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The Loft Conversion Fire Regulations

When planning a new project it is important to consider the loft conversion fire regulations as soon as possible and certainly well before any actual building work begins.

Fire safety is a major part of the building regulations and all the relevant information can be found in Approved Document B.

Smoke Alarms

There are very strict rules on fire alarms within properties and each household must have at least one automatic smoke alarm on every floor or storey of the property.

Each alarm has to be wired directly into the mains and must also be equipped with a back-up battery. The alarms need to be situated no closer than three meters to a bedroom.

loft conversion fire regulations

Escape Paths

The building regulations stipulate that there must be a protected escape route all the way from the loft to the ground floor exit door. This ‘protected corridor’ must have passive fire protection of at least thirty minutes.

This is a lot easier to achieve than it sounds. In most houses the staircase will be built from the front door entrance hall and, as the containing walls should already be built to the fire protection standard, than the corridor is already in place.

However, before finalising the plans to convert the loft all the partition walls along the escape route should be properly assessed to ensure they conform to the loft conversion fire regulations.

Doors

The existing doors along the escape route and the rest of the house will probably all need replacing with fire doors with an ability to withstand fire for twenty minutes (this doesn’t apply to bathroom doors).

Prior to April 2007 the doors did not need to be upgraded as long as escape window was fitted in the loft but those rules have since been revised and now all doors must provide twenty minutes fire resistance.

The role of the new fire doors is to control the spread of any smoke or fire and they are made with fire resistance built in.

It is very difficult to upgrade a standard internal door to comply with the loft conversion fire regulations which is why new doors will have to be fitted in most cases.

Loft Stairs

As with the rest of the house the loft must be built with thirty minutes fire resistance to protect the inhabitants should a blaze break out. Because of this there must be a fire door fitted on the loft stairway.

If the new loft stairs run directly above the existing staircase than the new fire door can be positioned at the top of the flight on a small landing.

But, if the loft stairs are located away from the existing staircase than the fire door will have to be positioned at the bottom of the stairs.

Escape Windows

Although it is no longer necessary to fit these windows into a new loft conversion there are many ‘means of escape’ windows on the market which provide the same function without costing much more than an ordinary loft window.