New bathroom - building regs?

illingwd

Hi all - hoping someone more knowledgeable than me can help with some confusing regulations!

We are looking to install a bathroom in what is currently a study/bedroom upstairs in our house. Will involve running a new soil pipe down the side of the house as the current bathroom is downstairs right at the back of the house. A plumber gave us an estimate and said he'd obviously need to dig in a new soil pipe to link up with the sewer.

The pipe which connects several nearby houses to the public sewer in the street runs across our property. As far as I can tell from Thames Water, this now counts as a public sewer, hence Thames Water are responsible for it, even though it's on private property. Is this correct?

I've also had a look at what we need to do to comply with building regs. The council's website suggests a building notice would be sufficient for most minor works like this. But it also says that if you are doing work "near a public sewer" then a full plans application is needed.

Any advice on what I'll need to do?

Thanks in advance!

martinsurrey

yes, you are correct, any pipe in which waste from more than one property flows, is the responcibility of waste company, regarless of location.

would the new soil stack connect directly to the shared drain? or connect to the existing private one from your current stack, which runs to the shared drain on your property?

If you're touching the shared drain at all, you are going to need to jump through all kinds of hoops (camera surveys and agreements with Thames Water), which is both costly and time consuming, and so should be avoided!

A building notice doesnt change any of the regulations you need to adhire to, its just they assume yuo know what you are doing. so has the plumber thought about joist support for the weight of a bath?

southcoastrgi

You don't need any joist support for a normal bath

martinsurrey

southcoastrgi wrote: »

You don't need any joist support for a normal bath

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/buildingregulations/approveddocuments/parta/documenta#Download

I draw your attention to Approved Document A section 2B1

which leads to the TRADA span tables for solid timber members in domestic dwellings.

if you buy a copy of that (or find one on the net for free)

in my second edition (2008)

Section 4.1.5

"The UDL produced by a full bath can exceed the 1.5kN/m2 imposed load for which normal floor joists are designed. Therefore joists beneath a bath should be doubled"

My building control wanted to see why I thought I didnt need more joists, and I did a fag packet calculation for them to show that my oversized joists could take the weight and still be within the regs, but just assuming I didnt need any could have ruined my project.

dont forget OP, ignorance is not an excuse if you use a building notice.

(edit for some advice)
the thing that saved me was my bath went at 90degrees to the run of the josts, so I took support from 5 joists, if the bath was running in line with the joists you would only get support from 2-3, which would take you over the limits for loading MUCH faster.

so designing the layout of the room with knowledge of the existing structure is vital.

illingwd

Thanks for the advice so far. We aren't putting in a bath, just a shower, toilet and basin. So I think the key thing is the new soil pipe. Given that the wall down which the soil pipe will run from upstairs is right next to the manhole cover for the pipe which runs down to the public sewer, I'm assuming this will need the laborious checks etc from the water company and/or council, as that pipe is shared by other houses too... How much pain and/or cost are we talking?

keystone

A change of use such as you are proposing requires Building Regulations and the primary thing that LABC concern themselves with is the waste and soil drainage provisions.

Your chosen contractor can make the connection to the lateral drain himself with no interference from Thames Water except they will want to inspect the connection. Their fee for this inspection is (are you sitting down?) currently £ 485!!! You can make your application via here .

HTH

Cheers