Council failed to ensure regulations were enforced

lincroft1710

doug66 wrote: »

Anyone have any advice on this?

Yes. Forget it. It's a complete non-starter.

Doozergirl

lincroft1710 wrote: »

Yes. Forget it. It's a complete non-starter.

Agreed.

Apart from the common factor of mid-century houses using the windows themselves for structural stability, current Building Regulations didn't even exist in the 70s with no clear leglislation across the country.

It would be interesting trying to sue a Local Authority under a current law that didn't exist when the house was built.

All houses move. No one is going to be responsible for anything after 50 years.

The person responsible is the buyer when buying. Caveat Emptor.

This post is just evidence of blame culture.

doug66

The requirement to use lintels or other supports goes back to the early 1900's, most were concrete. Steel became popular after wwII.
Support can either be lintels (steel or concrete - not wood), reinforced bricks (upright with steel rods running through them) or support frames.
For those examples where pvc windows were installed - Fensa was set up to ensure that registered installers checked that the support were sufficient when the old windows were removed, if not then they had to install additional support.
Building regs go back a long way too and the nhbc scheme was set up in the 30's
The houses in question were built with the patio in place.

davidmcn

doug66 wrote: »

The requirement to use lintels or other supports goes back to the early 1900's, most were concrete. Steel became popular after wwII.
Support can either be lintels (steel or concrete - not wood), reinforced bricks (upright with steel rods running through them) or support frames.
For those examples where pvc windows were installed - Fensa was set up to ensure that registered installers checked that the support were sufficient when the old windows were removed, if not then they had to install additional support.
Building regs go back a long way too and the nhbc scheme was set up in the 30's
The houses in question were built with the patio in place.

None of this is relevant. Building Control don't owe a duty of care to whoever might own the property 40 years in the future.

martinsurrey

doug66 wrote: »

Support can either be lintels (steel or concrete - not wood), reinforced bricks (upright with steel rods running through them) or support frames.

haha, you really think that wood was NEVER used for lintels, with additional support provided by the box frame of the original sash windows?

It was in fact the most common method of supporting windows until after the war.

and by the way, NHBC was a voluntary scheme, not a requirement, in the 1960's only 25% of new homes were covered.

its a fact that there were no national building regulations until the 1960's, just a patchwork of local bylaws, and even in the 60's the regulations were pretty light.

read this for a brief history

http://www.buildinghistory.org/regulations.shtml

glasgowdan

doug66 wrote: »

The requirement to use lintels or other supports goes back to the early 1900's, most were concrete. Steel became popular after wwII.
Support can either be lintels (steel or concrete - not wood), reinforced bricks (upright with steel rods running through them) or support frames.
For those examples where pvc windows were installed - Fensa was set up to ensure that registered installers checked that the support were sufficient when the old windows were removed, if not then they had to install additional support.
Building regs go back a long way too and the nhbc scheme was set up in the 30's
The houses in question were built with the patio in place.

If you're trusting google for all your answers then why ask on here? I think you have a very clear answer anyway and it's probably not worth spending any more time on this.

martinsurrey

martinsurrey wrote: »

read this for a brief history

http://www.buildinghistory.org/regulations.shtml

and for a bit of a more detailed approach, the Act you need to understand is

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1965/1373/pdfs/uksi_19651373_en.pdf

the Building Regulations Act 1965.

structural wood is covered in D14 on page 32 of the PDF, which leads you to CP112 :1952.

which is British standard 112 :1952.

so structural wood is fine as long as it met those standards.

now CP112 is hard to find online for free, but when you buy it, you'll find structural wooden lintels are allowed.