Building Regulations Drawings and Approval

Usually yes, and they are separate applications to separate teams. Planning deals with land use and appearance, building regulations with structure, fire safety, insulation, ventilation and drainage. Some work needs building regulations approval but no planning permission at all, which catches people out.

A full plans application has the drawings and calculations checked before work starts and results in a formal decision. A building notice lets work begin sooner with no prior assessment, so any disagreement about a detail is resolved on site. Full plans costs a little more time at the front and usually saves a lot of it later.

They are the government guidance that sets out ways of meeting each part of the regulations, lettered A for structure, B for fire safety, C for moisture, F for ventilation, H for drainage, K for stairs and falling, L for energy, M for access and P for electrical safety in dwellings. They are guidance rather than the law itself, so an alternative approach is allowed if it can be shown to work.

If you are removing a load bearing wall, installing a beam, forming a new opening or altering the roof structure, yes. A structural engineer sizes the members and specifies bearings and padstones, and building control will want to see that work. We brief the engineer and draw the result so the builder is not interpreting a calculation sheet on their own.

A thermal element is any wall, floor or roof that separates heated space from the outside or from an unheated space. When one is newly built, replaced or substantially renovated, it normally has to meet current insulation standards where that is reasonably practicable. It is the reason a garage conversion needs far more than a plasterboard lining.

It varies with the project, but on a typical extension expect visits at commencement, foundation excavation, oversite and damp proof course, drainage before covering, insulation before boarding, and completion. The trigger points are the stages about to be concealed, so the builder has to give notice at the right moment.

Part P covers electrical safety in dwellings. Notifiable work is either carried out and self-certified by an electrician registered with a competent person scheme, or notified to building control and inspected separately. Most electricians handle it themselves, but the certificate needs to actually reach you, because it will be asked for when you sell.

A regularisation application is the route. It asks building control to assess and certify work that was carried out without notice, which usually means opening up sample areas so the construction can be seen. It is worth doing before a sale rather than during one, because a solicitor finding it first turns it into a negotiation.

Yes, and you should treat it as the deliverable rather than the approval at the start. It confirms the work was inspected and accepted, and a buyer's conveyancer will ask for it. Missing certificates are one of the more common reasons a house sale stalls.

Usually, but it has to be accounted for. There is a limit on how much of a new extension can be glazed before a straightforward comparison stops working, and beyond that the design is assessed against a notional standard. Extra glazing is normally bought back with better insulation, better glass or improved airtightness elsewhere.

Yes. Adding a habitable storey to a two storey house changes the escape strategy, which normally means a protected stairway running to a final exit, fire resisting doors to habitable rooms off it, and mains powered interlinked alarms. Where a fully protected route is not achievable, an alternative approach agreed with building control may be possible, but it has to be agreed rather than assumed.

If the drain is a public sewer or a lateral drain, you normally need a build over agreement with the water authority, which in most of this region is Yorkshire Water. Building control will ask about it. Sorting it early is far easier than discovering a shared drain under your foundation trench.

You do. It can be the local authority team for the area, or a private approver working under the national register. The inspection regime and the certificate carry the same weight either way, so the practical difference tends to be availability and how they like to receive information.

Yes. We make the submission, respond to the plan checker's comments, and take the inspector's calls during construction. Because we also oversee the build, there is no gap between what was drawn, what was approved and what is being put up.