I need to put a cat flap through a wall into the garage.

It’s from a dining room. I think a full size human door would need to be FD30 (fire resistant 30 minutes) but it seems any aperture should also be FD30 or better.

Suspicions further fueled by the discovery of an FD30 adaptor for Staywell flaps that creates a smoke seal, but it’s £50 plus the cat flap!

So, do I need it, and if I do, should I bother?

(I even found FD30 bat friendly doors for your loft/soffits!)

Planning on having a fire? Smoke and heat detectors tested and working?

Roll the dice and see what happens or abide by the regulations.

But is it a requirement? I can see why it would be for a fire door into a communal hallway, but anyone know the regs for a private dwelling?

Doesn’t the garage floor have to be lower than the dwelling too?

Garages. A confined space where people start fume emitting vehicles full of combustible product.

That is why. You sure it’s a garage and not just an integral shed 😉

Yes it is a requirement. These days garage floor can be laid to fall away from any door/ aperture rather than needing 100mm threshold but assuming that’s not the case in your existing garage, you should set the flapl 100mm above garage slab level.

Are you planning on selling soon?
Is the hole easily “fillable” should you choose to do so?
Then just do it – who honestly gives a stuff about the regs in their own home.

Your insurance company might be interested if the car catches fire and the house then burns down because you’ve left an unprotected hole in the fire rated wall.

Assuming he actually keeps the car in the garage of course.

Approved Document B – Volume 1.

This deals with the regs for integral garages. I’ve had cause to look at it recently…

My gut feel is that this wouldn’t pass the regs requirement. But I have no expertise – prob worth a quick call to building control at your council and maybe also the fire service.

Is it just me who wonders why someone wants to give their cat free access to their garage?

No, I’m wondering that too…

Is it just me who wonders why someone wants to give their cat free access to their garage?

I’m sure OP has a perfectly good reason. We did the same thing in our last place, it gave the cats access to a litter tray when they were shut in at night*, which kept any stink out of the house, and also allowed them to get to the outside round the back of the house, through a second closeable catflap in a door, away from the busy road out the front.

We sold the house last year, without any problems relating to the cat flap. It was fitted a couple of years before as part of a conversion where building regs inspections were required for removal of a wall and a few other bits and bobs, and nobody questioned the cat flap.

That’s just my personal anecdotal experience, YMMV etc. etc.

*Makes it harder for them to kill the vast numbers of rare species of fluffy rodents and noble birdies that apparently proliferate in suburban gardens and that all cats murder religiously every single day, yes yes I know.

Thanks guys…floor level will be lower as the house has a suspended floor. My main concern is house insurance hence the original question.

Reasons? Cat flap currently in kitchen opening into an enclosed path with 6′ gate one end…

1) Our cats are wimps, Mr. Nasty cat hides nearby and attacks when they come through the flap, resulting in wailing, fights, scabs, bleeding noses and both have now had infected abscesses from cat bites.

2) Kitchen surfaces always covered in muddy footprints and hair as they jump up as soon as we leave the house, also we can’t leave anything out to defrost or cool without locking the cats out, or in, the house, as apparently they are starved. They have learnt to dash out as we serve up dinner as they know they can come and clean everything up whilst we are eating, so the result is they often get locked out.

3) A flap through the wall at the rear of the house will forever leave an ugly scar on the outside if we ever want to remove the cat flap, and the other option is to replace a 7×3 toughened double glazing unit with one with a custom cut cat flap hole in it.

So the solution is, cat flap into garage from dining room, which then will have the existing microchip door out into the garden through a door. Keeps the buggers out of the kitchen permanently which is a huge bonus, Mr Nasty cat can no longer attack in the enclosed path, and currently they get shut in the garage when we have family and friends dogs over, this makes keeping the animals seperated much easier.