Rooms Size

[Moggaman]

Hi

I have designed my own home and the ONLY issue I keep coming back to is the size of 2 of the 3 bedrooms upstairs.

I want to have myself/wife and our 2 kids in 3 rooms upstairs - keeping that as the sleeping area of the house.

The footprint of this build is externally 12.5m x 9.2m (350mm external walls).

Upstairs, rooflights provide the main source of light to the rooms on a 33 degree pitch. The ridge height is at 6.5m and that is the limit.

So the overall size of both rooms is 3.65m x 4.0m. Sounds ok but a fair chunk of the 3.65m is a sloping roof. I don't want 'big' bedroom.. I just want enough. I also will have 2 No. 800mm wide rooflights in each room which give extra head height to across approximately 50% of the room width?

Kids may have single beds but in our current house they are in doubles so I need to assume that they may want doubles in the new also.

What do ye think?. Thanks

 

Moggaman.

RoomSize.pdf

[Oz07]

Got a similar height at one side of my eaves. 1200mm. Works well for a desk then also have bath along this wall as you propose. Seems to work fine but where you position your beds will be important and think about wardrobes

[Moonshine]

On thing you may need to think about for the planning stage is the subsequent building regs.

I think the bottom of one of those roof lights in a room need to be a max of 1.1m off the ground for build regs (I will need to check). Also it needs to be a minimum size for an escape path.

 

[Ferdinand]

You will get a lot of varying opinions on this.

 

According to an imaginary estate agent, who I think use the govt guidelines, height over 1.5m counts unless they attach some extra weasel words,  I make that room 3.65 * 2.75-ish metres.

 

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measuring-practice-for-voa-property-valuations/code-of-measuring-practice-definitions-for-rating-purposes

 

That surprised me as those dimensions make 10sqm+ which is quite generous for a single bedroom. So it may be fine,

 

The Building Regs potential issue is correct ... needs checking in detail, though I doubt that a roof window counts as escape unless it is within x of the edge of the roof and y of the ground or similar. You may not need one as they are not inner rooms, unless you have a compromised main escape route. IMO the way to fix that would be slightly to widen your slit windows and make them opening.

 

I think there may be potential to eke out a bit if extra .. say from 4m to 4.3m or on the other dimension; that would be worth it if no major compromises are required. that would then allow a whole wall of storage or other clever design.

 

What happens if you change your roof angle to 27.5 or 30 degrees not 33? I think that will give you a lot of extra height at the low end. I make it that at 30 degrees you gain something like very roughly 200mm in height at the end, which makes the area of 1.5m height about 12-15% larger.

 

I would also see what it looks like with a different illustrative layout.

 

Why not involve your children ... eg mark out the new size on their current Bedrooms and move all the existing furniture inside the line to find out?

 

Ferdinand

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Thedreamer]

Don't know if this would be a planning issue but could you put in for double dormers instead of two front veluxs?

 

Would make two of the bedrooms bigger, for the last single bedroom perhaps then reconfigure the hot press/wc & shower space slightly?

 

We also have a room in the roof design, but decided to just have one bedroom in the gable ends. 

[Russell griffiths]

Where are you measuring your 6.5 m ridge from 

is it from finished floor down stairs or external ground level 

will make a big difference 

if from FFL then that looks loads to get an increase in room height with a low pitch roof. 

What am I missing. 

[Ferdinand]

I think 2 other space-feeling improvements would be

 

1 - Put the entrance to the bathroom where the shower cubicle is, at 45 degrees, with a Larger shower.

2 - Does the plant room really need to be that large? I would prefer a wider, shallower, staircase. Even 150mm and 37 not 42 degrees would be significant.

 

F

Edited March 1, 2019 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

I think as mentioned it will be hard / impossible to satisfy building regs means  of escape, it certainly would be in Scotland.

 

Our house is 1 1/2 storey and I "enlarged" the upstairs space by adding "gable ends"  A sort of variation on a dormer that is more common on the West Coast.

 

Here are a couple of pictures

 

 

 

It does not add anything to the overall height, but it gives a LOT more usable headroom and ensures all bedrooms have a proper window on an upright wall with only the en-suite having a roof window as it's only window.

 

I have to ask though, as you are clearly working with a restricted ridge height, why waste height by having a 2.5M height downstairs when the standard 2.4 would be fine?

[Ed Davies]

4 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

The Building Regs potential issue is correct ... needs checking in detail, though I doubt that a roof window counts as escape unless it is within x of the edge of the roof and y of the ground or similar.

 

BC here (Highlands) were happy with roof windows (top-hung Velux) as means of escape in my bedrooms. Ground floor (it's an A-frame) but at least shows that it's not, in principle, a no go. Remember that the primary size requirements for means-of-escape windows is not that somebody inside can climb out but that a fire fighter in breathing apparatus can climb in.

[Thedreamer]

Probably not ideal but I believe you can create a wee step for gaining access to a velux if it is higher, not done on my build, but it was suggested at some point.

 

[ProDave]

3 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

Probably not ideal but I believe you can create a wee step for gaining access to a velux if it is higher, not done on my build, but it was suggested at some point.

 

I worked on a loft conversion where the window cill height was slightly too high and BC made them install a 1" high fixed step in front of the window before they would issue a completion certificate.

 

I suspect that step is not there any more.

[Thedreamer]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

I worked on a loft conversion where the window cill height was slightly too high and BC made them install a 1" high fixed step in front of the window before they would issue a completion certificate.

 

I suspect that step is not there any more.

Yes that sounds about right .....

 

It's really obvious but you wouldn't want to make the mistake of going with a centre pivot rather than top hung. I would imagine somebody has done that before or perhaps received the wrong window type in error and not checked before fitting.

 

Velux are terrible for returns.

[Ed Davies]

9 minutes ago, Thedreamer said:

It's really obvious but you wouldn't want to make the mistake of going with a centre pivot rather than top hung.

 

I've got a centre pivot in the gable end wall. It's not the means-of-escape window for that room so it doesn't matter but I measured it up the other day and it does, just, comply (> 450 mm each way and >0.33 m² - the opening below the sash with the sash horizontal is well over 450 wide, just over in height and about 0.036something in area).

[Thedreamer]

2 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

 

I've got a centre pivot in the gable end wall. It's not the means-of-escape window for that room so it doesn't matter but I measured it up the other day and it does, just, comply (> 450 mm each way and >0.33 m² - the opening below the sash with the sash horizontal is well over 450 wide, just over in height and about 0.036something in area).

 

What size is that CP? Would you need a PK rather than MK size for that to work?

 

There is obviously a cut off for a standard that must be met for fire escape, but you probably wouldn't want any extra obstacles if going in or going out of the window.

[Ferdinand]

@Moggaman

 

Reminder: don't get bogged down on ultra-details of roof windows *until* you know it is an issue - check first. We usually debate precise understandings which may be slightly off topic for the OP.

 

The sort of thing that will make it an issue is if your escape route from upstairs is not compartmentalised from the habitable rooms downstairs, or those where a fire could start.

 

F

 

Edited March 1, 2019 by Ferdinand

[Ed Davies]

6 hours ago, Thedreamer said:

What size is that CP? 

MK08 mounted vertically - it's my only vertical window, the other 6 in house will all be roof windows so I thought I might as well get them all from the same source. And I wouldn't really like to have to escape through it with the glass so close above followed by quite a drop to the ground. Would much prefer the nominal escape MK08 top-hung I'll have in the south roof of that room. But it's nice to know it's possible as I'll have PK08 centre pivots in the main rooms.

 

But, as @Ferdinand says, this all beside the point for the OP's actual problem.

[Moggaman]

On 01/03/2019 at 07:56, Ferdinand said:

I think 2 other space-feeling improvements would be

 

1 - Put the entrance to the bathroom where the shower cubicle is, at 45 degrees, with a Larger shower.

2 - Does the plant room really need to be that large? I would prefer a wider, shallower, staircase. Even 150mm and 37 not 42 degrees would be significant.

 

F

Thanks for your observations. Think i may take some of them onboard. Kids dont know we are going anywhere...yet..widening the stairs reduces the hallway below to an unacceptable level.

i have change to a 45 degree entrance at the bathroom

[Moggaman]

On 01/03/2019 at 08:47, ProDave said:

I think as mentioned it will be hard / impossible to satisfy building regs means  of escape, it certainly would be in Scotland.

 

Our house is 1 1/2 storey and I "enlarged" the upstairs space by adding "gable ends"  A sort of variation on a dormer that is more common on the West Coast.

 

Here are a couple of pictures

 

 

 

It does not add anything to the overall height, but it gives a LOT more usable headroom and ensures all bedrooms have a proper window on an upright wall with only the en-suite having a roof window as it's only window.

 

I have to ask though, as you are clearly working with a restricted ridge height, why waste height by having a 2.5M height downstairs when the standard 2.4 would be fine?

I have changed downstairs to 2.4m ...good point

 

[Moggaman]

Thanks for your obs. Fire Escape is not an issue. There is a side hinged window in each bedroom that meets guidelines

 

[Moggaman]

On 01/03/2019 at 07:43, Thedreamer said:

Don't know if this would be a planning issue but could you put in for double dormers instead of two front veluxs?

 

Would make two of the bedrooms bigger, for the last single bedroom perhaps then reconfigure the hot press/wc & shower space slightly?

 

We also have a room in the roof design, but decided to just have one bedroom in the gable ends. 

We really dont like dormers!!