Building Regs Query - opening in to conservatory

[lumpyjudgement]

Hello All,

First time posting here so please bear with me.

About 18 months ago I purchased a house. This house has a conservatory which is connected to a living room/kitchen. There is no door between these rooms. When I had the survery this was picked up and the sellers confirmed this was done about 12+ years ago so was outside building control.

Fast forward about a year I wanted to open this up even further. The plans attached show some load bearing walls being removed to open up the whole area in to one big room (red lines are the walls being removed).

I sent this off to my local council indicating I was opening up in to a conservatory. When they replied with information about the building control checks they would have to do it was very generic, like electrics, drainage, structure etc.

Based on the information they provided I went ahead with the works and the building control came out and met my builder and confirmed the work was all ok.

After 3 months of chasing for the completion certificate the inspector says he is unable to sign off because it has been opened up in to conservatory and due to the heating efficiency he cannot sign it off. So I would have to rebuild the whole conservatory (walls and roof) to make it more energy efficient (I do not have the money for this).

My questions are this;
As there was no thermal barrier there before, is still outside the building control?

Should they have not raised this when I submitted my plans clearly showing the works opening up in to the conservatory? Not 3 months after everything was done.

The conservatory has a radiator connected to the boiler in the house (this can be switced off with valves located near the radiator), does this make a difference?

Is there anything I can do to get around this?

In my opinion nothing has really changed, there was no thermal barrier before and there still isn't. And they should have raised this when I submitted my plans, if they did I wouldn't have done the work.

(this is in Ipswich)

Thank you,

The original works pre building regs would be fine but by doing the works, it has to meet with the current regs. You have made big changes as now more is opened up though.

They should have highlighted it.

I don't think you can get around this. You could just leave it with no building regs but depends if you wish to sell.

We had something a bit like this and the local authority asked for SAP calculations to be submitted (we had to get a consultant in to do them) after which it was fine.

In 2021we had an old sun room attached to the back of a very long sitting room. There were hideous old aluminium sliding doors separating the two. We have had the whole thing revamped with the wooden top of the sunroom removed and rebuilt with brick piers and fully insulated and bi-fold doors (It had a brick lower section with foundations already). We did not want to separate it from the sitting room with doors again but rather have it as a huge open plan space. Our builder (who we have known and used for 20+ years, so trust implicitly) said he would build as we wished, all safe, sound and insulated, but this would still not satisfy building regs. We were happy to go ahead as we love the space and it's been done very well. We have just accepted that, should we ever wish to sell, it will either need indemnity insurance or we will have to put some bi-folds in to separate the spaces. As long as you're happy with it whilst you live there, I think it will only matter when you come to sell.