Browse Forums Building Standards; Getting It Right! 1 Oct 20, 2011 8:45 am Hi I wish to lift my timber cottage in the Richmond Valley Council, NSW and create a selfcontained apartment below, both for personal use and also to rent. The existing house above would also be rented independently. I spoke to an architect who raised concerns about fire proofing.... wanted to put a suspended slab between, so then suggested cost blow out and so recommended tear down cottage and start again. He identified how to fireproof ceiling however, he was concerned about preventing an upstairs fire impacted on downstairs. I have tried to establish this with council building inspector, however, they referred me to BSA.. any comments would be appreciated Penny Re: fire separation for downstairs unit timber cottage lift 2Oct 20, 2011 5:37 pm penny232 Hi I wish to lift my timber cottage in the Richmond Valley Council, NSW and create a selfcontained apartment below, both for personal use and also to rent. The existing house above would also be rented independently. I spoke to an architect who raised concerns about fire proofing.... wanted to put a suspended slab between, so then suggested cost blow out and so recommended tear down cottage and start again. He identified how to fireproof ceiling however, he was concerned about preventing an upstairs fire impacted on downstairs. I have tried to establish this with council building inspector, however, they referred me to BSA.. any comments would be appreciated Penny That's a bit interesting Penny the BSA is a Queensland state government building authority. Think the guy might be a little lost as to which state he works in hehe. Basically what you are describing is a two Class 1a buildings (dwellings) ontop of each other. This effectively means the dwellings can't be considered class 1a anyone because there are two conditions to be considered class 1a; - detached dwelling - two of more dwellings attached by a fire wall (ie townhouse etc) Implications of this being you are proposing two or more dwellings attached by a common roof/floor, not a common wall. This means they are considered units and as such the building becomes a class 2 structure (two or more sole-occupancy units each being a separate dwelling). This changes everything regarding the requirements of the Building Code of Australia and sorry to say but your cost of works just went up. Re: fire separation for downstairs unit timber cottage lift 3Dec 04, 2011 2:41 pm I think you mean BCA - Building Code of Australia not BSA. I think from memory you need 60/30/60 which means 60 minutes radiant/30 minutes frame and 30 minutes radiant again or something like that ( my memory is pretty hazy on fire regs ) I'd pay a visit to your local council and ask them for some advice. They'd have a better idea of the specs and requirements. Stewie Hi All New to the forum and looking for some advice, has anyone else renovated an old miners cottage in or around Ballarat and been able to identify the flooring? We… 0 8828 We are tossing up between a Jarrahdale radiant wood fire (the Pioneer) and a convection wood fire (Innovator or Countryman) but cannot decide on which type of wood fire is… 0 5311 Need some advice. Living in a townhouse with one common wall, recently we have discovered that the fire separation wall is incomplete and on further investigation, support… 0 3882 |