Garage & fire doors?

[yesfan]

I have an integral garage that is used pretty much as an additional room for storage/office/gym etc. Its not particularly warm in there this time of year so I wanted to insulate it a bit.

As a temporary measure, I want to board over the up and over garage door and insulate the cavity. The door is very rarely used.

Is the up and over door classed as a fire escape route?

There is a self closing fire door adjoining the house and there are two other escape routes.

 

[^woody^]

A garage door is a garage door and not an escape door, as a garage does not need one in that sense.

If you are using the garage as a room, then it needs an escape route direct to outside, or to a hall way which leads to an external door. ie not an exit through a room

If you are not covering the garage properly via building regs, then I can't see why you are worried by escape routes

 

[yesfan]

Thanks for the reply. Access from the garage into the house is via a door into the kitchen, this room has no other exit to outside, but the garage door and kitchen exit (no door) are right next to each other which then join the hallway and front door exit.

Only concerns regarding the up and over being a potential fire escape route, are; if I board it up, will insurance company use that as an excuse not to pay in the event that I may need to claim for something, i.e. fire. It currently could be used as an exit if the others were not accessible, will be too risky to block it off?

If it was a permanent change then it would probably have a door or easy exit window of some kind. Maybe its not such a good idea lol

 

[^woody^]

Yes, you are altering the use of the property and altering the risk in which your policy was based