Submitting application for Building Warrant (Scotland) without engineers drawings

[djcdan]

Hi all. We have a bit of a conundrum and hope someone with prior knowledge can advise.

 

We want to be in a position of having our build wind and water tight by the end of October this year for weather related reasons. By my calculations, this means we need to submit our application for Building Warrant in the next 7-10 days.

 

Covid has obviously been presenting delays to having our BW drawings prepared however we are now in receipt of all architect drawings - after three months of waiting! However, the next hurdle to surpass is having drawings completed by our engineers. However, they have furloughed all staff (three directors left working from home) and cannot commence with our drawings as they apparently have 65 live projects right now and it will be a while before they can work on our drawings... Why they would keep all staff furloughed with this much work is beyond me, but that is another topic.

 

However, in their latest communication they confirmed that the BW can be submitted without their drawings and have provided us with their certifer details (apparently which we can use to reference in the BW application?). They have said they would then be able to follow up with their drawings and submission of SER certificate after the application has been submitted. They are providing foundation drawings and SER certification to the application.
 

I was obviously expecting to submit the BW once all drawings were present and was not even aware a submission could be make with only some of the required drawings present. Does anyone know how this would be handled or how far along the process we could go before we would need the foundation drawings and SER certs?

Edited July 8, 2020 by djcdan
Unfinished post

[jamieled]

As the LA BC will be reliant on the SER for structural design and sign off, I can see how it would work if you get the building warrant under way now. I think this happened with our application although there was only a week or two between architect submitted drawings and engineering design. It's likely there will be a few details to iron out between BC and the architect and the back and forth of that can take time, so I can definitely see some benefit in getting the ball rolling now. Clearly you won't get a warrant until they are in receipt of everything, but from the BC perspective, all they will need to do is tick a box saying SER certificate received and log the drawings (i.e. no checking of design details). 

 

In the warrant application you will need to state the certifier details.

 

I think the thing that would worry me the most is the volume of work your SE has. Even if you do this, surely there is a bit of a risk they take some time to do the work?

Edited July 8, 2020 by jamieled
Didn't read the thread title closely enough!

[the_r_sole]

To be honest, we never submit warrant packages with the engineers SER in place - no matter what, with a new dwelling you will get queries back from building standards - they've even changed the edevelopment portal to accommodate entering the engineers details without the certificate so you can still get the discount for the certificate when it comes.

Getting wind and water tight by end of october without a warrant in place now, is very, very optimistic - what local authority are in?

 

[djcdan]

Cheers @jamieled. That makes sense. Yes, the workload from our SE is a concern. However we're in a relatively remote area with no local engineers. Our current engineer has already conducted a site visit has assessed ground conditions and has the necessary information just to complete to work - time permitting. I'm weary about starting this process from scratch with another. I really do not understand why they do not unfurlough at least some staff to ease workload. They clearly still have work coming in but don't have the staff to support the demand.

[djcdan]

@the_r_sole We're Argyll and Bute. Agreed end of Oct in extremely optimistic. If I am being honest, end of November would be our target if we can submit the BW application asap and have it processed without hiccups. Dec-Feb are worst conditions where we are. November isn't too bad (I know I have jinxed that now and Nov will be the wettest on record :)).

[the_r_sole]

16 minutes ago, djcdan said:

@the_r_sole We're Argyll and Bute. Agreed end of Oct in extremely optimistic. If I am being honest, end of November would be our target if we can submit the BW application asap and have it processed without hiccups. Dec-Feb are worst conditions where we are. November isn't too bad (I know I have jinxed that now and Nov will be the wettest on record :)).

 

Home territory for me! PM who your engineer is in case I can pester them a different way!

what local office are you dealing with?, things that can hold up your application (from recent experience) - do you have a fire hydrant within 100m of the site?

Have you got a private water/drainage arrangement?

Private access road?

What build method are you using?

Argyll and Bute officers are pretty good at getting applications dealt with at the moment but there's a couple of things that can take a while to sort out!

[djcdan]

We're in MAKI. A fire hydrant is just further than 100m from site. Private drainage. Water connection already in place. Access is taken from the road going through the village. We're using a Scotframe construction. Yes, the officers seem pretty on the ball tbh. Emailed at 3pm today, had a reply by 4pm from the team leader.

[the_r_sole]

They'll need to consult Fire and Rescue for the hydrant position, usually they are happy with 150m from my experience, but it still takes time - I've waited since december to get a consultation back from them!

Drainage, get your CAR from SEPA asap.

The biggest issue you are going to have with a tight time line is to get Scotframe engineers to respond to your SER engineer queries, I've got a warrant application currently being held up by them, if your own engineer isn't able to put queries out to them either, I'd be preparing for not getting wind and water tight any time soon! (sorry to be the bearer of bad news, hopefully I'm wrong and my experience is the one exception to the rest!)