Dabooj80

Thank you all for your responses. I've got a further update from this new BC inspector, which I'm not sure what he's asking. The first item he listed was a request for a report for the roof which included warranties for roof coverings. I called him and told him by builder has liability insurance but he suggested I need to call a 3rd party roofing company and ask them to review the roof and get them to provide a warranty for the roof. This just sounded absurd to me. The second item he listed was the one I didn't understand at all. "Provide a full package of details for the drainage routes and arrangements including detailing on how moisture ingress will be prevented where penetrating through external elements like the roof soffits." I provided full technical plans which include drainage and guttering details already. The drainage and guttering is pretty standard with a box (soffit), fascia and gutter. So what additional arrangements and details are they looking for in terms of moisture ingress prevention from roof soffits? If anyone can shed some light on this, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks

Hi guys, I just wanted clarification on an issue I'm facing with my building control company. A bit of background info: I had an inspector assigned and he made the first couple of site visits for foundations and drainage. He was happy with what the builders had done so far and was happy for the builders to continue the work. As my house extension requires a large amount of steel beams and steel columns, we asked for a site visit to check the steels out once they were in place but were told that the inspector does not come out until the roof frame has been erected. I stated that there were a lot of steel beams involved and modifying something later on would be nearly impossible, so the inspector asked me to send him lots of pictures of the steel beams. Once he had reviewed these pictures, he told my builder he was happy with the steel work and that he can continue the building work. A little while later, we had constructed the first floor walls and the roof frame and so requested the next site visit. But we were told by the company that the assigned inspector was off on long term sickness. After chasing the company for a couple of weeks, I eventually spoke to a manager and told him the situation was causing a delay to the work, as we couldn't proceed without the site visit to approve the roof. The manager reluctantly agreed to do the site visit himself and on the day he arrived, he must have had a bee in his bonnet about being called out to the site. Foregoing his rudeness and bad attitude, he decided to look at previously approved items and attempt to find issues with them. He questioned the drainage that was approved on site by the original inspector and then decided to find faults with the steel beams and how the frames were constructed. After he left, he reported these issues and requested updated technical drawings and new structural engineer documents for the drainage, the steel works and the roof construction. It seemed like he was deliberately trying to find faults with work that would be difficult to modify, as we have built upon these after originally having the work approved. This has already set me back around £5000 in delays, material costs and additional fees for architects and SE. So the question I have is, if an inspector has made a site visit and verbally approved the drainage and there is no reported issue with this can a different inspector later come and find issues with this? Similarly, if an inspector has reviewed photos of the steel works and has refused to come out on site but has told the builder the steel works look fine and you can continue with the work, can a different inspector come and report faults after the builder has built walls and the roof frame on these beams? It seems to me that if the process of inspection can be altered at a later date then what is the actual point of having these site inspections at specific stages of the work? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Shuja

Hi, I have an extension at the rear of my house which requires a steel column that will stick out in the living room once finished. The column width is 152mm and the structural plan shows this steel column and a solid pier column together, which sticks out quite alot. I wanted to try and minimise the amount these columns stick out so I was wondering: 1) whether the steel column can be embedded into the outer wall? I.e. outer wall brick layer remains the same but embed the steel into the inner breeze block section so it only sticks out a bit or is flush with the wall? 2) if there is a steel column supporting the steel beam, why is there a need for a solid masonry column/pier which adds to the column width sticking out? Please see attached pictures of streel column/beams design. The column in question is C1 which is supporting Beam B5. I've also included a picture of what I would like the design to be but need advice if we can move the steel column to be flush and get rid of the solid masonry column. Thanks