EPISODE: 011 - APPROVED DOCUMENTS - SNEAK PICK

BYTNAR - TALKS

EPISODE 011 - APPROVED DOCUMENTS - SNEAK PICK

This episode is for people who want to know more about Approved Documents.

You should like this episode if you ask yourself questions like:

• What are the 18 requirements covered by the Building Regulations and their associated Approved Documents?

• Why is compliance with Approved Documents crucial for building projects in the UK?

• How can businesses interpret and apply guidance from Approved Documents in construction projects?

• Can non-compliance with an Approved Document lead to legal consequences?

• What authority do Building Control Officers have in enforcing Approved Document guidelines?

• How does the appeal process work if a Building Control Officer rejects a compliance strategy?

• Who is responsible for handling appeals against Building Control Officer decisions, and how effective are these appeals?

• What alternatives do developers have if compliance disagreements with Building Control Officers arise?

LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR PROJECT

---

This is Bytnar Talks: The Engineer Takes on Construction – Episode 11

Hi, I'm Piotr Bytnar. Each day, I help my clients plan and design building projects through Bytnar Limited, a consulting Chartered Structural Engineers practice.

My biggest passion, and the cornerstone on which I've built my business, is finding clever solutions for construction projects.

I am a Chartered Structural Engineer and a budding software developer, so you can rest assured that I will strive to talk about the best practices and the use of new technologies in the industry.

And if you're embarking on a construction project or are involved in planning, designing, and building the world around us, you'll find this podcast useful.

Approved Documents Sneak Peek🎵 [Music] 🎵

Hi there, how are you? Welcome back to Bytnar Talks, your favorite podcast on all matters of architecture, engineering, and construction.

It is Thursday, the 4th of August, 2024, and I am glad to be back with you with the 11th episode and the start of the series talking about approved documents.

I had a little break—my half-term, if you like—that time between my little one's birthday, lasting circa 4 days with in-laws, an Easter break, and another four days of beautiful family time. By the way, the in-laws are great—definitely the keepers—as is the wife.

I'm back with you to keep on delivering on the promise of a new episode issue most weeks of the year.

I've just closed the series on the Plan of Work, and now I want to start the series on Approved Documents. There seems to be an awful lot of confusion around the requirements, whys, and hows of the building regulation regime, which I will try to straighten up for you.

To make matters more complicated, with the onset of the Building Safety Act giving more clarity on the responsibilities around construction projects—and special consideration for the higher-risk buildings—we are slowly entering the era where professionalism and competence of people involved in the AEC industry is hopeful for the positive change.

As of yet, there is not much of a bite to the legislation, although I can see a more considerate and careful approach throughout the board.

Interestingly, however, the competent people—as they are now called—will not command greater power in relation to approved documents.

What is also interesting: the competent people may now fall victim to either bad advice contained within the Approved Documents or its integration with other aspects of design.

After all, we live in a world ordered by legislation, and the last time I checked, the Approved Documents are only guidance—but the guidance used as a checklist by the building control inspectors (however you call them now), which may blindly require you to do the wrong thing, but for the most part will certainly require you to do the onerous thing people who wrote it considered right at the time of writing.

Alright, so let us unpack it a little bit. So, without further ado, let's dive into the sneaky peek on the Approved Documents

🎵 [Music] 🎵

The purpose of this material is to give you the general appreciation of the requirements put on you by Approved Documents.

The Approved Documents form the primary source of the information prepared by the Secretary of State describing how the Building Regulations requirements can be discharged—how the requirements can be met in practice.

There are 18 of them—well, 17 covering all 18 requirements of Building Regulations, plus materials and workmanship guidance.

They are treated as guidance by the legislature but generally taken as gospel by the building control. They form checklist tables for most inspectors I ever came across.

🎵 [Music] 🎵

I will start the main part of this podcast by telling you where these Approved Documents are coming from and give you the idea how they relate to the reading of the Building Regulations 2010.

Then I will say a bit about each and every one of them in the broadest terms possible.

The following podcast episodes will address each of them one by one, in depth and in detail. The purpose of this particular episode is to give you a general appreciation—and introduction, if you wish—of the subject.

Alright then, let's get on to it.

🎵 [Music] 🎵

There are many laws that guide our every day, of which we are very often less than familiar. Notwithstanding, we carry on with the dealings of every day, often unscathed by this ignorance.

After all, most laws are the codification of common sense and ethical behavior—seldom thought about in foresight, but rather as a failure of human behavior and the lessons learned in the hindsight.

I'm not a barrister, but seeing how the law is applied and going through some legal acts, it certainly, certainly looks this way.

The Building Regulations 2010 is born from the Building Act 1984. The Building Act 1984 puts together previous legislation concerning the building environment and gives the appropriate national authority the right to make building regulations, give exemptions, as well as provide practical guidance by approving documents and standards for general use.

I will cite you a part of the Building Act 1984 that I find quite interesting:

“A failure on the part of a person to comply with an approved document does not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings.”

It is certainly useful to research and refer to approved documents for guidance. Relying on them may be useful in court, but having other views on the matters contained within the guidance is not disqualified.

On the other hand, not relying on the approved documents may stall the process for approval—as inspectors often have no other means to verify the correctness of your project.

This creates an unhealthy relationship between achieving compliance with an approach that is not within the approved documents or in circumstances that none of the documents foresees. Yet, the building control officer will not allow the solution to be put in place.

Taking non-compliance with the approved documents does not mean the project is non-compliant with the building regulations. And building control is not liable for the wrong use or wrong application of the approved documents.

I do not see the reason why construction should be constrained by such an approach—the approach of tick-boxing the guidance of approved documents, rather than relying on sound judgment of competent people who take legal responsibility for the safety and compliance of the project.

Yet, the regime is different. And until the power of design and construction is solely vested in the hands of competent people (for buildings not considered high-risk), we will continue to participate in the tick-box exercise—even if our professional opinion, scientific argument, and research say otherwise.

There are many approved documents, guidance materials, codes, and standards. But in this series, we will look closer into the series of documents called Approved Documents—the series of guidance documents released by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, widely accessible by the general public and widely used as gospel by local and approved inspectors.

The documents follow the Building Regulations 2010 Schedule 1 Requirements. These requirements are as follows:

Requirement A: Structure

This part deals with the structural safety of buildings and gives plenty of guidance on traditional and non-engineered building construction.

What does “non-engineered” mean? It means buildings that, by their size and the localized risk they pose to people—generally a single-family home—can be constructed following simple, prescribed solutions.

This guidance concerns three aspects:

1. Loading - The building , the structure must be strong enough to withstand all the vertical and horizontal forces.

2. Interaction with ground movement – Meaning the interaction of the structure with the ground throughout the building’s lifetime must not impair the building’s safety.

3. Disproportionate collapse – Following the tragedy of Ronan Point, we must think about how buildings stay together when accidents happen.

Requirement B: Fire

This part deals with, well—fire safety of buildings—and looks at aspects such as:

• Means of warning and escape – Things like fire heat alarms and safe evacuation strategies.

• Internal fire spread – This splits into two parts:

  1. Fire spread through linings (e.g. wallpaper, wall-mounted fabrics—some people even use carpet on walls, which is great for spreading fire, but not for safety).

  2. Fire spread through the structure – Ensuring the structure maintains stability under fire conditions, is compartmentalised, and protected with sprinklers where feasible.

• External fire spread – We must ensure events like the Great Fire of London (1666) don't happen again.

• Access and facilities for fire services – Fire won’t extinguish itself. Firefighters should be able to do their job safely and effectively.

Requirement C: Site Preparation and Resistance to Contaminants and Moisture

This involves preparing the site and protecting occupants from contamination and moisture. It tackles the careless practice of placing buildings anywhere without considering the state of the site.

We need to:

• Isolate people from detrimental influence of soil and groundwater

• Manage resistance to damp, rain, condensation, and leaks

No one wants to live in a damp, deteriorating building—unless you’re a wood-boring weevil (and I doubt you are).

Requirement D: Toxic Substances

This mainly addresses issues like cavity insulation. Historically, substances like urea-formaldehyde foam were used and eventually caused toxic off-gassing, affecting residents for years.

Requirement E: Resistance to the Passage of Sound

This ensures that occupants enjoy comfortable, quiet living environments:

• Protection from noise between rooms and adjoining buildings

• Protection within the dwelling itself

• Management of reverberation in communal areas (especially important in flat conversions, e.g., offices into flats, where corridor noise can reach bedrooms)

Also covers acoustic conditions in schools.

Requirement F: Ventilation

Everyone knows the importance of fresh air in our living spaces. This requirement focuses on:

• Indoor air quality

• Mechanical and natural ventilation systems

• Removal of pollutants and moisture buildup

Requirement G: Sanitation, Hot Water Safety, and Water Efficiency

Covers:

• Cold water supply (no one wants to be the next Flint, Michigan—lead contamination disaster!)

• Water efficiency – Water is a scarce resource, especially in parts of Southeast England

• Hot water systems – Must be hot enough to clean but not so hot as to scald

• Sanitary conveniences and hygiene – We’ve left the Victorian era; proper bathroom and kitchen hygiene must be maintained

Requirement H: Drainage and Waste Disposal

This requirement focuses on:

• Removal of foul water

• Wastewater treatment and soakaways

• Surface water drainage (rainwater)

• Coordination with existing underground sewer systems

• Prevention of backflow and contamination

• Ideally separating foul and surface water systems

Foul water drainage should ideally be separated from wastewater drainage, but sometimes that's not possible. In those cases, we need to know how to deal with solid waste storage, and this aspect is treated within the Drainage and Waste Disposal requirement.

After Approved Document H, logically, we would expect a Document I, but there is none. We go straight to Approved Document J, which deals with combustion appliances and fuel storage systems.

We need to consider in this context:

• How we supply air for combustion

• How we discharge the products of that combustion

• How we protect people and inform them if there’s any release of carbon monoxide by those installations

• How we protect the building so it doesn’t catch fire from our appliances

• How we provide information about the whole system, so new appliances can be installed safely

• How to protect liquid fuel storage systems and ensure these liquids do not contaminate the ground around the tanks

These are all matters treated in Approved Document J.

Approved Document K

Deals with: Protection from Falling, Collision, and Impact

You know—things like:

• Stairs

• Rules around ladders, ramps in dwellings

• Protection from falling, vehicle barriers, and loading bays

• Protection from collision with open windows

• Protection against impact from, and entrapment by, doors

Which may sound silly—but people, especially children, sometimes die when they interact with poorly designed control units that operate doors or gates.

Approved Document L

Conservation of Fuel and Power

All resources are finite, and we try to use as little of them as possible—and reuse wherever we can with our green strategies nowadays.

The Conservation of Fuel and Power is all about making sure:

• The building is not overly impacted by heat or cold

• The heating or cooling units are energy efficient

• On-site generation of electricity is properly sized and executed

So buildings perform better, and energy is used responsibly.

Approved Document M

Access to and Use of Buildings

We need to make buildings accessible to people of varying capabilities.

This document addresses:

• Access to extensions to buildings other than dwellings

• Sanitary conveniences in those extensions

• Sanitary conveniences in dwellings in general

Not all of us can walk freely. Not all of us have all limbs. We need to think about everyone and try to provide the best living and working solutions across the board.

Approved Document N

Glazing Safety in Relation to Impact, Opening, and Cleaning

This used to be part of Document K but now forms its own section. There's no newly published Approved Document N yet, but we refer to the old guidance from Part K.

Key issues include:

• Protection against impact

• Manifestation of glazing (so you don’t walk into glass doors)

• Safe opening and closing of windows, rooflights, doors, etc.

• Safe access for cleaning glazing surfaces

Approved Document O

Overheating

As the title suggests, this deals with preventing overheating in buildings.

When a building is poorly designed or poorly located, it will absorb excessive heat from the sun. Relying on air-conditioning in all cases doesn’t make the infrastructure better.

The document suggests that buildings should be:

• Conceived and designed in a way that allows natural regulation of heat gain

• Use shade where possible

• Use natural ventilation wherever possible

• Use thermal mass—like concrete or masonry—to store heat and regulate indoor temperature without mechanical systems

Approved Document P

Electrical Safety

This document covers the design and installation of low- or extra-low-voltage installations in dwellings.

Approved Document Q

Security

This deals with unauthorised access to dwellings or flats. It provides minimum requirements for doors and windows to resist physical attack by a casual or opportunistic burglar.

Approved Document R

Physical Infrastructure for High-Speed Electronic Communication Networks

Yes, that’s a long name. But it’s basically a complicated way to say:

“You should be connected—or be ready to connect—to gigabit-speed internet.”

It mandates that gigabit-ready physical infrastructure (such as fibre-optic cables or conduits) must be in place in new dwellings. So yes—it’s about ensuring your building has the proper internet infrastructure built in and it basically means your home can connect to the network by cable.

This Approved Document also treats the connection to a gigabit-capable network—which means your house is physically connected and ready for you to use it whenever you're ready. Clever little one—maybe unnecessary, really little one—but yeah, it is what it is.

The Approved Documents refer to new buildings that should be connected to the network, just in case someone wouldn't want to connect the property to the network. Nowadays, I don’t know if that would even be a thing—well, unless you're a nomad, that is. But then, you don’t build your house—you dig yourself a hermit house… or a hobbit house, right?

Approved Document S

Infrastructure for the Charging of Electric Vehicles

This one is increasingly relevant. We—the industries—are changing toward electrification wherever we can, trying to industrialize power so that it’s delivered to us cleanly, and all the messy, unclean methods of producing that power can be managed at an industrial scale.

This document deals with:

• The erection of new residential buildings

• Dwellings resulting from a material change of use

• Residential buildings undergoing major renovation

• The erection of non-residential or mixed-use buildings

• Major renovations of those non-residential or mixed-use buildings

Basically, if you build or change your building—provide the electrical charging facilities.

So that would be all for the Approved Documents. However, there is one more that's worth mentioning here.

This one generally talks about how buildings are delivered. It’s a requirement found under Regulation 7 of the Building Regulations, which basically deals with:

Materials and Workmanship

On the materials side, it tells us that:

• Materials need to be suitable—“good and proper” for the application

• There should be means to ensure that suitability

On the workmanship side, it tells us:

• Workmanship must also be “good and proper”

• There should be ways to assure the quality of workmanship

🎵 [Music] 🎵

So here you have it.Just by giving you a simple and general overview of the Approved Documents, I’ve probably made you forget your own name.

Many businesses make their own offerings focused on selected aspects of these requirements. It’s good practice to start from the perspective of the Secretary of State—the government’s understanding—of what each regulation means in terms of practical application.

It needs to be noted that although these are "just" guidance documents, they are treated as gospel by building control.

There are 18 requirements within 17 Approved Documents (Requirement N and Approved Document K being an overlap for now, anyway), and the additional document that deals with materials and workmanship.

I think it’s worth reiterating what I said at the beginning of the main part of this podcast—quoting the legislation again:

“A failure on the part of a person to comply with an approved document does not of itself render him liable to any civil or criminal proceedings.”

Mind, however, dear listener:Building control officers are not legislative, architectural, or engineering wizards. They rely on tools presented to them by the government—in this case, the Approved Documents—and checklists conforming to those documents.

Unfortunately, although building inspectors have no liability towards you as a client, they will insist on the use of this guidance—because they have the power of veto.

The only recourse from their decision is an appeal to the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—the Right Honourable Michael Gove.(No chance.)

And if that doesn't help, well… maybe you’d like to take the government to court? If you're doing housing projects, I doubt any of these solutions make economic sense. Well—at least in 99% of cases, they don’t.

🎵 [Music] 🎵

It has been a pleasure to deliver this episode to you.

Thank you for listening.Let me know if this type of content works for you.

I’ve decided to systematize this a little more and follow the same pattern I used for the Plan of Work series—starting with a high-level overview of a chunky subject and then dissecting it in more detail with every following episode.

If you think this benefits you—or would like to capitalize on this listening in the form of CPD certification—please do let me know. I’ll open a waiting list to see if that’s viable.

In any case, I’ll continue to deliver content to you—my dear fellow professional, and dear client of mine. It is important to me and my consulting engineering practice—Bytnar Ltd—to deliver information to you so you can make the most informed decisions for yourself, and to guide the practice of architecture, engineering, and construction into a more informed, cooperative, and sustainable whole.

Thank you again for listening.Please voice your opinions—I'm waiting for you on LinkedIn, and I want to hear from you.

Toodloo! 👋

---

Piotr Bytnar BEng (Hons) MSc CEng MIStructE

Chartered Structural Engineer who deals with the Architecture of buildings. His Master's Studies led him to an in-depth understanding of risk and contract arrangements in construction as well as specialist knowledge in soil mechanics.

He and his team help homeowners and property developers to design and deliver construction projects reducing waste in time and the cost. He believes that the construction project is an iterative process that can be well managed and it is best managed if all the aspects of the project definition and management are dealt with in-house or coordinated by one organisation. His team works to all stages of RIBA and ISTRUCTE stages of work and enables contractors to deliver projects on-site providing risk evaluations, methodologies for execution of works and temporary works designs.

---