Light refurb/renovation & building regs

[Roger440]

Ive an old cottage with a 70's extension on it. Its in resonable condition and we live in it.

 

It is, however, a thermal disaster. We are munching circa 1700 litres of oil on heating a year.

 

Anyway, in my mind ive formed a plan of what i can do to improve, bearing in mind stone walls with no DPC. Nothing silly, just the usual stuff, probably lime and wood fibre to the walls, triple glazing to achive as much as possible, and some works to the slopy part of the celings with PIR. And a small extension to the existing single story extension.

 

Normally, id just crack on. Ive little time for building regs having, at the previous house a whole suite of certificates, mostly not worth the paper they were written on, as lots of stuff didnt comply, including some pretty serious stuff id never consider doing! One of which cost £17k to rectify. 

 

However, the change of enforcement period from 12 months to 10 years plus unlimited fines and prision have caused me to ponder for a moment.

 

Clearly, the works i wish to do dont have a hope of compliance, and even if i wanted to comply, aside from being in many cases impossible, in order to demonstrae compliance with involve paying lots of somcalled professionals to assesments etc. These two factors combined would render the works both unachievable practically and unaffordable.

 

I couldnt even fit some windows  myself if we follow this to its logical conclusion.

 

So, i was wondering what others in a similar postion did? Obviously with a new build or major extension etc, its clearly unavoidable, after all, you need that final certificate.

 

Especially as i will be doing it in stages, i can see compliance costing me many thousands extra in "fees". 

 

 

 

[Redbeard]

11 hours ago, Roger440 said:

I couldnt even fit some windows  myself if we follow this to its logical conclusion.

 

I am not fully au fait with the Building Safety Act but I am not sure why you would not be able to fit windows yourself. I did 2 years ago (admittedly before BSA). As I read a brief guide to BSA it talks about the positions of responsibility and of liability, but as I (very briefly and incompletely) read it, if you as householder take on the responsibilities and liabilities you can do it. I may well have missed something.

 

[Roger440]

8 minutes ago, Redbeard said:

 

I am not fully au fait with the Building Safety Act but I am not sure why you would not be able to fit windows yourself. I did 2 years ago (admittedly before BSA). As I read a brief guide to BSA it talks about the positions of responsibility and of liability, but as I (very briefly and incompletely) read it, if you as householder take on the responsibilities and liabilities you can do it. I may well have missed something.

 

I agree. But those responsibilities and liabilities is exposure to enforcement action for up to 10 years, with unlimited fines and jail time.

 

So I can fit the windows, and always could, but the risk and repercussions were low. And rather more proportionate.

 

I'm now sitting here pondering what to do as I can't comply practically, nor can afford to if I need to pay BC every time I do something.

 

Even the windows, the supplier has no installers that will come here and sign off themselves. Which wasn't a concern because I'm perfectly capable of doing so myself.  Also experience suggests many holders of a fensa certificate either don't want to or incapable of a decent quality installation.

[Russell griffiths]

Why can you not draw up some pictures of everything you want to do, window, wall insulation, roof insulation, blah blah. 

put in an application for bc approval with all inspections, £4-500. 
as far as I’m aware there is no time limit to the work, so put the windows in and get them checked and signed off, then two years time rip all the floors up, get them inspected and signed off. 
 

all under one building regs application. 
 

or am I missing something. 

[Roger440]

14 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Why can you not draw up some pictures of everything you want to do, window, wall insulation, roof insulation, blah blah. 

put in an application for bc approval with all inspections, £4-500. 
as far as I’m aware there is no time limit to the work, so put the windows in and get them checked and signed off, then two years time rip all the floors up, get them inspected and signed off. 
 

all under one building regs application. 
 

or am I missing something. 

Yes, the work won't comply. I can't achieve many of the requirements. 

 

The insulation I will apply to the roof for example simply won't be and cannot be deep enough to meet the regs. Therefore my options, in theory, is to leave as is, ie, uninsulated, or to do it without approval. I can't meet the regs. Well I could buy re roofing for example, but that's just plain daft.

[Redbeard]

Although achieving the target U values makes it easy to comply you can 'comply' without meeting those targets, and it sounds like your house is a good case (old, stone, etc.) for invoking those 'get-out clauses'. Yes, it requires discussion with BCO, and that's not always so easy, but it can be done. I will be doing that next year.

[Alan Ambrose]

Yeah, that's a tricky ask - to navigate through the regs in a practical way in that situation. Most regs and systems are written fairly dumbly to try to cover all eventualities - I just filed another planning self builld application and had to answer stupid questions about employees, hours of opening, non-residential floorspace, waste management, industrial processes etc etc. Yeah, it didn't take that much time, but ffs once I say it's "1 unit of 3 bedroom self build housing", do I then need to answer the questions 'Reason biodiversity net gain does not apply', 'Are you building more than nine houses?'

 

So, very reasonable to try to avoid having a ton of expensive and intrusive BC fall on your head. It's counter productive, of course, to have BC be a negative influence on your desire to improve thermal efficiency.

 

I wonder whether you could have an informal chat with your LPA BC and a private BC and see whether there's a common sense path? (I appreciate that common sense isn't really a thing nowadays)

 

Otherwise I wonder whether you can do a few back-of-the-envelope calcs (J Harris spreadsheet if you fancy) to see how far away from the regs you might be. That might be helpful to you anyway as, for instance, the extra cost of triple glazing may not be warranted if the other fabric still remains lowish in U-value.

[Roger440]

1 hour ago, Redbeard said:

Although achieving the target U values makes it easy to comply you can 'comply' without meeting those targets, and it sounds like your house is a good case (old, stone, etc.) for invoking those 'get-out clauses'. Yes, it requires discussion with BCO, and that's not always so easy, but it can be done. I will be doing that next year.

Therin lies the issue though. You are entirely at the mercy of the BCO. They have no concern if you can afford what they say. That is not there concern.

 

So one runs the significant risk of having to do something different.

 

The traditional building groups have plenty of examples of the BCO forcing people to do things that are to the detriment of the building fabric.

 

Of course, under the new regulations, they are not allowed to advise. In a situation where there is a lot of grey, as there will be deviation, that's really quite difficult.

 

The real issue is, having invited them in, as it were, they now know you intend to do work. If you disagree with the requirements, they know you are doing it, so enforcement action would be very easy for them .

 

 

[Roger440]

42 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Yeah, that's a tricky ask - to navigate through the regs in a practical way in that situation. Most regs and systems are written fairly dumbly to try to cover all eventualities - I just filed another planning self builld application and had to answer stupid questions about employees, hours of opening, non-residential floorspace, waste management, industrial processes etc etc. Yeah, it didn't take that much time, but ffs once I say it's "1 unit of 3 bedroom self build housing", do I then need to answer the questions 'Reason biodiversity net gain does not apply', 'Are you building more than nine houses?'

 

So, very reasonable to try to avoid having a ton of expensive and intrusive BC fall on your head. It's counter productive, of course, to have BC be a negative influence on your desire to improve thermal efficiency.

 

I wonder whether you could have an informal chat with your LPA BC and a private BC and see whether there's a common sense path? (I appreciate that common sense isn't really a thing nowadays)

 

Otherwise I wonder whether you can do a few back-of-the-envelope calcs (J Harris spreadsheet if you fancy) to see how far away from the regs you might be. That might be helpful to you anyway as, for instance, the extra cost of triple glazing may not be warranted if the other fabric still remains lowish in U-value.

 

Hmmm, back in bucks having a conversation wast a thing. Make an application was the only answer available, regardless of the question. Maybe where I am now is better? But again, don't want to alert them to activity. Private BCO might work, though it seems lots have ceased trading.

 

As I continue to ponder, I'm wondering if I should just claim I did everything that's not visible from a satellite or the road before October 23?

 

Ref the windows, I've used the Jeremy spreadsheet. I struggle with it as I'm not good with maths, but essentially, there's a limit to what we can achieve with the walls before we start to create new issues with dew points in the wall and the like. There's quite a lot of windows, so going triple glazed did, usefully improve things. At a price. But given the existing windows are early 80's uPVC with lots of blown units and something like 12mm between the panes, replacement was always necessary. 

[Gone West]

18 hours ago, Roger440 said:

So, i was wondering what others in a similar postion did?

I think it depends on how obvious the work is, that you plan to do. Are you detached, do you have nosey near neighbours? Most people don't know the difference between Planning and Building Regs. If you think there's a good chance someone might dob you in, then be careful. If not then I doubt anything would happen.

[joe90]

It’s bonkers that you cannot improve the U value without meeting current regs, any improvement is better than none. . A private BC might give you an opinion but I would steer away from Local authority as it will be documented with them. 
 

3 hours ago, Gone West said:

Depends on the neighbours, if a good chance someone might dob you in, then be careful. If not then I doubt anything would happen

i agree with this, yes a gamble but I would do it!!!, 🤷‍♂️😇

[Gus Potter]

22 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Ive an old cottage with a 70's extension on it. Its in resonable condition and we live in it.

 

It is, however, a thermal disaster. We are munching circa 1700 litres of oil on heating a year.

 

22 hours ago, Roger440 said:

So, i was wondering what others in a similar postion did?

 

9 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Yes, the work won't comply. I can't achieve many of the requirements.

Here are a few of my thoughts for you to mull over... I'll do my best to explain.

 

In my day job I often take on these kinds of projects, an old house that needs a bit of an upgrade. I've got one on my books at the moment, circa 1915 house with solid wall, little insulation. Out the back is essentially an out house that I'm turning into a utilty area / shower room and internally knocking out some walls to make it open plan. Now that needs BC approval as I'm extending the floor area, carrying out structural alterations and increasing the insulation envelope. To make this work it's not possible to get enough insulation into the out house to meet the U values so to compensate I'm upgrading parts of the old house.  But you are not doing this! The last bit of text was to hopefully let you see how we compensate elsewhere.

 

I'm based in Scotland but the English regs are similar ( know the Scottish regs but don't do bedtime reading of the English regs / nuances.. but I do projects in England if they are of interest to me ) if they were not then we would be totally stuck when we refurbish / upgrade old buildings. It is often impossible to upgrade an old building to make each wall / floor / roof element for example comply with the latest regs. This excercise is about doing what we can (in so far as reasonably practicable) and all the UK regs allow for this in some form or another.

 

For you it seems that you are not extending the insulation envelope or floor area. Thus my starting point would be to go back to the regs and see what needs BC approval. I think you'll find that a lot of the things you are doing (if any) don't require formal approval.. but in the regs there is a bit that says even if you don't need formal approval they still need to be compliant with the regs in terms of say workmanship, durability and safety ( the bit that worries you about the law? ). In terms of upgrading they don't say that anything you do must meet modern U value regs for example. Look for the phrase "in so far as reasonably practicable".

 

This means that you can carry out upgrading work even if you don't meet the target U values. But in doing so you still need to comply with the regs.. for example.. you don't compromise the structural integrity of the house.. introduce a condensation risk, a fire hazzard and so on. If you want you can possibly regularise it by way of BC permission.. but they may turn round and say to you.. nothing to do with us so long as what you are doing is still compliant with the regs, British Standards and so on.

 

I would go back and read the regs carefully and you may well find that you can upgrade your house the way you want if you apply common sense and do a bit of research.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Roger440]

18 hours ago, Gus Potter said:

 

 

Here are a few of my thoughts for you to mull over... I'll do my best to explain.

 

In my day job I often take on these kinds of projects, an old house that needs a bit of an upgrade. I've got one on my books at the moment, circa 1915 house with solid wall, little insulation. Out the back is essentially an out house that I'm turning into a utilty area / shower room and internally knocking out some walls to make it open plan. Now that needs BC approval as I'm extending the floor area, carrying out structural alterations and increasing the insulation envelope. To make this work it's not possible to get enough insulation into the out house to meet the U values so to compensate I'm upgrading parts of the old house.  But you are not doing this! The last bit of text was to hopefully let you see how we compensate elsewhere.

 

I'm based in Scotland but the English regs are similar ( know the Scottish regs but don't do bedtime reading of the English regs / nuances.. but I do projects in England if they are of interest to me ) if they were not then we would be totally stuck when we refurbish / upgrade old buildings. It is often impossible to upgrade an old building to make each wall / floor / roof element for example comply with the latest regs. This excercise is about doing what we can (in so far as reasonably practicable) and all the UK regs allow for this in some form or another.

 

For you it seems that you are not extending the insulation envelope or floor area. Thus my starting point would be to go back to the regs and see what needs BC approval. I think you'll find that a lot of the things you are doing (if any) don't require formal approval.. but in the regs there is a bit that says even if you don't need formal approval they still need to be compliant with the regs in terms of say workmanship, durability and safety ( the bit that worries you about the law? ). In terms of upgrading they don't say that anything you do must meet modern U value regs for example. Look for the phrase "in so far as reasonably practicable".

 

This means that you can carry out upgrading work even if you don't meet the target U values. But in doing so you still need to comply with the regs.. for example.. you don't compromise the structural integrity of the house.. introduce a condensation risk, a fire hazzard and so on. If you want you can possibly regularise it by way of BC permission.. but they may turn round and say to you.. nothing to do with us so long as what you are doing is still compliant with the regs, British Standards and so on.

 

I would go back and read the regs carefully and you may well find that you can upgrade your house the way you want if you apply common sense and do a bit of research.

 

Hope this helps a bit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I appreciate the reply. However I'm thinking I'm more confused now than before 

 

I'm not sure I really understand how any of this doesn't require BC involvement?

 

If we take the insulation specifically, my understanding is if more than 25% of a walk or a ceiling is disturbed then I need to comply. As I intend to take a while house approach then surely I must comply to some extent.

 

The phrase in so far as reasonably practicable, is great, but is wide open to interpretation. The issue is only the bc's view is actually relevant. It purely luck who I end up with, and therefore how much it might ultimately cost

 

Once I engage with them, I'm on the radar at that point.  If they want me to do things I consider wrong or unaffordable, and I then choose to proceed another way, they will know that it is likely I've done just that.

 

Under the new rules that came in last October, if I ignore it, and they know, the potential penalties are extreme to say the least 

 

If they don't know, then nothing can happen.

 

The only way anyone would ever know is if I subsequently got another eoc which would show a large improvement!

 

My experience at my last place is that the various certificates were worthless as none of the work complied fully, in one case, not at all.  So what value do they really have? Especially as it's almost impossible to take action against BC for negligence 

 

 

 

[Mr Punter]

43 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Under the new rules that came in last October, if I ignore it, and they know, the potential penalties are extreme to say the least

 

The Building Safety Act focuses on building structural safety and fire safety only,  Nothing to do with your u values.  It is aimed to prevent future Grenfell tragedies, so high rise buildings and fire safety.

 

It will not apply to any of the works discussed on this forum.

 

[Roger440]

3 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

 

The Building Safety Act focuses on building structural safety and fire safety only,  Nothing to do with your u values.  It is aimed to prevent future Grenfell tragedies, so high rise buildings and fire safety.

 

It will not apply to any of the works discussed on this forum.

 

 

That's not my understanding. The new arrangement means that enforcement if building regs can take place up to 20 years. I get that the new arrangements were to a large part due to such things as grenfell and the blantent disregard of regs by developers, but the enforcement powers apply across all areas.

[Mr Punter]

7 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

That's not my understanding. The new arrangement means that enforcement if building regs can take place up to 20 years. I get that the new arrangements were to a large part due to such things as grenfell and the blantent disregard of regs by developers, but the enforcement powers apply across all areas.

 

RICS don't share your view.  https://www.rics.org/news-insights/building-safety-act-faqs

[Roger440]

2 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

 

RICS don't share your view.  https://www.rics.org/news-insights/building-safety-act-faqs

Which part are you looking at please? It clearly states that the BSR applies to all buildings, both new and refurbishment, as well as high rise buildings.

 

As far as the penalties are concerned, they are not confined to hrb's as far as I can tell.

[Mr Punter]

16 hours ago, Roger440 said:

Which part are you looking at please?

 

All of it.  It is to do with fire risk and high rise buildings, not what level of insulation you have fitted or how much water the building uses.

[Mike]

On 26/10/2024 at 17:41, Roger440 said:

If we take the insulation specifically, my understanding is if more than 25% of a walk or a ceiling is disturbed then I need to comply. As I intend to take a while house approach then surely I must comply to some extent. The phrase in so far as reasonably practicable, is great, but is wide open to interpretation. The issue is only the bc's view is actually relevant. It purely luck who I end up with, and therefore how much it might ultimately cost

No, it's not wide open to interpretation. Part L 4.13 defines it:

 

If achieving the U-value in Table 4.3, column (b) either:
a. is not technically or functionally feasible or
b. would not achieve a simple payback of 15 years or less
then the element should be upgraded to the lowest U-value that both:
a. is technically and functionally feasible and
b. can achieve a simple payback not exceeding 15 years.
Generally a thermal element once upgraded should not have a U-value greater than 0.7W/(m3'K). A
lesser standard for the thermal element may be acceptable where work complies with Part C of the
Building Regulations on protection from the harmful effects of interstitial and surface condensation.

[Roger440]

4 hours ago, Mike said:

No, it's not wide open to interpretation. Part L 4.13 defines it:

 

If achieving the U-value in Table 4.3, column (b) either:
a. is not technically or functionally feasible or
b. would not achieve a simple payback of 15 years or less
then the element should be upgraded to the lowest U-value that both:
a. is technically and functionally feasible and
b. can achieve a simple payback not exceeding 15 years.
Generally a thermal element once upgraded should not have a U-value greater than 0.7W/(m3'K). A
lesser standard for the thermal element may be acceptable where work complies with Part C of the
Building Regulations on protection from the harmful effects of interstitial and surface condensation

 

It's still not straight forward though is it?

 

As has happened many times, the BCO wants a "modern" solution, probably because it's what they understand, even where that is incompatible with the building, as, in this case, stone with no dpc. In this scenario, the BCO has all the power. Even if they are wrong. This is the situation I'm seeking to avoid more than anything else.  

 

I can't say no, thats nonsense I want to do this instead. Well I can, but they are not under any obligation to accept it.

 

I want aware of the 15 year payback. Thank you for that. Does it detail anywhere how this is calculated? Given I'm on oil and the price goes up and down like a yo you, how does one work if out? When I've done calculation before I can double of halves the payback just by changing the price of the oil. And more importantly demonstrate to the BCO? 

 

Maybe you think I'm over thinking it, but I absolutely don't want to get into a debate with the BCO once I'm into the job. Simply because if the disagree I have no recourse to challenge that 

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

 

All of it.  It is to do with fire risk and high rise buildings, not what level of insulation you have fitted or how much water the building uses.

 

I really don't understand how you arrive at the conclusion reading the document. 

 

On another forum I use, the couple of BCO on there have a very different interpretation from yours. Their view is, 10 year enforcement applies to everything covered by building regs.

 

Accept of course, that until some of this stuff happens in real life and gets tested in court, we can't really know. But the document specifically refers to ALL notifiable work, but with more stringent regs around high rise buildings.

[Mike]

9 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

Does it detail anywhere how this is calculated?

It does - see Appendix A, page 75.

[Roger440]

26 minutes ago, Mike said:

It does - see Appendix A, page 75.

Thanks. So now I have to pay someone (someone suitably qualified) to write a report on the payback. 

 

Potentially more than once if the BCO doesn't like my solution.

 

How do you guys work with this nonsense. Or more accurately budget for anything.

 

It's essentially open ended expenditure.

[Mike]

15 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

So now I have to pay someone (someone suitably qualified) to write a report on the payback.

Someone will have to do you SAP calculations, so ask them to include the report - much cheaper than paying lawyers to sort out the mess + the cost of rectification afterwards. If they do it properly and include the supporting evidence there should be no grounds for the BCO to dispute it.

Edited October 27 by Mike

[Roger440]

1 minute ago, Mike said:

Someone will have to do you SAP calculations, so ask them to include the report - much cheaper than paying lawyers to sort out the mess + the cost of rectification afterwards. If they do it properly there should be no grounds for the BCO to dispute it.

 I may not have explained myself well. I'm sure the report will be fine for the proposed works. 

 

My concern, given the construction method of the house, is I will need to use something like wood fibre and lime plaster, for example, which, clearly, many BCO's dont understand and/or are unwilling to sign off. Under this scenario you then have to go round the loop again with an alternative proposal . Repeat until agreement is reached.

 

What the going rate for such an assessment for a whole house project? I've never done such a thing. I assume I'm going to need to provide a detailed plan/drawings for them to work from too? So another person to pay.