Building Regulations

[stephensedgwick]

The BCO has just rang me back and he seems a really nice bloke. He said my drawings don't have to be professional and send it in with my photos and he should be able to sort something.

It's worth a try

my advice is go with the building officer and if he's happy no problem

[vampire]

I would assume that the steel has a load bearing wall above or joists lapped mid span to require the steel in the first place,as i cannot make out why any builder would not get proper calcs from structural engineer and inspected in place and signed off by building regs officer.

You may not have needed plans for the original build as it could of been done on a building notice just with the regs office,but it is always a good idea to get stuff in writing so if you do sell and the solicitor asks for planning cert................

Proper pad stone/engeering brick or concrete to correct bearing size will need to be seen as well as steel,as said best to just have both ends exposed to see the detail,building control can then run it through size calculator to confirm its ok.

Be nice to the BCO,he sounds like a good guy trying to help,they not all like that,dont forget letter/writing to confirm it didn't need planning.

Good luck.

[Me matt]

Surely if the works were pre change in building regs its exempt 🤔

[bobt]

Surely if the works were pre change in building regs its exempt

 

pre 1936?

[JohnfromUK]

Interesting topic; I have had a lot of work done to my house (which is a mid 19th century listed building) in the last two years.

 

To cut a long story short, sometime in the late 1950's / early 1960's, a large section of load bearing wall was taken out with engineering/architectural work carried out by a friend of my late fathers. Since nearby work was needed under my changes, my architect 'opened up' to see how this had been done to check all was well - even though there was no evidence of any movement or cracking (and all other engineering/architectural changes made to the property at the time were all done in good practice).

When we uncovered the beam, there was a sharp intake of breath as it was very small - and considered well below what was needed in size and therefore capacity. The decision was therefore taken to 'do the job properly' and replace it.

 

A structural engineer to design a suitable replacement was engaged and visited - and after initially repeating the 'sharp intake', requested the builder to 'dig deeper'. It turned out that the small beam was in fact 6 x small beams laid side by side. Apparently this was quite common at that time as material availability was variable post war. The overall 'composite beam' was well up to the job, which would explain how there had been no ill effects after 50 plus years. I say this because none of this could have been seen from a photograph (and wouldn't have passed muster nowadays).

 

It was in fact decided to replace this structure, partly because the existing steelwork was quite corroded (after 50 or 60 years) and partly because it was relatively easy to do at the time.

 

We worked closely with building control on the whole project and found them very helpful.