As Olly says, I suggest speaking to your local Building Control officer/surveyor in the first instance. They’re ultimately the ones you’ll need to convince, and they should be able to tell you what they’re willing to accept (or not).

The architect’s idea is that by using a smoke reservoir and a misting system, you could eliminate the additional fire door which would need to be at the boundary between the stairs and the kitchen, or the stairs and the first floor.

I’d be wary of any architect suggesting a smoke reservoir as an appropriate solution in a relatively small residential dwelling! Smoke reservoirs are something we put in atriums and shopping centres, not domestic houses.
If you want to rely on this as a compensatory feature, it would need to be backed up with detailed smoke calculations, justification and probably some form of smoke venting too.
My advice would be to stick to the “standard’ guidance if you can.

The fire engineer’s quote is detailed, and seems to only cover inspecting the architect’s plans and providing recommendations. After this, there can be one more review.

Sounds like the £1,700 is just the start then. You then need to factor in further time/fee for the calcs, justification, liaison with Building Control etc if you go down that route.

Some folks are saying that due to the sheer volume of work due to the cladding scandal, it’s difficult to find fire engineers, and prices are high as a result too. I have no idea how true that is.

Yes we are very busy! Its also highly specialist work, and there is a huge shortage of competent fire engineers compared to the demand. Small domestic work like this is not a big priority for most.

I’m considering if we can build to normal regulations and add the smoke reservoir too. Which means, at a later point when things calm down, we could have it reassessed and remove the door and save the costs for paying the assessment right now.

What you do with the door after completion is entirely up to you, and technically you may not need approval to remove it at this point. But this would obviously entirely be at your own risk, and you would potentially be living in a unsafe property unless you put other suitable measures in place.

Hello! Chartered Fire Engineer here.
Would need to look at the plans to comment in detail, but sounds as though the issue might be down to the addition of the loft conversion. Adding an extra storey means that, for Building Regs purposes, you usually need to provide separation between the stair and accommodation.

The logic being that you have further to travel to escape from an attic if there’s a fire in the kitchen, and the stair is the only escape route. Separating the stair from the kitchen therefore protects your means of escape.

If you’re planning on opening up the kitchen/lounge into the stair and adding an extra storey, this would deviate from “standard” guidance (i.e. Approved Document B) and would need a specialist (i.e. a fire engineer) to come up with an fire engineering solution that gives an equivalent or better standard of safety. This then needs to be put to Building Control for approval.

The Fire Engineer will need to review the plans, assist the architect in developing the design, write a justification report for submission for Building Regs approval (including QA, etc), then deal with any comments from Building Control. My firm don’t do much domestic residential work so not sure what the “going rate” would be exactly, but i’d say £1,700 is actually very cheap for all that!

A Fire Engineer can’t usually magic the problem away though (despite what some architects think), and you’d likely need to provide some additional compensatory features such as watermist (or cooker suppression), enhanced fire detection, fire doors etc on top of your £1,700 fee. There is of course also no guarantee that your Building Control officer will accept the solution after all that (they can be very cautious when it comes to fire safety of residential premises, for obvious reasons)

So it might be worth thinking about whether the design “benefit” is really worth it, or if the architect can find a more compliant way.

Feel free to DM me if you want to chat through further. Cheers

Yup! My gf is well into mtb’ing, so much so that she’s giving XC racing a go this year and is training so hard she’s beating me up the hills and keeping up going back down again!

Win win for me…regular riding buddy, forces me to keep fit (otherwise I get my head kicked in), more bikes to tinker with and lots of summer adventures!

Would be nice if she gave me a hand bike washing occasionally though…

So this whole pension malarky… Is it only bad for folk who have been in the service for a while and are transitioning onto the new pension plan? Or bad for newbies too? (sorry i don’t really understand the intricate details of it)

I heard it isn’t so bad in Scotland.

Recruitment freeze until 2021?! Jeez that’s tough. What service are you with, out of interest?

If I did apply, it would be with the scottish service, who I think did a recruitment drive last year. Just trying to get my head round whether I would want to apply/had a chance of getting in if it came round again. And whether it would be better than my secure, reasonably well paid but desk-based (and therefore fairly dull) job.

Lummox you make a fair point though, morale in the service sounds pretty low at the moment by all accounts.

I had a similar pain a while back. Turned out I had my seat slightly too high and given myself tendinitis in the back of my knee from over stretching the tendon every time I turned the pedals. Had to take a month off even after I’d fixed the seat height to let it heal. Bloody tendons!!

But yes, go see a physio. They’ll get to the bottom of it

Yeah budday! Im an OMM newbie doing the Long Score with my old man (he’s done loads). No idea what I’ve let myself in for…!

Only the start/finish and a couple of techy sections are ticketed. The rest is free entry. There are plans for an unofficial scotland supporters party by the tunnel I believe!

I’ll be there to watch my girlfriend’s sister compete. Be sure to give Kerry MacPhee a cheer!

Munrobiker you guys were awesome! Got a massive cheer from you as I came round for my ‘extra’ lap. It was much needed!

2nd place in mixed pairs + 3hr drive home and struggling to even roll over in bed this morning. The ‘extra’ lap at the end seemed like a good idea at the time…

Cracking course and loved the dancing girl up the hill!

I often head over to South Uist (mrs is from there) and leave my car in the Aldi car park just behind Tesco’s. Left it there for almost a week and its been fine.

Rock and Road Cycles in Bridge of Allan, near Stirling. Small but mighty!

Cheers for the replies gang. Seriously impressed with those of you who have had different continent relationships…! We’ll get by, it’s been pretty much a weekend-only plus holidays relationship for a year or so now and we’re stronger than ever from it. We keep hatching grand plans for when we finally do move in together and really hoped it would be soon, but we’ll just have to keep waiting for now.

Totally agree with the suggestions of not busting a gut to see each other every weekend. Every other weekend seems to strike the right balance between getting on with life and keeping the relationship going at the moment

Anybody else watch Restoration Man? I find it much more appealing(/less pretentious) than Grand Designs these days…

Anybody got any ‘favourite’ trails in that area? xc or dh!

Cheers guys. Looking at the map there are a few red/black xc trails at Alpe, does anyone know what these are like? Worth doing or better just sticking to the dh stuff?

Awesome, some good advice and links cheers guys n gals. Sounds like buying one then selling it on after is the way to go, unfortunately I dont have enough pennies in the bank to be able to buy one outright though :(

Could hire once we’re down there to keep costs down, does anyone have any good contacts in franceland for camper hire?

Yeah, camping is another option.

Just trying to get my head round campervans/motorhomes as it would be cool to be able to travel round easily and be self sustaining. Just park halfway up alpe d’huez a few days before and bobs your uncle…mtb bliss on your doorstep and a ringside seat to the queen tour stage!