Building Control & Soakaways

Furts

A different angle this. Building Control asked for soakaways on my house. I said, politely, your office is only 2.5 miles away - surely you know the local ground conditions and soil types? Basically, soakaways do not work in heavy clay.

So I hand dug a percolation test pit and timed water flow, which was close to nil. I informed Building Control and invited them to see it. Instead they trusted my judgement and I laid my drains to the surface water drainage system instead.

fly_half83

Thanks for your help guys

So I have had someone in digging the soakaway; and stupidly told the council this. So they have asked for it not to be filled in. Now this is not a major issue and obviously I should have kept this quiet and said that we got it done when we bought the property.

Now I once again asked building control what else needed to be checked in order for them to award the Completion Certificate - but once again, when I speak to the actual Building Control Inspector he gets all coy and refuses to answer me.

I called up on Tuesday and spoke to someone else in Building Control and he was helpful to the point where he told me exactly what needed to be checked etc - i.e. soakaway, egress windows and smoke alarms. Call today and the guy lays into me for not informing them that the house has been occupied all this time and would not tell me anything, only that he would be round tomorrow.

Now I did not know that I needed to inform them that the house was occupied. I bought it as a 1st time buyer and obviously I am not as clued up as I should have been but far from happy about the reaction from him. All I am trying to do is make sure everything is ok.

fly_half83

Bit of an update; we had Building Control round and there are 3 things that need to be done in order for them to award the Completion Certificate.

The soakaway is all signed off thankfully.

Now I am currently negotiating with the buyer of our property and they said they would be happy to take on board the work themselves but they think it will cost £1500 when we know full well that the work costs no more than £400

We are just waiting on an email from the Building Control Inspector to confirm that these are the three things we are waiting on. Unsurprisingly he is not being too helpful in terms of getting back to me. I wouldn't mind but I just spoke to him on the phone.

Am I being unrealistic here? Just keen to see what I should expect. I was on the understanding that Building Control had to notify you of these sort of things should you ask them?

EDIT: should add that the 3 pieces of work are an extractor fan in the kitchen, radio linked smoke alarms and egress window hinges on the two back bedroom windows.

stef73

2 of the pieces i had to do to my extension. The extractor fan have they said it has to joined with the extractor hood above the cooker? This can be solved if your hood has the correct top for a duct kit B&Q sell these (as will others). For the radio bases i used AICO ones from local electrical suppliers, are your smoke alarms mains operated if they are you just change the bit that connects to the mains,very easy didnt take long. I have 1 heat alarm connected to 3 smoke alarms upstairs and downstairs.

fly_half83

Hi stef73

We were told the following things by the council (they got back to me via email late this evening!):

2. A mains wired and interlinked system of smoke detection is required to be provided to the ceilings over the hall and landing (these may be connected by radio link and be spurred off a lighting circuit if fitted with battery back up).

3. The kitchen is required to be provided with a mechanical extract fan having a rate of extraction of at least 60 litres per second if the cooker hood is of a re-cuirculating type (i.e. does not extract to an external vent).

So yeah, it seems on the face of it to be fairly simple. We have told our buyers we will do the work for these two things, if they are happy to exchange early next week. We are putting one or two other bits in there to sweeten the deal naturally. Not that harsh. Haha