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Big can of worms, but we did what you are suggesting, retrospective BC sign off (with added issue of freehold and necessary retrospective permission from Hackney as well).
But BC rules had changed a lot and what may have been a cheap fix 10 years ago ended up being an expensive sprinkler system, fire doors etc. So if you can adapt plan to pass regs and then just take a fire door off onec they leave it may be a lot cheaper.
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I believe that to obtain building regs sign off, I would need to be able to isolate the kitchen with a fire door.
Are you sure? I thought the issue was escape routes, do your stairs come down into the dining room? (Although I might be a few years out of date there.)
Maybe worth a bit of a chat with a third party building regs company.
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Yeah, what @Ramsaye said, it's the stairs that matter. When we had the loft done in our last place we had to had to isolate the stairs or get a misting system (as the stairs went straight into the living room.)
We went with the misting system ad there wasn't really anyway to isolate the stairs without losimg too much space. We only needed one head as the kitchen diner was seperate, cost was about 1500 all in (about a grand for the system and 500 for plumbing and electrics) . Neighbour a few doors down had the same done a bit later but he'd completey opened up the downstairs so needed 2 misting heads think you're looking at a extra 500 for each extra head.
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This is the relevant part of the regs.
How many storeys does your house have? If only one above ground, and windows are ≤ 4.5m from the external ground then there is no need for a protected staircase/means of escape.
If you have more than one storey (including convereted loftspace) then you'll need to provide a protected means of escape. Ways around this (throwing money to a fire engineer to design a sprinkler system) should you wish/have the means.
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I had the same done and the door is a basic bitch on a sliding rail.
Ours got signed.
We didn't do structural calcs either, the builder pulled down some plasterboard and checked the beams then called building control to discuss. The benefits of a builder with a good relationship?
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@ReekBlefs
Alright all. I'm getting a builder to knock down a wall between the kitchen and the dining room to create a kitchen diner, in a freehold house. I've got a structural engineer to do the calcuations and design, and I have a builder ready to go.
I believe that to obtain building regs sign off, I would need to be able to isolate the kitchen with a fire door. If that's correct, I won't be able to obtain building regs sign off, because the design as is won't allow it - it's an open space.
But if in 10 years time I wanted to obtain building regs sign off by re-designing and installing a new fire door etc - would it possible for me to do this using historic pics of the work as evidence it was done right? Or should I just give up on the idea of ever getting building regs work approval for it?