KJM DESIGN & PLANNING

Building regulation approval can be achieved either via pre-site approval whereby detailed plans of your proposed works are submitted to your local building control department or via onsite approval method whereby you issue a building order to your building control department at the start of the works and then your approval is achieved via regular onsite visits by your local council building control officer.

With both methods there will be a requirement for the building officer to attend the site at several key stages during the works and provided he or she is happy with everything they will grant your new extension with building regulatory approval.

Of course, being an architectural services company you would expect us to advise you to obtain a full set of building Regulation drawings and go down the pre site approval route every single time.

This is not the case however, and for a straightforward extension, and provided you have 100% faith in your building contractors ability then onsite approval may well be the better option for you - it certainly reduces time as pre-site building regulation approval for an average house extension will take around 5 weeks to obtain.

If your plans have just passed planning and you have not yet employed a builder then it is highly recommended to have a full set of building regulation drawings produced as these will be used as builders work drawings by whichever builder you apoint to carry out the works.

Furthermore, provided the builder provides a quotation based on your plans there is less chance of any misunderstandings which may result in you incurring additional charges to the price originally agreed with your builder.

The other advantage of obtaining building regulation plans is that provided your apointed builder carries out his works to the specification on the plans then your extension should pass building regulations control with ease.