No steps into new builds?

Post a photo of the next one you trip over😎

It's generally only the entrances that are gently sloped up to the door, and designed with drains or sloping away from the threshold. The rest of the ground level will still likely be 150mm below floor level.

So for the areas which are less than 150mm above ground level, good DPC/DPM and threshold details will negate any effects of possible rising damp.

Watch Room to Improve and you'll see Bannon designing stepped entrances for new builds. Just because.

This is the one I remember - you can see an aeriel shot of the stepped entrance. He had full control over designing the approach, so it's hard to see any justification for that.

Why have steps and a ramp when you can just have level access?

You miss the point. The alternative to stepped access isn't that poxy awful ramp on the left of the door.

The alternative is to design out the steps with a gentle sloped approach, a very small change to the topography.

This house is for two people in their seventies, and he's designed in steps FFS.

You can have steps at a rise/fall off 40 degrees for example but you cant have sloped access at that. Steps take up less space.

This situation was one or two steps, so a fairly gentle change of level, on a large site where he had full control over the approach area.

Ah, I thought it was a general question.

Good luck lads. This exact house has been mentioned previously in the forum, on a few threads
Poster above insisted it is non compliant, even when the TGDs were pasted, he refused to accept that he was mistaken and goalposts move. Won't get any where talking about compliance.

The owners would have been fully aware that steps where at the entrance. Assuming that he does this without consulting them is odd. Not everyone has mobility issues. I'd assume they have a much greater understanding of the the site, the desig and their needs than any of us here.

While ramps are pretty much essential for people with signficant mobility impairments, they do have some comparitively minor disadvantages for others, so people who don't require ramps may prefer steps, where available. Disadvantages include a greater danger of falls if the surface become slick (e.g. due to ice); a greater risk that dropped or placed objects will roll, rather than stay where they land, creating increased inconvenience and increased tripping hazards. Also ramps are typically at right-angles to the entrance, requireing a turn at the top, which is the not the most convenient approach if you need to maneouvre a large object — an item of furniture, say — through the entrance. And — fun fact — people on crutches often report that it is easier to use stairs than a ramp. It helps if the surface on which you rest a crutch is always level, which is the case with stairs but not with a ramp.

Tl;dr: steps do offer some advantages over ramps, so if it's convenient and economical to provide both, that's often done.

On the more general issue, lads, let's not consider Part M compliance to be a good standard. It's a minimal standard, a long way off achieving a good level of accessibility and nowhere near universal design.
But while we're at it, let's remind ourselves about what Part M says about approaches to dwellings;

"The dwelling should be designed, within the overall constraints of space, so that
the difference in level between the entrance to the dwelling and the dwelling
plots point of access is minimised. A level approach route accommodates the
widest range of abilities. For the purpose of this guidance document a gradient of
1:50 or less steep is considered to be level. "

"Where site gradients do not allow a level access route, the flattest gradient
achievable should be used. Access routes of 1:20 or less steep are preferred."

Which is exactly what I suggested - that the level difference should have been designed out, rather than being addressed with steps and a poxy right angle ramp, which as @perigrinus points out, is far from ideal.

I've no idea what the point about the owners being 'fully aware' is supposed to mean. None of us have any idea about the awareness of the owners of this level of details. It's fair bet that the owners didn't have a professional understanding of the risks of steps and the benefits of universal design, the kind of understanding that you'd expect from a leading architect like Bannon.
Designing for the current mobility needs of the owners is absolutely unprofessional. He should have been designing for the lifetime needs of the owners, which given their age, should have involved designing out steps where possible.

Your crusade FOR unnecessary steps-and-ramps is weird. Very weird.

Hahaaaaaahaaaaaaa - you crack me up. Thanks for letting me know that I was run out, because I didn't notice being run out at all at all.

Thanks for all that rent-free space in your head.

Except that he hasn't. He's provided a narrow ramp with no handrail that requires a right angle turn.

Has anyone got any actual reason to explain why a stepped entrance is better than level access, contradicting Part M?

Time to step over this and move on😎

Come on, let's not ramp up tensions any further on this.

Apologies, this thread has just recently gone on quite the downward slope.

None of us have any idea about the awareness of the owners of this level of details. It's fair bet that the owners didn't have a professional understanding of the risks of steps and the benefits of universal design, the kind of understanding that you'd expect from a leading architect like Bannon.

"None of us has any idea about what they're thinking, but I'm gonna go ahead and make a huge assumption about their 'professional understanding of the risk of steps", whatever the fcuk that means, and use it to bolster my argument"

Really?

You think they had no awareness about the details of something as major as the entire entrance into their new gaff? Why not assume that they went with the steps/ramp combo because of costs, like absolutely everything else on GD?

"hey, Mr. homeowner, we can completely transform the ground outside into a wide, gradually sloped hill that is 15' long and 10m wide for a total of €30k, or I can install 3 steps and a ramp for €5k……..whaddya think?"

Are you seriously suggesting that the additional work to raise the level of the approach by the height of two steps is €30k?

Did you build the bike shed in the Dail, by any chance?

That's not very clear in parts. The first line you literally just repeated what I said. Formatting helps.

No one said 'part M min requirements are optimal' but people did say 'He’s also designed the approach in compliance with the regulations so it appears your beef is now with the architect since your original quibble was incorrect.' and 'Regulations require sloped access for people with additional needs, but do not restrict teh use of steps (actually they allow steps over sloped access in certain circumstances)' - indicating that Part M compliance is the ultimate target rather than a minimum baseline.

Well, you said "let's not consider Part M a good standard". Part M requirements are not necessarily optimal (no regulation standard is optimal), but it is not a not a bad or poor standard by any means. The fact is the vast majority of building predate part M, therefore complying with part M is exceeding that. It's like saying Part L is a poor standard because passive houses exist.

The last line is nonsense. Nobody indicated part M is the ultimate target. Complete strawman.
They said design is in compliance. It is. You claimed otherwise, you were wrong.

I didn't say anything about compliance of this design with Part M. I did point the VERY CLEAR preference in Part M for level access, and that steps/ramp should be used only when necessary due to constraints of space.

That's not true. You previously claimed that exact designed was non compliant the last time you link to it. I proved you wrong, seems like you finally recognised that.

The line in bold highlights your lack of experience and understanding of Part M.
You are confusing the approach to a dwelling, and the entrance of a dwelling. A level entry is required. A ramp to a landing qualifies as a level entry (I believe I explained that to you previously).

The part of quoted above refers to the approach, which as per your quote, is from the point of plot access to the doorway - in other words, the driveway. It's clearly a very slopped site. The approach from the entry is far from ideal. May not completely comply, but concession has to be made for topography.

This is my key point (that a few people seem to want to deny) - that a completely level approach is better. That a narrow ramp with no handrail and right angle turn is far from equivalent to level access.

The fact its not optimal. Does not make it non compliant.

I'd be interested to hear more about the potential impacts beyond Part M that you mention, in the context of a greenfield site like this.

Surely you can figure out the impacts of making the driveway steeper to meet the floor level. And also the impact of dropping the entire FFL to meet the driveway. It's kinda of obvious