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Trying to be diplomatic here. Our architect has drawn up our living room to have floor to ceiling glazing on two walls meeting at a corner. This is to make the most of a nice view. We understood that there would have to be a vertical steel of some kind to support the floor above (a room-in-roof constructed from timber attic trusses with slate cover @ 50' pitch) but the SE drawings have come back with a massive 200 x 200 I beam rammed right up to the glazing frames. That's before boxing around and finishing in the impossibly tight gap to the glass. On asking if this could be switched for a slimmer alternative, we're simply being told 'no'. Similar constructions I've seen elsewhere utilise 100mm square posts although these may have been single storey. Anyway, a wide variety of sections and wall thicknesses are available out there but the SE won't budge. He's been paid already and TBH we've only just picked this up while studying the drawings. I can't see a way out of this as hiring a different SE we may be back in the same situation only £££'s worse off. It doesn't seem to be any real fault of the architect although they might have warned us. We haven't got the engineering knowledge to call out the SE on the decision and the plans already got building approval for the giant steel. Any thoughts on how to handle this? I mentioned diplomacy at the start of this post because IME these kind of professional can get a bit cagey when their decisions are brought into question. If not done right, all flexibility can go out of the window.

Good Afternoon All. I seem to be progressing on my new build and I should have the Building Regs documents back from Potton in a few weeks. I am going to put them with my own drainage layout and Bingo ..the lorries can roll (or so i thought) After a talk this morning with Potton it seems that the bit in the Order that says THEY do all the layouts and stuff, is only applicable if you pay the extra for them to do the planning permission and all such like ...(sigh) I am OK with the drainage layout as its a "funny one"as we are going through our parents land to connect to all services .. ..about 50m in all (thankfully most of it in their garden, so we can do the work ourselves) What has reared its head is the "foundation plan" ...or "foundation engineer report" ...I had never heard the words until today from Potton. So I called up the company doing the foundations and they tell me they quoted (and expect it to be) they HAVE visited the site and we have got a soil report ....so.........100cm x 60cm / Beam and Block ...which from what I can see is a standard. They have told me they have never been ASKED to make an engineer report for a foundation Potton said they will give the foundation company the "Slab setting out plan" and "line and point loads plan" ? ....but I don't think that is the same So I guess what I am asking is... a) will the council expect this ? b) is it basically a drawing I could do? b) does anyone have something i could look at to get an idea thanks in advance Eddie