Large Downstairs WC or Separate Plant Room??

[le-cerveau]

Remember the Building Regulations are guidelines only and not enforceable statutes.

M4(1). Reasonable provision should be made for people to—

(a) gain access to; and

(b) use, the dwelling and its facilities.

 

So it is reasonable and should (not shall).

 

WC facilities

1.17 To enable easy access to a WC, a dwelling should comply with all of the following.

a. A room (which may be a WC/cloakroom or a bathroom) containing a WC is provided on the entrance storey or, where there are no habitable rooms on the entrance storey, on the principal storey or the entrance storey.

b. There is clear space to access the WC in accordance with Diagram 1.3.

c. Any basin is positioned to avoid impeding access.

d. The door to the room opens outwards and has a clear opening width in accordance with Table 1.1.

 

Again it says should.

 

The issue is your door if opening inwards would impinge the 750mm clear space so it would be difficult to argue for it.

 

However, if the toilet was on the left side or corner and the shower a wet room so you could use that as part of the 750mm access you probably could argue that the door did not impinge on the 750mm access and therefore you have made reasonable provision.

[Barney12]

9 minutes ago, le-cerveau said:

Remember the Building Regulations are guidelines only and not enforceable statutes.

 

So are you saying that if you don't want to comply precisely with building regulations you can simply tell your inspector "no i'm not doing that" ???

[ProDave]

Looking at that "diagram 1.4" is seems clear that the doors open outwards so as not to swing over the "activity space"

 

Yours is very tight. you only have .75 from the edge of the "activity space" to the wall so in all probability your door would swing over the activity space if hinged inwards.

 

But it won't take much to make it so an inward door does not cross the activity space. How about a back to the wall wc with a slimline hidden cistern that you may be able to partly recess into the wall and choose a particularly small toilet. That might nudge your .75 metre clearance for the door up enough to make an inward opening for work.

 

your regs seem to be the same as here in that a basin is allowed to partly overhang the activity space.

[le-cerveau]

53 minutes ago, Barney12 said:

 

So are you saying that if you don't want to comply precisely with building regulations you can simply tell your inspector "no i'm not doing that" ???

 

Yes, if you are prepared to stand your ground, the building regs are not legally enforceable!  the statute (legal bit) is M4(1) which states Reasonable (a word that is imprecise and open to interpretation) and should (ie please do it but if you don't there is not a lot I can do), if it said shall then that is an absolute in law.

[Ferdinand]

Corner loo. Whb between loo and shower. Inward opening door.

[AliG]

EDIT - What I posted wouldn't work due to the requirement to have the WC centre 400/450mm from the wall.

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2016 by AliG

[TerryE]

Just how often are you actually going to go into your plant room?  Our house layout is a somewhat different design to yours, but we are putting our MVHR up in our warm loft storeroom, but our SunAmps, etc are going on the grounds floor.  Our approach is to have a small ~1000×1400mm downstairs toilet with our G/F plant in a footprint attached to this extending the room by 800×1400.  The SunAmps, buffer tank, manifolds, etc are behind a quick release removable partition panel which accessible through the toilet on one wall.  

Edited September 4, 2016 by TerryE

[Barney12]

9 hours ago, TerryE said:

Just how often are you actually going to go into your plant room?  Our house layout is a somewhat different design to yours, but we are putting out MVHR up in our warm loft storeroom, but our SunAmps, etc are going on the grounds floor.  Our approach is to have a small ~1000×1400mm downstairs toilet with our G/F plant in a footprint attached to this extending the room by 800×1400.  The SunAmps, buffer tank, manifolds, etc are behind a quick release removable partition panel accessible through the toilet on one wall.  

 

That sounds like a good solution. Funnily enough I was only looking last night to see if I could get our MVHR in the warm roof section of our house. Because we have some vaulted areas its quite small but is much more central than the proposed plant room which is in the East corner. 

Edited September 4, 2016 by Barney12

[TerryE]

@Barney12, sorry for the Androidisms when swyping.

 

As far as the MVHR is concerned, you really want to get your manifold plenums as central as possible as this greatly simplifies routing the pipework, and makes it easier to balance the system. We have our MVHR unit itself about 3m away tucked under the eave in our storeroom and the inlet and outlet on a gable another couple of metres away.

 

We are also going for SunAmp rather than a TS, which also helps with our footprint.

Edited September 4, 2016 by TerryE

[Stones]

19 hours ago, TerryE said:

Just how often are you actually going to go into your plant room?  

 

That's the reasoning I used, Why worry about locating something you only need access to every 6 months or so where it takes up useable space.  Consequently, my MVHR is up in a section of loftspace, centrally located right next to the duct distribution boxes.  This has freed up space in a large cupboard which means we can locate our DHW cylinder in a more central location.

[ProDave]

If putting an mvhr in the loft, do check access. I am working on a house where the loft is tiny (room in roof). The mvhr JUST fits. There is 1" clearance each side to get the side panels off to change the filters, and it's impossible to get passed it in the loft, so he has to have a loft hatch each side of it.