kandgmitchell

I remember when the PP first arrived. No more printing seven sets of drawings and copying forms in triplicate. In those days I had a proper office photocopier with an automatic sorter attachment as well as a huge A1 copier and a plan printer. It was one of the kids jobs after school to walk the post down to the village post office in the form of large packets addressed to local authorities. Then along came the PP which was free to use and you could load everything up digitally and send it off through the web. Great! Over the next few years the large office machines went ( two guys bought them to send to Africa I think) along with most of the filing cabinets. All shrunk to a computer, a screen and a box of floppy discs and even they went to be replaced with a solid state external drive. The PP then went private ( now doubt to improve customer experience - it always is the excuse) and started to charge, I think £25 at first, then gradually it has crept up and up to the point where it's better to send an application direct now that all LA's have adopted the digital world.

I'm not trying to add to your woes but take yourself on line to the Planning Portal and look up Approved Document C and go to page 30 and look at Diagram 9(b), does your arrangement look like that? A tray should have a significant slope outwards to prevent water reaching the inner leaf. It should definately have weepholes otherwise water can't drain away.

So it's a tray dpc then where the inner leaf level is higher than the outer leaf level so as to direct any water ingress to the cavity out to the external leaf (and thence via weepholes). It's just that in the photo the dpc looks flat across the cavity rather than sloping as per the drawn detail - although even that doesn't have the 150mm min drop from the inner leaf dpc to the tray as per Approved Document C diagram 9(b).

Is that a dpc laid flat across the cavity?

My site is in North East Lincs whereas my case officer lived and worked in Devon. No site visit, she relied on photo's of the site taken by a local officer.

Mmmm - if only that were true - I spent many years in Building Control and came to the conclusion that many architects hadn't a clue whether their design complied with the requirements or occasionally even if they would be buildable. As for SE's I had to point out to him that the steel bars in the raft he designed for my house wouldn't all fit into the depth of concrete he'd specified given the spacing, so even those with PI can make mistakes.

None, I'd got distracted by references to BCO's in other posts. However, I would say that the National Building Regulations do require reasonable precaustions to be taken against risks from contaminants such as Radon. Why a planning authority feels it needs to get involved in such technical matters surprises me. Given an LPA covers a specific and limited geographic area it should know whether Radon is a particular risk, and if it is then by all means put an advisory on the permission but leave it to those qualified who will check the design for compliance both on paper and on site to deal with it.

That was my belief as well. Check all the paperwork you got with the "as-built" SAP and, as mentioned above check your address on the on line register of EPC's.

Ask the BCO if a Radon Georeport on the site from the British Geological Survey would be sufficient - they cost £55.44 inc vat. You just need a postcode or national grid reference, order on line and get a pdf back within two days. It complies with BR211 so should be sufficient for them.

Looking at Regulation 3 the BRegs apply to "the erection or extension of a building". Regulation 2 defines a building as "any permanent or temporary building but not any other type of structure or erection". I think you would have to agree that what is proposed is a building - not say a communications mast (which would be a structure for instance) or the Angel of the North which would be an erection. Schedule 2 exempts certain types of "building" from the regulations and Class 6 covers small detached buildings. In your case it's over 1 metre from the boundary so the type of materials used aren't an issue and it's under 30m2. However, to be exempt it also should not contain any sleeping accommodation. That's the issue, your proposal will, so it cannot be an exempt building. If it's not exempt and it's a building then the BRegs apply. However....... if you are only going to use it for six months, it could take the LA that long to discover what the situation is and to react to it, if at all. Not suggesting you ignore the law of course but just pointing out the reality of modern life when LA resources are stretched. Once you stop sleeping in it then it's exempt.

Absolutely - there are no specific limits set out for any of this. You will find that each planning authority will have a local plan which may include policies with general requirements such as "respecting local context etc" or they may delegate slightly more detailed advice to "Supplementary Planning Guidance". In simple terms you may find it hard to gain approval for a three storey town house in a row of bungalows not because of specific eaves or ridge height but the whole design being inappropriate in that location. Start with the planning section of the Council website under Local Plan and check for any supplementary guidance issued.

Your surveyor is "professional services" as was ours and the archaeological dig we needed. You pay the VAT and can't get it back. "Services" without VAT are the electrical, gas, drainage etc which "service" the house. Like Jack we had mixed invoices and simply struck out the items which were not claimable. Ours has just been paid and they didn't raise any queries on what we included or how we presented the invoices.

Well we got planning ourselves for a design based losely on a DanWood design we had liked when looking for inspiration. When we decided to approach DanWood we found them quite open to looking at what they could do. They made some changes in order to accomodate their "system", the major one being taking out large glazed areas so that they could use standard (from a very wide range to be fair) pvc-u doors and windows (high quality though), ally are available but much more expensive. Once we decided to use them and paid a deposit, their local architect took over the final layout drawings so they were formatted for the factory system (we had to pay for that). They do come back and forth until you are fixed on the design including electricals, sanitaryware layout etc. At that point their engineers design out the structure in detail (included). We needed our own S.E to design the insulated raft based on the loads in the DanWood calcs. We then submitted DanWoods comprehensive specification, drawings, SAP design and calculations to Building Control along with our raft design and destination drainage details (Danwood design the internal layout). Not a single query. Any of their stock designs can be altered , windows, doors, internal walls moved or added , we left out their standard stairs and they allowed for our own tighter design (and installation) so as to maximise space elsewhere, we found them willing to listen. With regard to the overall design, it looked like the one we had planning for other than some glazing changes and less cladding ('cos that was dear). We didn't bother going back to the planners for that. The advantage was an eight week build time on site, for which, a few compromises were worth it.....

That's right - the splay is to the edge of the roadway not the centre, making it harder to comply.

So your SAP design assumes 4.0, if it comes out more than that then your "as built" SAP will not be at least equal to the design SAP assuming everything else remains the same. Thus it will not comply. If you come in at less than 3.0 then you may no longer comply with all the provisions of Part F - Ventilation, if you have gone the natural ventilation route to show compliance. This is a very simple summary of what are complex regulations that interact with each other, you'll need further advice if the figure varies a lot from 4.0.

I had a client who renovated a cottage south of Haddington out in the countryside of south-east Scotland some years ago now. I recall the ravens/crows/rooks (they were big and black) attacked the putty to the windows on the rear and were always hitting the windows. After most of the putty had been dug out, it had all to be replaced and thi time the windows were covered with chicken wire mesh on a timber frame to give it time to harden and get painted. This seemed to break the habit. Not sure it's a learned behaviour for Scottish birds but it's the only time I had come across it.

Don't encourage them! The regulations used to be solely for ensuring reasonable levels of health and safety for persons in and around the building, then they added energy conservation, then internet connectivity, then vehicle charging ........ getting into land ownership would be a nightmare.

Don't forget Part O of the Bldg Regs - Overheating. That requires rooms to be provided with sufficient opening areas for ventilation. If a window is required to be open more than 100mm for that purpose then it'll have to be guarded if the bottom edge of the opening is less than 1100mm off floor level. That's a simplistic summary of course so the document itself needs looking at.

Well you could build on the boundary subject to : not building on or over another owners' land, planning permission, building regulation consent and the party wall act plus actually being able to physically being able to build the structure.

The use of the window is immaterial but the compartmentation would make a difference; allowing the allocation of unprotected area to individual compartments rather than the whole wall.

Just being fussy, you don't need to highlight "the opposition to our application" - it alerts councillors to that opposition and makes it sound controversial . May I suggest " some concerns have been raised about this being a two storey dwelling.....

I must admit that if this was me I'd attend and ask to speak in support. I've been to many a committee and councillors are a bit like sheep. Where one leads others follow. Present yourself as a reasonable person and connect with the committee personally. Then it becomes "your" application they are discussing. Keep the presentation short, explain that it is the same footprint as previously approved schemes, how you have considered the local area with your design etc. By all means mention in passing some "local concerns" but try to pick out something that shows you have considered this or be able to refute their "confusion" about heights or whatever. Remember, even if recommended for approval objectors may be able to get a councillor to propose a condition that may be awkward for you. If you are there, the chairperson may ask for your response before putting that to the vote, if you're not then well...... Obviously if the planner has recommended a refusal then it's very, very hard to turn that around at committee, not impossible - I've seen it done but in that circumstance I'd be considering withdrawing the application to avoid a firm refusal and work to address the reasons before re-applying. First job - get the planners recommendation from them. Oh and no free goes any more....

With no defined boundary BC use a "Notional Boundary" between the buildings setting it first from one that complies and checking the other. If both are new then a compromise is worked out between them to ensure both comply. Am I right in thinking you have a design with windows and a door facing a boundary only 600mm away when the regulations limit openings to no more than 1m2 within 4m of each other?

Last year ours was £260/m2 (i.e £26K for 100m2) for stone, then 150mm XPS, 250mm r/c slab and 100mm perimeter XPS plus 4 No. 100mm drains to outside slab area ready for onward connection.

Mmmm, despite this being a UU I think I would push back a little perhaps giving Warrington's UU as an example and pointing out whilst you intend to live in the self-build, those situations in LnP's post could happen and where would you be then? Well stuck in the self -build obvously......