Can a Door Open Directly From Bathroom to Kitchen?

Q.

My friend has an outhouse attached to her house and is currently in the process of knocking a hole through the kitchen wall direct to the outhouse and turning this into a toilet/bathroom.

This will mean that when finished she can open one door from the kitchen directly into the bathroom. Are there not health and hygiene regulations that state two doors should be between the kitchen and the new bathroom?

A.

As with so many questions about house conversions, the answer is yes, no, 'it depends' and 'you'll have to ask'. It's impossible to give a definitive answer to a specific situation but we can certainly give guidelines.

Health, Hygiene and Extensions

Firstly there aren't really any health or hygiene regulations that are applied to houses and extension builds. There is a section on hygiene aspect in the building regulations though.

It does seem that in the past this section of the building regulations made it necessary to have two doors in between a kitchen and a toilet. But although it's quite easy to discover what the current building regulations are, it's not as easy to discover what they used to be.

Two Doors No Longer Appear Necessary

Certainly some experts believe that this was dictated in building regulations but has now been relaxed, and others think that it was an interpretation of building regulations that was incorrect, and today's interpretation is different.

Either way, it means that your friend now has a chance of doing what she wants without having to somehow work it so that there are two doors between the kitchen and bathroom with toilet. As long as there is a basin where people can wash their hands before returning to the kitchen then one door is sufficient. If there's no toilet in the new bathroom then it would be more likely to be approved with only one door.

Building Control Application

The not so good news, although it's not a deal-breaker, is that your friend must go to her regional authority to get building control approval regardless of the way she wants to do it. This is because moving a bathroom and the installation of a toilet are both jobs that require building control approval, whether or not there are two doors or one between the new bathroom and the kitchen.

So the answer at the end of all that is that your friend probably can do what she wants but she will have to discuss it with building control and get approval. She can find out more about making applications under building regulations on this site.