What Must Stay Reachable When Storage Goes Under the Stairs

What is already living in the void?

Walk the opening with a torch before anyone talks about doors. Under a straight flight, and under the taller part of a turning stair, Island houses often hide one or more of these: a water stopcock, a water meter, a gas meter, an electricity meter, a consumer unit, an alarm panel, a soil pipe, or heating pipes passing through. A boiler in its own cupboard is a different brief, covered in the boiler cupboard guide.

You do not need to name every box correctly. Photograph each thing with the timber or wall around it, and write what you think it is. If you are unsure, write unknown on the photo. A wrong name is less useful than a clear picture.

Note which face of the staircase you can actually open. Some voids are only reached from the hall. Some also open into a room beside the stair, or into a cupboard on the landing. The access door has to be on a face you can use.

What does reachable mean once the fronts are on?

Reachable means a person can see the item and work on it without taking the storage apart. That is usually a hinged door or a panel on clips, lined up with the item, and large enough for the job that item needs. A fixed shelf across the front of a stopcock, or a bank of drawers screwed over a meter, fails that test.

The size of the opening is not something this guide can state. Meter cupboards, consumer units and stopcocks are specified by their own instructions and by the people qualified to work on them. Ask that person what has to stay clear, and pass the answer on with the photos. The joiner then draws the front around that opening.

Leave a note of who has to get there: you, a meter reader, a plumber, an electrician. If a reader still calls at the house, the door has to be obvious from the hall and able to open while someone stands in front of it. If the reading is remote, say that too, and still keep a way in for a repair.

Where should everyday storage sit around that access?

Put the access first, then fill the rest of the void. Coats and long items want the tall end, where you can stand. Drawers suit the lower slope, where a door would be short and the contents would sit at the back, and only where nothing behind those drawers needs a visit. A fixed sloping panel is for the wedge of face where there is no service and no useful opening.

If the service sits in the tall end, the tall cupboard and the access are the same door. Shelves inside that cupboard stop short of the item, or come out, so they are not a second lid. If the service sits low, a short door in that bay is the access, and the drawers move to a bay that is clear.

A side opening into a room can take the access door, which leaves the hall front free for storage. Say so if that is what you want. The hall front still has to follow the stringer and the skirting, which the fronts guide covers. This note only fixes which opening is doing the access job.

• One door or removable panel lined up with each item that must stay reachable.
• Shelves and drawers kept out of that opening.
• Coats and everyday storage in the bays that are clear.
• A side door into a room used for access only when that room is a sensible place to work from.

What should I send before a layout is drawn?

Send a straight-on photo of the whole opening, a photo of each service, and a photo that shows the route from the hall floor to that service. Add a line for each item: what you think it is, which face it sits behind, and who needs to reach it.

Mention anything that already blocks that route. A nailed board, a shelf of paint tins, or a panel screwed across the stopcock is part of the brief, because the new front should not repeat it. If the floor steps, or a threshold crosses the opening, say so. The measuring guide is the place for the heights and depths.

Then list what the rest of the void should hold: shoes, a vacuum, coats, bags. The layout is those things plus the access, drawn together.

What stays with a qualified person?

Moving a meter, altering a consumer unit, or working on gas or water fittings is separate from making the cabinet. Manx Bespoke plans and fits the storage around the access you and the relevant qualified person have described. We do not relocate services as part of a storage design.

If something looks damaged, leaking, or warm when it should not be, deal with that with the right tradesperson before the void is closed in. A new door is not a repair for the thing behind it.