Building Regs & technical design

When you’re coming up with a bespoke home building scheme, dealing with the planners is only half the battle. Architect Julian Owen explains how to ensure your project meets the Building Regulations and why it’s important to develop the details at the design stage

should be fairly clear how the house will work structurally, all that has to be described are the main features of the dwelling to a level that is sufficient to show the scheme is compliant with the regulations. The structural design, foundations and basic materials that are to be used for the roof and walls will be mentioned, as will drainage, fire protection and other elements that are covered by the approved documents. This might be enough for a builder to quote and construct the shell of the house, but it is inadequate to get a reliable price to finish the dwelling.

Many aspects that are not covered will be crucial to the cost, design and success of the project. For example, sanitaryware, decorations and landscaping are of little interest to the inspector checking for Building Regulations approval, but are usually crucial for the budget and the appearance of the finished dwelling.

Getting it right

Paying your house designer to prepare drawings and specifications that go beyond the minimum requirements of the regs is like to provide good value for money. This way, you can be more certain about the accuracy of quotations and quality of the construction work itself. It’s generally a sensible idea to speak to key suppliers at this stage to get the best, most current information about the products you’re using and integrate this into the drawings.

Some self builders choose to forego this process and make decisions on the fly during the works in the hope of saving money. But don’t be surprised when your builder complains there’s insufficient information for them to achieve what you’re expecting (and that it’s going to cost a little more than they first realised).

There are plenty of times when the inflexibility of the Building Regulations can cause frustration and even seem a bit petty, but they were conceived and developed to protect you as much as the community in general. When it comes down to it, I am hard pressed to find any of the standards imposed that fail to follow this principle.

Your completion certificate

Once the project is finished and the works have been signed off by your inspector, the local authority will issue with a completion certificate within eight weeks. To enable this, you’ll need to provide documentation to demonstrate the products and systems installed in your house, such as electrical safety certificates, water usage information, airtightness test results and more.

The completion certificate is an important legal document that shows your project conforms with the current standards. It should be stored safely with the property deeds, as it may be required if you sell the house in future. The certificate is also the trigger for self builders to finalise their VAT reclaims, which must be submitted within three months of the completion certificate being issued (see page 11 for more on this).

A completion certificate simply confirms that, as far as can be ascertained from the plan check and inspections, the work done on your project complies with the current regulations. What it won’t do is give any kind of guarantee against defects that emerge post-completion.

The best way to protect your new home is to get a 10-year structural warranty in place – and you may wish to use a supplier who can package inspections for this with an AI service. For more on warranties see page 39.