Upper Floor Access Questions Checklist

Walk from the building entrance to your own door and note every door width, turn, landing and step on the way, in the order they occur.

The order matters, because a tight turn immediately after a narrow door is a far harder problem than either one on its own.

Measure the tightest turn on the stair in rough terms rather than the width of the flight, since the turn is what governs long items.

Flights are usually generous and half-landings rarely are, so the width of the stair itself tells you very little.

Note the headroom under each landing, the position of handrails, and anything projecting into the stair such as a riser cupboard, meter or light fitting.

Projections into a stairwell are what long items catch on, and they are invisible in any photograph taken from the bottom.

Record whether the entrance has a controlled door, a threshold, a step or a self-closing door that somebody would need to hold open.

Ask the building manager what may and may not be held open. A door in a shared building may serve a purpose you cannot judge by looking at it.

Note the floor finish through the shared parts, including any carpet, tiling, timber or stone that would show marks from repeated traffic.

Shared floor finishes are replaced as a whole rather than in patches, so damage to them becomes a disproportionate problem.

Photograph the whole shared route before anything is carried through it, including the entrance, the stair and each landing, and keep the images dated.

In a shared building the condition of communal parts is contested more often than anything inside the flat itself.

Ask the building manager what rules apply to using the lift for materials and waste, and get the answer in writing rather than in conversation.

Confirm lift use with the building manager or managing agent. Nothing here states what is permitted in your building.

Note the internal size of the lift car and of its door opening in rough terms, and compare that against the longest item the work depends on.

A car that comfortably holds people may still refuse a length of board, and the door opening is usually the tighter of the two.

Ask whether a protective lining is required for the lift, who provides it, and who fits and removes it each time.

Lift protection is commonly required and rarely arranged in advance, so it surfaces on the morning of the first delivery.

Record what happens to the arrangement if the lift is out of service, since that possibility has to be planned for rather than hoped against.

Lifts in older buildings go out of service without notice, and a plan that only works with a lift is a plan with no fallback.

Ask whether other residents have priority over the lift at certain times, and how a conflict over it is expected to be handled.

Friction in shared buildings during works often starts at the lift, and an agreed rule heads off a good deal of it.

Note whether the lift reaches the level you need, or whether a flight of stairs remains at one end or the other.

A remaining flight means every item is handled twice, which affects what can realistically come up at all.

List the items that will not turn on the stair, including a bath, sheet boards, a beam, a glazed unit or long lengths of timber.

This is a short list on most projects, and every entry on it needs an answer before anything is chosen.

Ask whether anything can be supplied in shorter lengths or in sections that are assembled inside the room instead.

Sectional supply solves most upper-floor access problems, but it usually has to be asked for rather than offered.

Treat any suggestion of bringing material in through a window or over a balcony as a question for qualified professionals rather than a plan.

Moving material through an opening or over a balcony above ground level is a specialist matter for qualified professionals to assess.

Ask what would be involved in moving an item over a balustrade or up through a stairwell void, and who else would have to agree to it.

Anything passing over a balustrade or through a shared stairwell needs both professional advice and the agreement of the building manager.

Record which existing items have to leave by the same route, including anything that was in place before a partition or doorway was altered.

Removal is where the access problem usually appears, because nobody checked how the old bath or boiler arrived in the first place.

Note the point at which an item stops being a carrying problem and becomes a specialist lifting question, and ask about it early.

Specialist lifting arrangements need organising well ahead, and discovering the need late usually stops everything.

Note how many households use the same entrance, stair or corridor, and at what times of day those parts are busiest.

Timing deliveries away from the busiest periods removes most of the friction before it starts.

Ask the building manager what notice other residents expect before work starts, and agree who is responsible for actually giving it.

Notice given by the owner personally lands very differently from a notice pinned up by somebody nobody recognises.

Record whether the entrance can be left unattended while material is carried in, and how security is maintained if it cannot.

Ask the building manager how entrance security is to be maintained. Holding a controlled door open may breach arrangements you are not party to.

Note where deliveries can stand outside the building without blocking the entrance, a fire route or another resident's parking.

Confirm with the building manager and the relevant authority where a vehicle may stand; nothing here states what is permitted outside your building.

Ask whether any part of the shared area may be used for temporary storage, and record the answer rather than assuming a landing is available.

Material left standing on a landing is something other households in a shared building tend to raise quickly.

Write down who other residents should contact about disturbance, and check that the person named is actually reachable during working hours.

A named contact who answers prevents most complaints from escalating to the managing agent or the freeholder.

Establish how the roof or loft is reached in your building, and whether that access is inside your property or in a shared part.

In many buildings the roof void is shared or is not the flat owner's at all, which changes who can plan work there.

Note the size of the loft hatch and the landing space in front of it, since between them they govern what can ever go up there.

Hatch size is fixed and easily forgotten, and it quietly rules out materials that would otherwise be obvious choices.

Ask how anyone would reach the outside face of the building at your level, and treat the answer as a professional matter rather than a plan.

Access to the outside of a building above ground level is for qualified professionals to arrange and assess, never for the owner to plan.

Record whether a shared roof, gutter, parapet or external wall is involved, and who is responsible for those parts of the building.

Confirm responsibility for shared roofs, gutters and external walls with the building manager or a qualified adviser before work is planned on them.

Note whether any window opens wide enough to work through, and write down what sits directly below it at ground level.

What lies beneath an opening determines whether anything can be done through it at all, and it is rarely looked at.

Ask what would happen to access if scaffolding were needed, where it would stand, and whose land or parking that position occupies.

Scaffolding at an upper level usually stands on ground controlled by somebody else, which makes it a permission question as much as a technical one.

Agree what protection is laid in the shared entrance, stair and landings, and who checks and replaces it while the work continues.

Protection laid once and never checked is the usual arrangement, and it stops protecting anything quite quickly.

Record who cleans the shared parts after material is moved, and how often that is expected to happen rather than leaving it as goodwill.

Cleaning is the obligation most often assumed to belong to the building's own cleaner, who has not agreed to anything of the sort.

Note everything vulnerable on the shared route, such as a handrail, a light fitting, an entry panel, a letterbox run or a decorated corner.

Naming the vulnerable items works far better than a general request to be careful in the communal areas.

Ask what would happen if a shared surface were damaged, how it would be put right, and who would deal with the managing party about it.

Damage to communal parts is usually governed by your agreement with the building. Take advice from a qualified adviser about how it would be handled.

Record the condition of the shared parts in writing as well as in photographs, and send that record to the building manager before work starts.

A record the managing party has actually received is far more useful later than one sitting on your own phone.

Agree how dust is prevented from reaching the corridor from your flat, particularly at your own front door where people pass constantly.

Dust in a shared corridor is noticed by every household in the building and travels much further than anyone expects.

Ask the building manager or freeholder what they need to see before any work begins, and in what form they need it.

Requirements vary considerably between buildings, and asking early is the difference between a formality and a delay.

Note whether your agreement with the building requires consent for work of this kind, and put that question to a qualified adviser.

What your lease or building agreement permits is a legal question for a qualified adviser and varies from building to building.

Record what the building asks for from whoever carries out the work, such as contact details, working arrangements and evidence of insurance.

Gathering this before choosing anyone avoids discovering afterwards that your preferred option cannot meet the building's requirements.

Ask what working hours the building applies, and whether they differ at weekends, rather than assuming what is usual elsewhere.

Permitted hours shape the whole arrangement in a shared building and are frequently stricter than on a house.

Note whether any communal service, such as water, heating or the supply to shared areas, could be affected, and who has to be told.

Anything affecting a communal service must be raised with the building manager and a qualified professional before work is planned around it.

Keep every answer from the building manager in writing, and give the same information to everyone you speak to about carrying out the work.

Building rules repeated from memory drift, and the version that matters is the one the managing party can produce later.