The LABC Building Excellence Awards Grand Finals 2023 took place at the Grosvenor Hotel in London on Friday 19 January 2024. Over 900 guests attended the black tie event.
The Grand Finals 2023 is a great way to start the year celebrating the amazing projects and people in the construction industry. All of those in attendance were regional winners who had qualified for the Grand Finals with the chance of winning one of the coveted national awards.
Under the Clean Air Act 1993 as amended by the Environment Act 2021, local authorities may declare the whole or part of the district of the authority to be a smoke control area. This means that it is an offence to emit a substantial amount of smoke from a chimney of a building if located in a designated Smoke Control Area. Therefore, Smoke Control Areas need to be considered before planning the installation of a solid fuel stove.
Part C of the Building Regulations 2010 specifies the requirements for site preparation and resistance to contaminants. In particular, Requirement C1(2) states “reasonable precautions shall be taken to avoid danger to health and safety caused by contaminants on or in the ground covered, or to be covered by the building and any land associated with the building”.
Regulation 24 of the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended) requires the Secretary of State to approve a methodology of calculation for the energy performance of buildings. The approved methodology for new buildings other than dwellings is the ‘National Calculation Methodology’ (NCM).
After a weekend of Remembrance in the UK, we at LABC are remembering two of our surveyors who sadly passed away recently.
Justin Booth
Justin Booth was a manager at Bradford City Council Building Control for many years before moving to Harrogate Building Control.
Regulation 24 of the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended) requires the Secretary of State to approve a methodology of calculation for the energy performance of buildings. The approved methodology for newly built dwellings is the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP).
It is generally considered that well-built brickwork requires little maintenance. However, as the brickwork ages, the surface of the mortar joints may tend to show signs of poor condition or failure – such as when the mortar is powdery and easily rubbed away or eroding so that the joints have become appreciably recessed. In this situation, you will need to decide whether there is any loss of strength in the wall and, if there is, if repointing will adequately restore that strength and make the joints sufficiently durable.
The use of timber in external walls as a structural frame is nothing new and has been used for centuries, typically in barns and churches. They are also used, for example, where they are the frame for a bay window or porches (see photo) with the use of timber posts instead of masonry or stone piers. These frames are limited in size but nevertheless need careful consideration at the design and construction stages from a building regulation point of view. We expect our buildings to be structurally sound, fire safe, thermally efficient, and watertight.
The NFRC (National Federation of Roofing Contractors) has advised that due to the high demand for treated timber, there is now an abundance of sub-standard roofing battens within the UK market that are being marked, coloured and sold as compliant to BS 5534, when in fact they may be counterfeit. These sub-standard goods are becoming an increasingly serious issue for merchants, roofing contractors and their clients.
Clay bricks have been in use for many years. In Britain, bricks were first used by the Roman Empire in the 1st century. Nowadays, bricks are prevalent across the built environment and continue to be a fundamental ingredient in modern architecture. So, why after 2000 years are we still debating how to lay ‘frogged’ bricks?