SpookyFrank
Don't swallow the cap
Current regs for HMO's specify heat detectors rather than smoke detectors IIRC. These give fewer false positives, a big advantage if they're connected to a sprinkler system.
When building regulations get annoying
- Thread starter Brainaddict
- Start date
Current regs for HMO's specify heat detectors rather than smoke detectors IIRC. These give fewer false positives, a big advantage if they're connected to a sprinkler system.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Yes a goal post with an underfloor beam. The whole story is a saga, I won't bore you stiff with it all but yes of course they give some lateral stability, but this issue was suddenly added to the discussion after about 5 or 6 to-and-fros between me and BI and the engineers - up until then everything was about downward force and issues relating to the foundations. It was like they couldn't win one way so wanted to quickly tack on another reason.
This is a shot of the kitchen which shows one of the downbeams. What I actually wanted was a wooden beam over the top which could be supported on short walls sticking out of the sidewall at right angles where the upbeam is - I'd have though 60cm would be easily enough (on proper foundations) - and I was happy with a 60cm wall the other end too.
Half the point of this was to use wood since I know someone who usually has surplus beams of one sort or another so it would have been cheaper, it could have been carbon sequestration rather than carbon intensive (as steel is) and it would have looked nicer. But nope.
Basically my opinion is that they didin't know shit about using wooden beams and they just said no for that reason.
More dodgy non-standard second hand windows in the background there...
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Was it a local authority BI, or an approved inspector (private company)?
I fully sympathise with situations where people just say no because it's something that's not immediately familiar to them and they are taking a tick-box approach.
I've had timber beams accepted. In fact timber can potentially last longer than steel - you just need to be able to prove it by working out char rate and stuff. Then oversize the beam a little, so that so much can char off it in a given time, without it losing enough of its strength to be a problem. And/or board it over or use intumescent paint.
I fully sympathise with situations where people just say no because it's something that's not immediately familiar to them and they are taking a tick-box approach.
I've had timber beams accepted. In fact timber can potentially last longer than steel - you just need to be able to prove it by working out char rate and stuff. Then oversize the beam a little, so that so much can char off it in a given time, without it losing enough of its strength to be a problem. And/or board it over or use intumescent paint.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Private. Different guys came out on different visits, all said different things, as did others on the phones. Very uninspiring. I got the impression that they were completely over-awed by the engineers but were trying to hide it.
This was a back wall being taken out that separated the house back room from the 1980s extension, the wall was added when the extension was put on, because it had originally been a back window and door set, so actually all I was doing was extending the existing bridge by about 70cm (if my proposed two little 60cm walls had been left in). The original lintil was 2 bits of 6"x 2".
Are you in the building trade in some way?
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yes, but I prefer not to talk about specific personal details on a public forum. Suffice to say, a fair proportion of my working life is spent trying to navigate the kind of situations you describe.
It does make a difference to work with a structural engineer and an approved inspector that you know won't just go for the easiest way out each time. That's not always possible to achieve and even more so if you're a one-off householder client.
There are approved inspectors who will happily talk things through and make an informed, reasonable judgement. Of course... it's in their interests to be accommodating if they want further work. And then the problem with that is when they become too accommodating, and then you have stuff like Grenfell (although that was actually local authority building control, but mixed up with varying levels of self-certification for different parts of the work).
I don't really know what the ideal solution is. The way the building industry is regulated is certainly very messy, compared to other industries... although often people in those other industries fail to understand why designing and constructing a building is not the same as making some kind of mass produced object in a factory where you have prototypes and iterations and controlled manufacture conditions.
One thing I do observe is on the one hand a level of outrage at what happened at Grenfell (largely justified) and on the other, a lot of recieved wisdom about building regs being overly fussy when it comes to domestic builds. I don't think it's entirely true that the "big boys" get away with stuff while the humble homeowner doesn't. Generally things on large projects are better managed in terms of safety and quality control, I think. Some shockingly bad stuff gets done at the small-builder domestic scale. There is loads and loads of stuff that small builders get away with that simply does not comply, because of what's in reality relatively lax checking and enforcement. It is true that this can produce a scenario where inspectors become overly focused on the things that they can actually check to some extent - like primary structure. Meanwhile, I've hardly ever seen a building inspector say that insulation has to be redone because it's been bodged in with massive gaps everywhere. This is also a breach of building regulations - but unlike fire safety it's unlikely to put someone's life directly at risk.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
I do agree with what you say, I'm kind of just whingeing. It's the first time in my life that I've really got a proper Daily Mail whine to ventilate in a pub. But re ^^ this point, I think this was one of the things that hacked me off with my windows; the house is on a little 1940s/50s close and everyones got plastic windows, I actually watched FENSA registered (according to the paintjob on their van) crew do one lot and fully three quarters of the houses now have a faint but clear zig zag pyramid of cracks over their new front room windows - ie the plastic or the lintel or whatever wasn't strong enough and they're bending.
Meanwhile my second hand oak ones would carry the weight of the whole house if they had to, they are crazy strong. Yet they fail, the others pass. And I think they beat them for 'greenness' too, they have certainly all been a huge upgrade on what they've replaced.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
That shelf doesn't look safe
Lol - the metal one? It's an old bus luggage rack, it's pretty solid and it's screwed into the wall, I'm happy with that one.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
On the smoke alarm issue, we're using fireangel's 10 year smoke and heat alarms. No idea if they really last ten years, but even if a bit less, it's plenty of time not having to worry about batteries. You can't take the batteries out so when they do start beeping at end of life it should be encouragement to change them. In theory at least they seem like a good idea.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Hm, windows should not be loadbearing and so the PVC installers should really have inserted a new lintel as part of the job, if one was not installed in the original build (a not unusual cost cutting measure in post war buildings I believe). Technically that means you should have too, though!
I don't think there's actually anything in the building regs that stops you installing second hand windows by the way - the onus would simply be on you to show that what you were using met the minimum level of insulation, and maybe wooden frames with double glazing would do it. Or, I think it would be within an inspector's power to say ok, they don't quite meet it but they are a significant upgrade on the existing, and cost considerations mean that the alternative would be to do nothing.
Don't get me started though on the way new window u-values are not properly checked... The manufacturer can state a value that's based on an ideal, standard size window which becomes meaningless for the specific installation (for example it has a totally different ratio of frame to glazing). This whole thing is basically just ignored; building inspectors never challenge it and it means that most manufacturers can't even give you an accurate calculation for a specific configuration because hardly anyone asks for it.
And yes FENSA is just one of those self-certifcation things that has minimal bearing on the actual quality of the installation. Unfortunately it appears on conveyancing solicitors' and mortgage lenders' checklists so it becomes a thing, and gets resolved by pointless 'indemnity insurance', in a system that totaly fails to feed back into incentivising properly specified and installed windows which could actually make a meaningful contribution to things like energy usage.
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teuchter
je suis teuchter
There's always the option of disconnecting the wires "while you get around to ordering new ones"
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Believe me, all my second hand windows are unbelieveably strong in terms of downward weight transmission, the pillars between the casements are just shy of 6" thick solid oak and the have a similar bar across the top supported directly by the pillars, whatever the technical requirements I am absolutely certain that they are massively over spec. They are also only supporting the outer leaf - the inner leaf has the old wooden lintels (2x6"x2"). Actually this is a good example of where a BI ought to be able to say 'fuck it, this isn't quite by the book but it's obviously way better than what the book asks for so it's ok' - but I really wouldn't trust one of them to do that and not to drag me into lots of extra work and expense to do something unnecessary. So I've resorted to just doing it and then disguising the work's newness as well as I can and then - if asked - I just shrug and say it was like that when we bought the house.
Again, I'd love it if this were the prevailing attitude but I never ever get this vibe. It's by the book or nothing. And because the risks of being honest are so high, I tend to lie. I wish they gave a shit about actual whole-life energy consumption and carbon costs of house works too, but they don't, in fact they usually don't have a clue what you're talking about if you start talking about making a house really eco sustainable, rather than just hitting various random targets spivved up by the housebuilding industry.
I was always told that the FENSA specs were cooked up by Everest, Zenith and Pilkingtons basically in order to align the required specs with their existing production processes and plans so that they could just tootle on doing what they wanted and all their competitors had to retool and fit in. It's the kind of regulation that you can probably get sorted if you pay £100,000 for a game of tennis with Boris Johnson, or tea and cakes with David Cameron.
Btw, thanks for your comments in general, it's all interesting stuff (I mean it's obviously fucking boring by any meaningful objective measure but it's interesting to me)
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I'm not saying there's any particular reason that it should cause a problem in your case.
My understanding of the modern approach to windows - that they should not be loadbearing - is not just about the strength (like you say in reality they may only be 'supporting' a triangle of brickwork above them) - it's to do with differential movement; in other words allowing different parts of the building to expand and contract independently of each other. Traditionally, building materials had a bit of give (lime mortar for example) and we accepted that houses would be a bit draughty, so if the window frames shrunk a bit there might be a bit of a gap somewhere but you'd not notice it because the whole house was leaky anyway and you needed some ventilation to cope with open fires anyway. Or if the foundations sunk over time, the lime mortar would allow the bricks to sink gently and the walls to become slightly distorted, without cracking, and maybe it would push a timber window frame a bit out of square and maybe the frame would move relative to the glazing but the glazing would be held in with putty which would have a bit of give to it.
Now though, building components are engineered differently - a well designed window of whatever material is constructed quite precisely to make sure that all the gaskets line up properly when you open and shut the casements, and the glazing units are set in such a way that no stresses are passed to them that might make the seals fail and so on. So the window is designed with the assumption that it's going to stay square, and the way it is installed is done so as to minimise the chance of movement of the wall it's fixed into being transmitted to the window itself (often windows are fixed at the sides only). And often you actually want a gap between the frame and the wall into which you can stick some flexible insulation that will avoid thermal bridges and not produce an air gap should things move slightly.
PVC windows in particular aren't supposed to take any load and it's not at all unusual to find PVC windows which have been distorted out of square thanks to movement in the walls surrounding them, to the extent that the casements can't close properly or in the worst case the glazing units crack and fail.
(The above may come in the obviously fucking boring by any meaningful objective measure but it's interesting to me category)
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
That sink looks like an accident waiting to happen
You having a laugh or something? Lovely piece of work that, beautiful craftsmanship*.*it was a temporary sink unit buzzed together with an impact driver and a handful of screws while we did the windows and various other things, you can't see in that photo but the sheet material for the work surface is OSB which isn't really recommended for worktops I'm guessing. You should see it now...LOVELY....
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Beautiful plumage
I should charge you extra really, for the OSB because that's a lovely piece, found it in a little reclaim yard. Much nicer than the modern stuff. Etc.
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
It's a sealed unit so you can't do that. You either smash it with a hammer or have to throw it in the bin still beeping - either way it sends a fairly strong message to yourself that you need a new one. Since it happens only every ten years it isn't going to be one of those regular tasks you come to see as a nuisance, and will feel more of a big deal. I think they're a good option for avoiding most of the problems with standard battery-powered units while not having to install expensive/ugly mains-powered ones.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I think you just disconnect it from the base plate, don't you?
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
Umm, I haven't actually changed one yet. I thought they were started up as a one-off when you connect them to the base plate and then work perpetually. They still give a battery indicator light and test okay when disconnected. But you could be right.
kalmatthew
Lurker Extrodinaire
They turn off when you take them off the base plate. No idea about the Co detector one as that's free standing.
