January 2010
Building Regulations deal with whether the building is built properly and is safe and energy efficient etc. more +/-»
They are not to be confused with Planning Consent (which is to do with the size, location and appearance of a house). The building inspectors are either employed by the local council or are private companies approved to do the work. You can choose which you want to use.
The regulations also deal with demolitions.
It is quite likely that if you are employing an architect or building consultant or someone else to do your drawings and design work that they will handle the drawing and form-filling necessary to obtain Planning Permission and Building Regulation consent. However it is useful to have an understanding of what is going on.
You sometimes hear complaints about the regulations being old fashioned and moribund. This is maybe true in some ways but is not an intrinsic problem with them. more +/-»
More emphasis on insulation and air tightness
At present the Building Regulations are going through so many reviews and changes (not only because of the greening of the regulations but also because of fitting in with European legislation) that it is almost impossible to keep up with them, even for a professional.
Over the last few decades there has been a new emphasis on how well buildings are thermally insulated and the rules have been getting stricter every few years. Not only does the insulation have to be to a much higher level but heating systems have to be more efficient and better controlled and the latest requirements cover airtightness (prevention of drafts and air infiltration). Many of the recent updates on energy conservation are contained in sections L1A and L1B of the approved documents
By the very nature of regulations there is often a temptation to see compliance with the regulations as something to try to achieve rather than seeing them as what they are - a minimum legal standard. For instance the Passivhaus standard is at present light years ahead of the current Building Regulations in terms of energy usage.
The regulations can be very complicated indeed and it is important to know at what level you want to be involved with understanding how they work.more +/-»
England and Wales
The Welsh Assembly is in the process of taking control of its building regulations with a view to completion by 2013.
If you want to demolish a building larger than 50 cu.metres then you must inform the council at least six weeks before commencement. You must also inform the Statutory Undertakers and adjoining neighbours who may be affected.
In England and Wales there is a choice of two ways of getting the work approved :Full Plans method or a Building Notice method.
Full Plans
This is the more long winded but safer approach. You will have to submit the following:
- A completed application form
- Appropriate charge (which you can get from your local council web site)
- Detailed drawings of the proposed building work including site boundaries and drainage systems
- Structural design and calculations
- Specifications of materials which go with the drawings
- A location plan, drawn to a scale of not less than 1:1250. (Councils can usually supply you with a location plan for a fee)
With "full plans" you normally pay the charge in two installments: the first part when you make the application and the second part after the first site inspection. The council has up to five weeks to make a decision on the application but the time scale is usually shorter than that. If there is something incorrect or missing they normally contact you (or your agent) so that it can be remedied. Once it has been approved you have the safeguard that, providing you build it as specified, you cannot be made to change it. (There may be odd exceptions to this - for instance if ground conditions turn out to be different from what is expected and foundations need to go deeper). Note that you can actually start work before the plans have received approval, providing you give the council 48 hours notice. However you do this at your own risk and could be asked to redo work if it does not comply. The Building Inspector will send you a notice of the various stages of inspection which they will want to carry out (and will normally require 24 hours notice from you).
The main stages they will probably want to inspect are
- foundations and oversite concrete
- drains
- damp proof course
- roof structure
- final inspection on completion
When the work is finished a Completion Certificate can be requested. You also have an Approval Notice which you can pass on to any future purchaser of the building.
Building Notice
This is a much shorter procedure than Full Plans as you only have to submit a site plan rather than a full set of drawings. The fees will be the same and they have to be paid in full at the time of the application. It may be appropriate for small jobs where you are absolutely certain it is going to comply with the regulations. (However the council may request extra plans and calculations if they think necessary). Some councils will not issue a Completion Certificate. The building inspector will make inspections as and when they think fit and can ask you to redo work which does not comply.
With both methods of application the permission is valid for three years after the date of the application.
As with the Full Plans method you can start work after giving 48 hours notice, but at your own risk.
Note that some lenders will not accept Building Notices.
There is an on-line method of submitting plans for all local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There is the excellent but confusingly titled Planning Portal web page (because it is not about Planning Permission issues) with technical guidance on the regulations.
There is also a section called Accredited details with building details which are considered to work well. Bear in mind that while these are well produced and extremely useful as principles, they are nowhere near the standards of insulation of the Passivhaus standard which the government has (effectively) stated will become mandatory for new houses by 2016
Scotland
Scotland is in the process of reviewing its Building Regulations to reflect its autonomy from England and relate more to local circumstances. Things are changing subtly and quite rapidly.
In Scotland the procedure for obtaining Building Regulation approval is similar to that in England and Wales except what you apply for is called a building warrant.
No site work can be started until a warrant has been approved (unlike other countries in the UK.) However it is possible to go for a staged warrant. Typically you can first get approval for the groundworks, foundations, drains etc. so that you can get started and then apply for the other stages as you go along. This helps speed things up.
see The Scottish Standards with The Procedural Handbook and the practical details in the Domestic Technical Handbook. There is a useful section of generic construction drawings which cover energy conservation in traditional and timber and steel frame buildings called Accredited Construction Details
Northern Ireland
There is an on-line method of submitting plans for all local authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
see the Northern Irish Regulations with their Technical Booklets
As procedures vary slightly from council to council it is important to check your local council's web site first.
Fees
Fees are payable for Building Regulations consent and these are usually in two parts: at the submission of plans and at the stage where the building inspector does the site visits. The fees vary depending on the type of work and it is best to contact the local building inspectors department by phone, although many local authorities do have it on line.
At a minimum you can leave everything up to your architect or architectural technician (with a couple of exceptions - see below). In order to get your plans approved for building regulation purposes they will have to draw details of most of the construction giving dimensions of structural materials etc. Qualified trades people will then execute the work properly (hopefully)
At the other extreme you might want to understand the regulations in detail for several reasons
- the regs are being rapidly updated at present to allow for vastly increased standards of insulation and air tightness so doing a bit of chrystal ball gazing now may allow you to achieve standards that will look respectable in 10 years time
- you may want to use some innovative or non-standard technology which the regulations don't cover in the Approved Documents. (say straw bale construction)
- you may want to design in certain features which will allow for change in the future (e.g. fire walls or sound insulation so that you can split a house later)
How the regulations work
The regulations cover most aspects of how a building is constructed and are usually framed to operate at three levels of detail:
- The first level is simply a general overall statement. Take structural loading as an example. The statement simple says
- The second level is the most used one. It relates to what are called Approved Documents. These are sets of details including statements, drawings, tables etc which show practical methods of achieving the necessary standard. If you use the Approved Documents approach then you are guaranteed to comply with the regulations.
- If for instance you want to do something which isn't covered by the Approved Documents you are free to prove to the building inspector that it will work. This is very commonly done with structural calculations when the situation is a bit more complicated than what the Approved Documents cater for. Of course it costs a bit more because you have to pay an engineer. It can apply to all sorts of construction methods and there are usually British Standards (now changing over to European Standards) along with industry standard reports which can be used to prove your case.