A Beginners Guide to Building Regulations

What are building regulations? 

The Building regulations are the minimum standards for construction, design & alterations to virtually every type of building. These are basically developed by the Government & approved by the Parliament. 

The Building Regulations even contain a list of requirements, which are designed to ensure the minimum standards for safety, health, energy efficiency, convenience, sustainability and more. These regulations set the national standards for all kinds of building work. They cover all aspects of a construction. They even ensure that people with disabilities are provided with adequate facilities in specific kinds of building.

Building regulations are different from planning permission 

The Building regulations usually look in the detail at the materials used and the construction for building works unlike the Planning Permission that's used for guiding the way the places are developed, appearance of the buildings, impact of environment, use of building and highway access. 

Difference between building regulations drawings and planning drawings 

Building control regulation drawings are much more detailed in comparison to the planning drawings because of the level of information needed for explaining how things are generally constructed. This may make them a lot more hard to understand if you're are not quite acquainted to reading drawings. Building regulation plans must include high level of detail and should have detailed construction notes for explaining the proposed construction procedures of the project. This extra bit of detail may make it easy to price the job more precisely so more exact estimates may be obtained from building regulation plans. 

Types of building work that requires building regulations approval

All kinds of building work need approval. Examples of works, which need approval include: 

• Constructing a new home
• Extension, alteration or erection of a building 
• Alterations of internal structures 
• Installing a WC and cavity wall insulation 
• Change of buildings use and more 

Can a home be extended without building regulations? 

There are some kinds of small extensions, which are exempt from the building regulations. They include the conservatories, yards, porches and carports that have at least two open sides. But there are a few conditions, which still apply.  

How to get building regulations approval? 

Mainly, there are two ways of obtaining building regulations approval-a building notice or a full plans application.