Building Regulations Advice

[DavidEvans]

Mrs Evans wants a loft conversion and single storey extension, planning permission has been gained.

The builder has expressed resentment towards using the Councils service and prefers to use an Approved Inspector called JHAI.

Are Approved Inspectors independent or do they work for the builders?

We are concerned the builder has already suggested we do not need fire doors despite the Councils ‘help desk’ telling me they are absolutely necessary.

The Council have also said a number of Approved Inspectors have been unable to renew their insurance policies on renewal and are being forced out of business (which appears to be true). The council added home owners such as ourselves, are then having to pay again to get the Council to sign off the building work.

The most worrying part of the conversation related to Approved Inspectors allowing builders to adopt inferior standards to secure work for themselves.

Are the Council scaremongering or should we be concerned and insist that the Councils service is used?

We've used JHAI when we had an extension, and as far as we are concerned they were fine and came out when they needed to etc, I think our building work sounds less complex than yours though. They were quite specific from memory, checking the windows locked/unlocked in case of a fire. No issues for us, this was 2017. Hope you get it sorted :)

I have a loft extension that's been signed off by the council. Instead of fire doors we have wired smoke detectors in every habitable room

We had to have fire doors AND mains smoke alarms for ours.

Same here, Scottish regulations, fire doors and wired in heat and smoke detectors.

My local authority is Islington and to be fair they were very helpful when I called.

I think I’m going to insist that the builder uses the councils service. The risk of using the Approved Inspector is to high.

I’m risk adverse and should the Approved Inspector not be able to renew their insurance cover I could become financially exposed. More so, if Islington do not agree to accept the layout changes my builder is currently proposing forcing me to revert back to my original plans.

Fire doors just sound like the safer option.

Do not use the private building inspector. They rely on builders for their business

We had an extension done. Excellent builder who actually said he always used the council inspector as part of the assurance to the client of his work

Neighbours had extension. I have them this advice and the builder went mad. Insisted on using the private inspector he always uses. Fortunately neighbour stood on and they were so glad they did. Builder was difficult through the build but building inspector was brilliant and insisted on certain things being done and then coming out to check the builder had done them.

In all honesty I do not have a problem with installing fire doors. My builder, and before he has even started the work is telling me... the client .... that he wants to deviate from the plans and specifications given to him.

The build cost will be in the region of £75,000 so not cheap.

To be honest, I can’t see why a carpenter capable of undertaking a loft conversion would have a problem changing doors... I am paying for it!

Reading around the subject, It would appear some AIs may be willing to accept lesser standards to secure a fee.

One comment I read said AIs are only covered to provide supervision under the terms of their Professional Indemnity Insurance despite some distributing building guides to builders showing willingness to accept reduced standards with the impetus being the AI gets the work and the associated fee, and freeing the builder up to drop standards saving them time and money.

The only person losing is the client.

As a result, I will now ask my Architect to provide a supervision service through the construction to.

We used JHAI for our loft conversion works and found them to be absolutely fine. A little slow at sending out the certificates at the end, but no issues

The £75,000 is for a loft conversion and a small single storey extension.

My house is not listed and has two floors. The loft will become the third.

I have now told the builder I will be appointing Islington council for the Building Regulations. He huffed and puffed but he knows I will be standing firm on the matter.

For me a door is a door and a solid door lends itself to knocks and scrapes associated with day to day living whereby some hollow / thin panel doors just fall apart.

My Architect is going to make a full plans application with the council, and I hope to have the plans Approved before the works start in three weeks giving some further assurance. As a side note, the fee is actually cheaper with the council than with JHAI the Approved Inspector.

I’m also conditioning myself to go up the scaffolding to see the work in progress and to act as my own clerk of works (do we still have those, or am I showing my age). I understand it’s likely the loft will be plastered before the stair arrives!

Thanks flouncyfanny for the link to the loft conversion guide. I’m all geared up and ready to take on the world.

I'm just finishing up building works, and have had to deal with Islington Building Control for something quite complicated without the help of a project manager / architect.
However, I have a fantastic builder and after a bumpy start, I have established a fine relationship with my building control inspector who is actually very helpful.
The pros with them are they have your interests at heart.
At the first inspection, my inspector quizzed my builder how he was going to treat the steel beams, etc. stuff that I didn;t understand as I'm not in the building trade.
If your builder is reluctant to go with Islington BC, I would be questioning your choice of builder.
The cons are niggly: they can be slow getting back to you. My inspector seemed to be on holiday / courses a lot and there was no one else who could come to inspect.
They did not receive my structural engineers revised drawings by email and I only found out about it when I chased a few weeks later - consequently they were only checked and signed off as my plasterer was finishing! (I had a very good structural engineer and hedged we would be okay, but if we weren't if could have delayed things a lot.)
They are sticklers for rules - I don't mind when it comes to health and safety issues, but when it came to proving u-values of existing double-glazed windows, it became a nightmare and at one point, I was told I might have to replace all my double-glazed windows because I didn't have paperwork to prove u-values. (My build is slightly different is a rare 'change of use', so you might not have this issue.)

We also went for a full plans application and received conditional approval from them. Islington BC commit to getting back to you by 5 weeks - I think you would be lucky to get yours back in 3 weeks. They took it right up to the wire and we didn't hear back from them until exactly 5 weeks had passed.

All my friends who have had building works done recently went private because of the slowness of council BC, and at one point I did call a private firm. However, I'm glad I didn't. Despite being slow, I think Islington BC are really nice and as helpful as they can be. You pay a fee and they come out to you as many times as you need (within reason).

Happy for you to PM me if you want to talk anything over and good luck with your project!!

Remember that fire doors will only act as fire doors if they are shut at all time. Do you shut all your doors before you leave the house or go to bed?