Building Regulations “Enforceable”

[le-cerveau]

I have a question about what is and isn’t enforceable in the building regulations and subsequent guidance.
This covers Under Floor Heating (UFH) and control.
Our house (after debate on ebuild) will have one UFH zone (Passive Haus) but has a usable floor area of 419m² (PHPP figure) and I am looking at the following for Part L1:

And the Domestic Heating Compliance Guide:

In the Building Regulations it states that Reasonable provision shall be made for the conservation of fuel and power in buildings by:…..  Such that it is legally enforceable with the ‘shall’.  However in the Domestic Heating Compliance Guide states that Dwellings with a total usable floor area of greater than 150m² should be provided with at least two space heating zones each having separate on/off timing controls and temperature controls.  Also the guide is full of ‘should’!

I have worked with contractors (in my previous job) whilst refining a multi billion pound specification (military procurement) and they place a great deal of emphasis on Should and Shall, in that I want a Shall to ensure I get it and they want a Should to ensure that they won’t be held to account if it does not perform up to spec, basically Should cost money.

So in the same vein a building inspector cannot insist that my house has two or more UFH zones as, as far as I can see, it is not legally enforceable and only a guideline!

I would appreciate you thoughts on my dilemma!

[ProDave]

Put a dummy thermostat on the wall of each room when the building inspector comes to sign it off. Everyone is happy. Remove when you have the paperwork. He will never know.

[jack]

I do quite a bit with telecommunications standards at work, and there's the same clear distinction between "shall" and "should".

I think you're probably right that they can't insist, and we're expecting the same conversation with our inspector in the near future.  He's been very reasonable to date though, so I'm not expecting too big an argument.

I do like ProDave's argument, but I'm too much of a cheapskate to even do that at the moment!

[le-cerveau]

I have the same issue with Part M1.  Although the house will be fully wheelchair accessible (my mother is in a wheelchair), the following could be prohibitively restrictive:

Services and controls

1.18 To assist people who have reduced reach, services and controls should comply with all of the following.

a. Switches and sockets, including door bells, entry phones, light switches, power sockets, TV aerials and telephone jacks, serving habitable rooms throughout the dwelling have their centre line 450-1200mm above floor level, as shown in Diagram 1.5.
b. Consumer units are mounted so that the switches are 1350-1450mm above floor level.

Again there will be areas where this will be inappropriate or unfeasible, and I want to make sure I am on a sound footing when I 'disregard' the guidelines.

[Calvinmiddle]

How many loops will you be having?  Doubt you are doing a floor that size with just one.

If you have any issue just say each loop is a zone and will be controlled at the manifold with wireless actuators

[Jeremy Harris]

It's not enforceable.  I had this out with my building control officer early on, pointing out that zoned heating was pointless.  He agreed.  We have a single zone and no problem with compliance.

[le-cerveau]

Calvinmiddle, I will be using the same design concept as JSHarris, it will have between 20-24 loops, all permanently open to re-distribute heat/cool as required (Passive Haus principal).  Control will be done either by the TMV or some other isolation method, still in design stage.

Jeremy, read your ebuild blog and other bits and was aware you had this issue.

Jack, be very interested on how your conversations go.

[gravelld]

Yeah, I think "shall" is normally stronger in specification documents.

Another example of where regs are behind the times.

[Calvinmiddle]

I have the same design as well, with about 6 loops which are always open and runs constantly.  My point is if the BCO have an issue point out you could run it as 20-24 zones if you want.

Remember building regulations don't state that you have to run it as two or more zones, just that it could be.

But agree with Jeremy, depends on what relationship you have with your BCO, we are using a private firm as they are connected with the warranty provider, he has only wanted to visit 3/4 times and seems fine with everything

[Jeremy Harris]

Worth remembering that the "Building Regs" Approved Documents are not the law, they are a suggested way of doing thing that MIGHT comply with the law.  They don't exclude other ways of showing compliance, nor are they a proscriptive set of regulations, they are only guidance.

The law is far more loosely worded, and doesn't usually have things like dimensions in, it just states the intention.

[IanR]

We've just this morning finished laying a similar area of UFH. Used over 2km pipe (at 200mm centres) on 2 manifolds with 22 loops. With nearly all the hardware there to run as multi-zone, apart from some extra thermistors, we've decided to split it into 10 or 12 zones to see if we can keep the bedrooms a little cooler and bathrooms a little warmer.

Like others are suggesting, it would be very easy to make it appear multi-zone if your BC officer was sensitive to this aspect.

 

 

 

[puntloos]

On 25/05/2016 at 11:58, Jeremy Harris said:

Worth remembering that the "Building Regs" Approved Documents are not the law, they are a suggested way of doing thing that MIGHT comply with the law.  They don't exclude other ways of showing compliance, nor are they a proscriptive set of regulations, they are only guidance.

The law is far more loosely worded, and doesn't usually have things like dimensions in, it just states the intention.

 

Just ran head-first into Accessible Building regulations in particular 1.18: "Switches and sockets, including door bells, entry phones, light switches, power sockets, TV aerials and telephone jacks [...] have their centre line 450-1200mm above floor level."

 

While I somewhat agree with the spirit of this regulation, there are so many exceptions to this.

- What about ceiling speakers. I want to put a wall plate at ceiling height to plug the speaker in. 

- Same story with my projector that's at ceiling level. I'm supposed to run network, power and HDMI down the wall to a group of 3 sockets at 1200mm? Seriously?

 

My builder seems to want to stick to the letter of the law when I suggested a few sockets near the ceiling - @Jeremy Harris- do you have some reference/source/citation on that these documents are "a suggested way of doing thing that MIGHT comply with the law.  They don't exclude other ways of showing compliance, nor are they a proscriptive set of regulations, they are only guidance." and how can I be somewhat comfortable that building inspectors won't give me too much grief on this?

 

In particular - what does the actual law say?  

 

 

Edited February 9, 2023 by puntloos

[ProDave]

I have always understood dedicated function accessories can be at any height, like high up sockets for a wall mounted tv.  I have never known BC question this as long as most are at the correct height.  If they did, they would get replaced with a blank plate, and put back after completion......

[puntloos]

6 hours ago, ProDave said:

I have always understood dedicated function accessories can be at any height, like high up sockets for a wall mounted tv.  I have never known BC question this as long as most are at the correct height.  If they did, they would get replaced with a blank plate, and put back after completion......

Yes, but that would be reasonable. The question is, how do I make sure that no stickler for paperwork trips me up on this. I could, I guess, preemptively put blank plates (paint over them) but it feels unnecessarily sneaky..

[puntloos]

35 minutes ago, puntloos said:

Yes, but that would be reasonable. The question is, how do I make sure that no stickler for paperwork trips me up on this. I could, I guess, preemptively put blank plates (paint over them) but it feels unnecessarily sneaky..

 

OK did a little more research:

 

As per Approved Documents Cover Page, these documents contain:

* general guidance on the performance expected of materials and building work in order to comply with the building regulations
* practical examples and solutions on how to achieve compliance for some of the more common building situations

 

So indeed they are not legally binding. Instead the actual law - Schedule 1 - Requirements item M4:

Access to and use of dwellings, Category 1- visitable dwelling

M4(1). Reasonable provision must be made for people to—

(a) gain access to; and

(b) use, the dwelling and its facilities

 

It is abundantly clear that it's unreasonable to expect every single socket (especially those in effectively fixed use) should be accessible. Instead, a reasonable amount of sockets and switches should be at that height between 450 and 1200mm.