Building Notice or Full Plans Application?

[^woody^]

@^woody^ trying but failing to get everybody to listen to what he says, do everything he says and act upon everything he says but doesn’t like it when somebody tries to challenge him

It doesn't bother me one bit that you and FMT display your lack of knowledge to the world, we often have a chuckle. There are lots of plan drawing monkeys who just get by with a CAD program to draw for them without having to think much, I see it daily and unfortunately that's the way it is.

And whilst I can see that you have learnt a great deal from DIYnot, it does bother me that people may read some of your drivel and think that is the way it is, so I'm happy to point that out.

 

[^woody^]

I've not even read your reply, I give up, you're right I'm wrong.

Freddie, ooh
Didn't mean to make you cry

 

[domdee]

back to topic, spoke to the AT and he has agreed to do regs drawings for £600 instead of £800. Bonus.

And I will be going for full planning, not building notice!

Thanks for your help. And sorry if I have caused any trouble between the old heads

 

[A_Novice]

We recently had an extension and if I were to do it again I would want to see examples of the architects building reg drawings first.

It seems there are drawings that are good enough to get approved by building control and there are drawings that are actually useful to the builder as well.

You don't want your builder scratching his head due to lack of detail provided on the drawings.

 

[^woody^]

We recently had an extension and if I were to do it again I would want to see examples of the architects building reg drawings first.

It seems there are drawings that are good enough to get approved by building control and there are drawings that are actually useful to the builder as well.

You don't want your builder scratching his head due to lack of detail provided on the drawings.

The problem is that you, as a lay person customer, will never know what's good or bad.

There are several individuals around me that produce these fancy looking plans, with eaves details, 3D beam connection sketches, floor sections and some other things on every set of plans. They look lovely, only when you start reviewing them you quickly see that these are all just cut and pasted from somewhere and don't actually relate to the proposed works. They are marked up as "typical" details, so I suppose that's alright then.

And then you get the charlatans who produce basic sections with a bit of text but no details and tell the client that the "builder will sort out the details", and the poor client believes that is the case and how it should be.

 

[A_Novice]

The problem is that you, as a lay person customer, will never know what's good or bad.

There are several individuals around me that produce these fancy looking plans, with eaves details, 3D beam connection sketches, floor sections and some other things on every set of plans. They look lovely, only when you start reviewing them you quickly see that these are all just cut and pasted from somewhere and don't actually relate to the proposed works. They are marked up as "typical" details, so I suppose that's alright then.

And then you get the charlatans who produce basic sections with a bit of text but no details and tell the client that the "builder will sort out the details", and the poor client believes that is the case and how it should be.

Absolutely spot on. I posted a while back about what a minefield it is for the lay person customer.

While trustworthy architects exists, finding one is almost impossible as most people seem to just churn out templates that their "friend" at the private building control firm pass without even looking at them properly.

There needs to be more protection for the lay person in my opinion.

 

[wessex101]

It seems there are drawings that are good enough to get approved by building control and there are drawings that are actually useful to the builder as well.

This should be carved on stone tablets and given to all architectural designers when they set up in practice.

The main problem is price. It is very easy to churn out generic drawings, especially on CAD, so the CAD Monkeys can bang out a project in an afternoon and charge £500 and make a good living.
A decent set of bespoke plans will take days to produce (at least mine do but that might be because I'm bloody slow) which is reflected in the price.

Having said that price alone is no guarantee of quality. We have seen many examples here where customers paid top whack for some truly dreadful plans.

It usually boils down to personal recommendations. A bad set of drawings will usually lead to problems on the build, delays, cost increases etc. as the poor builder tries to design and build as he goes. It's a funny thing about personal recommendations though, I don't know if people are just too eager to be helpful or they are trying to pretend that their project wasn't a disaster but why do people still recommend designers and builders when they were a load of crap? How do these people keep getting work? So don't just take a personal recommendation on trust, ask a few pertinent questions such as were they happy with the way the project ran and the final result? were there any delays if so why? did the final cost match the original quote and if not why? How did the builder rate the plans?

 

[A_Novice]

I think people are too eager to help and too proud to admit they had a dodgy builder or architect.

everyone you speak to swears by their mortgage advisor, their physio, their osteopath and now it seems architects fall into that category as well.

 

[mrrusty]

as the poor builder tries to design and build as he goes

Throwing a curved ball into the discussion regarding client drawings, for the lay-person customer there is some sense in "tendering" with builders for a "design and build" quotation. The scope/specification can set the overall design intent and a very simple contract only needs to say "the completed construction must be fully compliant with all relevant BR and it is the builders responsibility to obtain the completion certificate as the customer's agent".

Don't say it can't be done, because I have done it. This passes design cost and risk to the builder, and obviously you have to expect a job price with that risk priced in, BUT it has the benefit of a fixed lump-sum price with a specified outcome. Not being a smartass, but the last little extension I did this with, BC decided they wanted much deeper foundations than the builder and his designer had planned. They had to pick up the tab because it was a design and build.

 

[wessex101]

Throwing a curved ball into the discussion regarding client drawings, for the lay-person customer there is some sense in "tendering" with builders for a "design and build" quotation. The scope/specification can set the overall design intent and a very simple contract only needs to say "the completed construction must be fully compliant with all relevant BR and it is the builders responsibility to obtain the completion certificate as the customer's agent".

Don't say it can't be done, because I have done it. This passes design cost and risk to the builder, and obviously you have to expect a job price with that risk priced in, BUT it has the benefit of a fixed lump-sum price with a specified outcome. Not being a smartass, but the last little extension I did this with, BC decided they wanted much deeper foundations than the builder and his designer had planned. They had to pick up the tab because it was a design and build.

That's OK if you are happy to pay an inflated price. Design and Build still involves a designer, as the name suggests, the only difference is the the designer works for the project team not directly for the client. Those costs are all worked in to the tender/quotation. As the entire project is managed by the builder you lose the opportunity to take your drawings to other builders to get competitive quotes so you inevitably pay over the odds. I've worked on a few design and build contracts and the builders love them because they know they will make a good profit.

As for the analogy about the foundations, I don't know what design and build contract you were using but there is no legal way the builder could be held liable for a totally unknown such as foundation depths unless you provided a full soil report with trial holes.

Finally the point about the only contract clause needs to be all work to comply with Building Regulations. I think you misunderstand how building regulations works, it is not a quality assurance scheme more a health and safety role. As long as the build is not going to be dangerous the Building Inspector actually has very little power and even less care. Its like saying you will buy any car as long as it's got a current MOT. It doesn't matter if it's the wrong colour, it's a a diesel estate when you wanted a sporty coupe and its got 300,000 miles on the clock but it's got an MOT so it's all good.

 

[^woody^]

very simple contract only needs to say "the completed construction must be fully compliant with all relevant BR

In which case you can get gloss paint on bare unprimed timber, old metal corrugated sheets on the roof, no taps on the sink, no heating, no plug sockets etc etc.

Building regulations are not a set of quality standards, they are just basic regulations for minimum safety for use of the building, not the building itself.

And your concept of passing risk onto the builder also passes costs onto the client, and those can be considerable.

But as wessex says, there would be no legal contractual way a contractor could be expected to pay for work instructed by another person that he has no contractual relationship with. The relationship is between the client and inspector, and the client and contractor.

 

[mrrusty]

That's OK if you are happy to pay an inflated price. Design and Build still involves a designer, as the name suggests, the only difference is the the designer works for the project team not directly for the client. Those costs are all worked in to the tender/quotation. As the entire project is managed by the builder you lose the opportunity to take your drawings to other builders to get competitive quotes so you inevitably pay over the odds. I've worked on a few design and build contracts and the builders love them because they know they will make a good profit.

Absolutely - that's what I said - you pay more by offsetting the risk. You tender the work against an outline specification.

As for the analogy about the foundations, I don't know what design and build contract you were using but there is no legal way the builder could be held liable for a totally unknown such as foundation depths unless you provided a full soil report with trial holes.

In this case it was a very simple "contract" - not a standard form - basically "build me an extension and take all risk and responsibility for getting the completion certificate". Anyone can be held liable for anything depending on "what the contract says". In this particular case the "paying over the odds" worked in my favour, because the builder HAD taken the risks.

Finally the point about the only contract clause needs to be all work to comply with Building Regulations. I think you misunderstand how building regulations works, it is not a quality assurance scheme more a health and safety role. As long as the build is not going to be dangerous the Building Inspector actually has very little power and even less care. Its like saying you will buy any car as long as it's got a current MOT. It doesn't matter if it's the wrong colour, it's a a diesel estate when you wanted a sporty coupe and its got 300,000 miles on the clock but it's got an MOT so it's all good.

Of course you also need a scope/specification that defines size, general materials, functionality, which is exactly what I said, but for the lay person the BC sign-off is some certainty that the construction has been built correctly to standards. To say it has no QA role is IMHO incorrect, borne out by the fact that all building societies insist on completion certs to protect their investment.

Anyway, it's only my point of view borne out by personal experience. For things I don't know so much about (like architecturally designing buildings) I prefer to pay to offset the risk contractually (which is something I DO know about)