'm wrong.

Christian.