Question:
I have recently bought my first house and the only drawback with the one I chose is that
there is no internal door into the garage, only the external up and over door which is a
real pain when all I want to do is fetch a beer.
My solution is to knock through a doorway from the kitchen (bit drastic just to fetch a
beer I hear you cry...) there is room for it.
Has anybody any advice as to how to go about it, Ive been looking for web resources on the
subject but there are surprisingly few about.
I also need to know about any regulations which should be adhered to for such a door, ie.
I believe that it would have to be fire-proof, self closing etc...
Many thanks in advance....
Answer:
-I don't know about any regulations, but we had a
door knocked through into the garage. Yes, it is
(I think) called a Class 1 Fire Door, and does
have non-adjustable self-closing thingie. Note that
a fire door is much wider than an ordinary door.
Useful things;
Your insurance company will insist that your Garadoor
has some serious bolts and padlocks added to it. If
you don't bother with that it will almost certainly
make your insurance void.
Don't cut the aperture with a disk cutter, the amount
of dust to clean up is unbelievable.
-1. Go to your local council's Building Control and fill in a Building
Notice.
2. Provide a lintel over the new opening.
3. There needs to be either a) at least 100mm step down into the garage, or
b) a 100mm high non combustible threshold between the kitchen and the garage
(tiles on a brick course is a good way to achieve this).
4. The door between the two should be a FD30 fire door (with a self closing
device and an intumescent strip).
-Garage doors are a swine to ' properly ' secure and keep it convenient to
use, if you are not too worried about the contents of your garage (which you
should be really) even if you do secure the garage door then you should
still beef up the conecting door to the house, I see lots of such doors with
crap locks on them, the standard up and over garage door is easily defeated
and an insecure connecting door is just a godsend to the thief, you should
ensure that is has at least one preferably two five lever BS3621 deadlocks
and good hinge bolts on it. And even that may not keep him out, when you
consider that he can attack that door in peace, hidden from sight and out of
the rain etc..
