House with Basement and Fire (Regs).

DOCARCH

I am working on a two storey house atm that will have a (non-habitable) basement.

The only practical way to organise the staircase is a continuous staircase from basemnet - through ground floor - to first floor and ideally for aesthetic and other reasons there should be no seperating wall/doors to seperate the main staircase from the basemnet staircase.

Building Regs (Part would suggest that 'the stairway serving the upper storey should not extend down to the basement'

I know this is a bit of technical/specific question but has anybody come across this before and possible alternative measures to comply with Regs? As I said abovem the basement will be non-habitable.

Any advice/comments greatly appreciated.

Mellor

Firstly, i'd point of that is more than a "suggestion", in TGD B regard basements.

And try doing a search (button at the top of the forum page). Th issue came up before

RKQ

As the building owner you are legally required to build in full compliance with the Building Regulations. Thats the law.

The issue of the basement being "non-habital" isn't an improvement or exception to the law, as this basement could be used to store paint, oil, petrol in a strimmer etc. Such hazardous materials could combust and travel to the ground & first floor, via an open staircase.

If we assume you sleep on the first floor, and an electrical fault causes a fire to start in the basement, the ground floor is engulfed quickly, via the open staircase - How do you get out?
As the Borg might say "Non-compliance is futile".

Discuss same with your Mortgage Certifier / seek proper Professional advice.

No6

I'd love to suggest to the Fire Officers around here that the guidance in TGD B is only suggestive, they'd burn me at the stake for being a heritic!! Seriously the stairs to the basement must be seperated from the rest of the stairs by fire resisting construction and you may also need fire doors on all the ope off the stair well too as the house is over two stories!!