BUILDING REGULATIONS

The Building Act 2000 requires that all buildings be constructed to minimum technical standards, these relate to structure, insulation, drainage, ventilation, fire escape, access to buildings and the transfer of noise between buildings.

Approval under the Building Regulations and its associated Approved Documents is required for most building operations, although minor structures such as porches, conservatories or outbuildings may be exempt or partially exempt. This Practice can advise on the relevant requirements.

The Building Act 2000 requires that approval must be sought from the Local Authority prior to work commencing or a requisite Notice served. The former is the submission of a “full plans application”. The latter is a Building Notice application, where the minimum requirement is to let the Local Authority know that you intend to commence work 48 hours prior to actually starting on site. Both applications require that a fee be paid to the Local Authority, this is in accordance with the scale adopted by the relevant Local Authority and can normally be found on the appropriate Local Authority web site under Building Control Charges.

Most applications for domestic construction including extensions and new houses are fairly straight forward, however most will require the submission of plans and a specification of works, together with the provision of structural calculations to justify  various elements of structure.

As a Practice we can provide the following:

• Detailed construction drawings

• The specification of the works, with relevance to the approved documents.

• Structural calculations for steel beams, prepared by our own engineers.

• Calculations for heat loss and heat transfer prepared by specialists.

• Designs to comply with Robust Details concerning heat loss and noise transfer.

On behalf of the client we can offer advice, complete all of the requisite Town Planning and Building Regulation forms and make all of the submissions to the Local Building Control Department, or to the National House Builders Council, and deal with all required amendments, such that you receive a full approval or a conditional approval, which would enable you to start work on site.