Loft stairs over existing bedroom doors

[kelvM]

Hi,

I am exploring how to position a staircase from our landing into our loft (for a potential loft conversion) and I need help understanding if my idea will comply with building/fire regs. The house is old and we do not want to make changes to the existing three bedrooms and bathroom on the first floor.

We have a large landing with enough space to build a 180-degree winder staircase 'inside' the main staircase. Once the loft stairs have turned 180 degrees, they would rise over two existing bedroom doors. In doing so, the top corner of one door would be slightly obstructed. I have 3D-modelled the idea, which can be seen in the image attached. The doors are shown in blue, drawn 2.0m high x 0.8m wide. The staircase is 0.6m wide. (Note: there is a single step on the landing at the top to achieve sufficient headroom under the rafters, positioning the loft room door centrally with over 2.0m headroom.)

I would be grateful if anyone could explain how the building/fire regs would view this situation- is it acceptable or an issue? I have been unable to find any information on this, hence posting here. From my common sense perspective, the top corner of the door being 'cut off' is not an issue for movement in/out of the two rooms concerned, since headroom is a minimum of 1.8m

Thank you
Kelvin

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Why aren't you utilising extra winders?

eg

Assume you're aware you need a landing and fire door at the top if there's no room at the bottom?

BTW 600mm is extremely narrow for a stair and it will restrict what you can get up there, even mattresses will be a struggle.

 

[kelvM]

I have attached another image for context.

Three winders would cause an issue with headroom, the stairs need to land where headroom in the loft is sufficient, although I will be exploring different stair configurations if this idea is feasible.

Yes, there is a landing and door planned at the top, roughly as shown. I'm aware 0.6m is narrow, but there would be a double-width opening in the ceiling and this approach preserves the two large bedrooms on the first floor.

Do you have any insight into the question posed regarding the doors under the stairs?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

Have you checked to see if you can achieve the necessary rise/going with less winders? There's no minimum height for doors so it would be OK, presumably that door opens inwards? If that's a bedroom you'll be upgrading the door to a fire door then you'll not find a nice paneled door design you can cut the corner off, it would need to be plain fire door blank that you can cut the corner off. Or you would just accept that the door frame/corner of the door goes behind the stairs which is a bit crap. I would look for way to compact the stair as much as possible to avoid it though, I get that it may not be possible with the headroom, sometimes a velux in the roof above the stair can gain you another 100mm or so of headroom. We assume you know you'll have to add a load of insulation beneath your existing rafters!

 

[kelvM]

Many thanks for your reply. The bedroom doors all open inwards, so the corner wouldn't actually need to be cut off. We are happy to accept the door is behind the stairs, which is a better compromise than having to change the existing layout to get the stairs in elsewhere.

I have accounted for insulation in/on the existing rafters (rafters are 125mm deep). The red surfaces in the image are a good approximation of the finished ceiling height. For sure, there is scope to fine-tune this design, I just don't want to do that and discover it's not plausible because of the bedroom doors being slightly restricted under the stairs. From what you have said, that won't be a problem. Interested if anyone else has a different opinion...!

Regards
Kelvin

 

[Higgy28]

Don't you need to comply with 2m minimum headroom above existing stairs/landing?

 

[kelvM]

Thanks for this - I guess that is the crux of the question that I'm looking to answer. I was aware that 'a landing should have min 2m height'.

There would be 2m+ over the existing stairs, 2m+ above the new stairs, and 2m+ above the landing between the two flights, but potentially a small area where that requirement is not satisfied (as described above, under the new stairs, outside the bedroom doors). Is the 2m rule hard and fast, or would building control have some discretion on this?