text: As you will see from my schematics I want to remove some walls in my house to open up the space and create an open plan kitchen/diner living room. I would like to remove the dividing wall (inserting supporting beam as required) between kitchen and living room including the doorways into each room. This leaves the hallway completely exposed to the now open plan area. Under the stairs in the hallway is a WC. Fully vented with hand basin. I’ve been told by the guy doing my drawings that I need two doors between WC and habitable spaces. Some preliminary investigations online by me seems to suggest the two door rule is no longer in force, however, I am in Scotland where the technical handbook says
  “There should be a door separating a space containing a WC, or waterless closet, from a room or space used for the preparation or consumption of food, such as a kitchen or dining room.”
  My interpretation of that paragraph is, in my case, the space is the area under the stairs where the WC is situated and the door is the one directly used to access the WC.
  Is my interpretation correct or does it mean I need another door separating the wc from the open plan space?
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  PRO
  OnePlan
  last month
  Aside from the loo question - opening up the stairs can be a bad move as far a fire safety is concerned, even more so if you have more than two floors in your home. So from a safety stance I’d suggest you keep the hallway separate from the rest of the open plan space.
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  Scott Douglas
  Original Author
  last month
  Hi and thanks for the response. There is only one floor accessed via the stairs. All rooms have windows that can be fully opened and use to escape if necessary. We wanted to open everything up and use the space better. Rightly or wrongly we never have the doors closed to the kitchen or living room so we thought we might as well just get rid of them. I appreciate what you are saying regarding fire safety. With regard to the interpretation of the building regs. What is your opinion with regard to the two door situation. If I need to have another door then the hallway will have to remain in place anyway or I need to move the toilet somewhere else which in reality might kill the whole idea.
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  PRO
  OnePlan
  last month
  its the interpretation of the local authority that matters to be honest. a quick call to them should give you their answer. It could be read both ways - so simply ask for clarity.
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  Scott Douglas
  Original Author
  last month
  I tried that, all they did was give me the paragraph from the building regs so I still don’t know what their interpretation is. I’m of a mind to just get the drawings done and submit with a view to asking for dispensation to allow as it’s an existing WC. Alternatively I could just remove it.
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