Head height on stairs

Thanks everyone for the very helpful advice and input. I'm away today but will try and get photos and drawings tomorrow. And yes, we are working with a design-and-build company. They are coming out to see us tomorrow (snow permitting!) so I'll point out that this is not what we contracted for, even if it is technically legal. We are ultimately the ones finally responsible for compliance with buildings regs so they should have run any variation from the approved guidelines past us beforehand, rather than just expecting us to accept it now.

Obviously, the reason that they didn't run it past us beforehand was because it's a mistake (and nobody, even the design company, are denying that it's a mistake) but that doesn't mean we have to live with it. Annoyingly, there is only 1.5k of the bill left to pay as everything else has been paid upfront. But I'm certainly planning to withhold that 1.5k until we get a workable solution.

Robyn



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Yes, the actual loft itself is fine. The issue is the stairs: they should have had 10 stairs then a turn, which would have avoided the roof line. We got 12 stairs and then a turn.

We know that this would have worked because the neighbours had the same extension last year, using the same company, in their identical property, and that's what was done there. We've checked the measurements and our measurements come out within 50mm of their property's measurements in all dimensions. The company have conceded that there must have been an error by the surveyor or designer because we should have had the same as them.
 
Assuming the D&B company also did the surveying then they are responsible for everything - from your point of view it doesn't really matter who within their company is at fault (let them argue amongst themselves).

As its less than the suggested clearances in the regulations I'd say its not acceptable and they need to put it right. (unless they informed you of the clearances before carrying out the work). As they are a full service they should come up with the ultimate solution too, you can obviously input, but I wouldn't tell them how to do it as if that creates a new problem they will then blame you for nay new problems.

As noted before the stairs may be acceptable within the regulation even if it doesn't meet the approved document design - so if its very close to the approved document they may argue its acceptable.
 
It's possible to build an extension, loft conversion, flat conversion even, without windows for instance and get it to conform to building regs. But that might not be acceptible to the client. So dont rely on b/regs as a sole criteria for what is aceptable.
 
Thanks to all! The building company sent out their attack dog to argue with us today. He was impressive actually, I'd have given him a job - I've rarely seen anyone more comfortable with aggressively arguing that black is white. We were called ignorant pigs and sworn at. It wasn't nice to be on the receiving end but you had to admire his chutzpah. But thanks to you all telling us to argue about the contract rather than about building regs, we got an agreement to rebuild and fix it. There's no way we would have got that without your help. Thank you!
 
Robyn Soma said:
Thanks to all! The building company sent out their attack dog to argue with us today. He was impressive actually, I'd have given him a job - I've rarely seen anyone more comfortable with aggressively arguing that black is white. We were called ignorant pigs and sworn at. It wasn't nice to be on the receiving end but you had to admire his chutzpah. But thanks to you all telling us to argue about the contract rather than about building regs, we got an agreement to rebuild and fix it. There's no way we would have got that without your help. Thank you!
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Ignorant pigs!! Thats disgraceful!
For the record my existing staircase (Victorian house) is 1.75m but the BCO insisted I change the stairs clearance for the loft conversion meaning that I lost another 18inches if bedroom space!
 
So it sounds like the staircase was wrong. Are the drawings now going to be amended to ensure the new staircase complies with building regs so everybody is satisfied preferably before the new staircase is fitted ?
 
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