Do I need planning permission for a loft conversion

[RonnyRaygun]

Ban All Sheds, you are probably the most sanctimonious person I have ever had the displeasure to *virtually* meet.

No-one likes people who are smug and pious and you have both of those (dubious) qualities in spades.

Please go back to the Electrics forum so that people here can get on with the task of giving useful and constructive advice to those who ask for it.

Most of us, unlike you, manage to do that with a little good will, good humour, and good grace, unlike you who just likes to beat their opponent into submission.

 

[jeds]

Hi all i have a property and looking to add some additional room and was thinking i could convert my loft into an extra bedroom, do you know if i need planning permission for this and what building regulations do i need them to meet?

Just in case you're still checking in. In most cases you can convert without planning permission but you might do if you alter the external dimensions of the roof and the additional volume is more than 40m³ or 50m³ depending. So best check this to make sure. You will need building regulations and nearly all sections will apply. The trickiest parts to get right are normally structure and adequate stairs. Most other things can usually be solved quite easily.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

To add to what Jeds says, it's fair to say that you won't be doing all of the work yourself.

There's nothing to stop you coming up with an architectural design and drawing plans. Full building regs drawings should be left to someone with experience of the regs (surveyor or architect).

Structural design should be done by a competent person (preferably a structural engineer, or perhaps an architect or surveyor).

You will need an electrician to wire in any additional lights/sockets, and you might want to consider using a plumber if you want an en-suite or additional radiators.

If you are extending the space by creating a dormer then that's something else that would be beyond most DIYers.

As Jeds says, you will need a staircase manufacturer or good joiner to knock up a staircase for you.

Most of the rest is not beyond the realms of DIY, although tradesmen have honed their skills over many years and will almost certainly create a better finished product than the average DIYer.

 

[SimonH2]

Common English usage is just that - how people commonly use it. If you can't grasp that, or can't cope with it, then that's your problem - or it should be except that you keep trying to make it everyone else's problem.

So why is it not used when it is essential for there to be no ambiguities? Why do publications have glossaries, tables of definitions etc?

Your further attempt at diversion is noted, it may have escaped your notice that this isn't a technical publication !


Once again you have stormed into a thread with your blunderbuss attack on anyone showing less than perfect comprehension of what's involved - and probably, yet again, completely failed since the OP will probably go away thinking it's too much trouble to ever ask for advice if the end result is abuse. Thus instead of being able to educate and guide, you have lost the ability to help improve someone's abilities.

When you're in the right mood you can be very helpful - but you appear very keen to completely screw up most opportunities you have to be helpful.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Ban All Sheds, you are probably the most sanctimonious person I have ever had the displeasure to *virtually* meet.

No-one likes people who are smug and pious and you have both of those (dubious) qualities in spades.

Can you show where I have affected piety, or made a display of holiness or moral superiority? Or smugness?

Or are those just baseless accusations that you're throwing out because you are hard of thinking, or because you don't like it when you encounter people who have firm opinions and who are both able and prepared to argue them cogently?

Believing firmly in something, sticking to and acting in accordance with those beliefs, and presenting arguments in favour of them are dubious qualities? Presumably, therefore, you admire shallowness, shiftiness and hypocrisy.

Please go back to the Electrics forum so that people here can get on with the task of giving useful and constructive advice to those who ask for it.

So when I tell him that he wouldn't be able to anything except trivial things, I'm sanctimonious, smug and pious, but when you say that he won't be able to do the drawings for Building Regulations approval, he won't be able to do the structural calculations, he won't be able to do the electrics, he won't be able to build a dormer, he won't be able to build a staircase, that's useful and constructive advice?

Most of us, unlike you, manage to do that with a little good will, good humour, and good grace, unlike you who just likes to beat their opponent into submission.

The only people I've argued with here are those who are telling me I am wrong to believe what I do.

Maybe another "quality" you find admirable is refusal to justify one's position or to stand up for oneself.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Your further attempt at diversion is noted, it may have escaped your notice that this isn't a technical publication !

No that has not escaped my notice.

What does seem to have escaped my notice though is that you seem to think, that when asking questions about legal requirements, and technical requirements where getting things wrong could result in injury or death, it's perfectly OK to be vague, ambiguous, imprecise, sloppy, misleading etc.

It's bad enough that you should think that, but to criticise me because I believe that greater precision is required is pretty shameful.

Once again you have stormed into a thread with your blunderbuss attack on anyone showing less than perfect comprehension of what's involved - and probably, yet again, completely failed since the OP will probably go away thinking it's too much trouble to ever ask for advice if the end result is abuse. Thus instead of being able to educate and guide, you have lost the ability to help improve someone's abilities.

But to the OP. If you were thinking of doing this yourself, then I'd suggest that it's definitely not an ideal project to learn DIY skills on. It's non trivial and there a lot of regs to meet - apart from the practical consideration of not having the house fall down.

That said, it certainly IS doable as a DIY project, but you need to be a fairly experienced DIYer. I would agree with advice often given by BAS, that it's not something you can manage to do by asking random questions on a forum and hoping you've guessed at the right questions to get the information you need rather than the information you think you need.

 

[SimonH2]

Can you show where I have affected piety, or made a display of holiness or moral superiority? Or smugness?

How about "If you don't already know then you do not have a hope in hell of doing any DIY apart from trivial stuff like decorating." for a start ?
It implies that anyone who ever has to ask a question is incapable of learning. As has been pointed out before, you didn't pop out of your mother with all the knowledge of the world already in your head, and I bet you've asked a few questions in the past which could have elicited a similar response from your elders/betters.
Yes, it is correct that the OPs post suggest that he isn't equipped to do the job. So educate him on what he needs to know so he can either learn or recognise that he'll have to get someone else to do it. Don't just **** him off so he doesn't bother asking for "help" any more - that's the best way to get people to do stuff they can't and get it wrong.
And the links you posted ? probably useless because anyone sensible reading your post will have turned off and take anything you wrote as just "the pious verbiage of some obnoxious **** incapable of expressing himself in a civilised manner".

As an analogy, you're like the obnoxious drunk who just shouts louder and louder at anyone who points out that they're drunk. That drunk may have some good stories, or know some useful stuff, but no one will bother looking for the good stuff amongst the verbal diarrhoea.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Can you show where I have affected piety, or made a display of holiness or moral superiority? Or smugness?

How about "If you don't already know then you do not have a hope in hell of doing any DIY apart from trivial stuff like decorating." for a start ?

A better start might be for you to go and look up what "sanctimonious" and "smug"actually mean.

It implies that anyone who ever has to ask a question is incapable of learning.

No it does not - you really do have a serious comprehension problem, don't you.

And the links you posted ? probably useless

what building regulations do i need them to meet?

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/bu...ation/currentlegislation/buildingregulations/

http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/bu...icyandlegislation/currentlegislation/[/QUOTE]

because anyone sensible reading your post will have turned off and take anything you wrote as just "the pious verbiage of some obnoxious **** incapable of expressing himself in a civilised manner".

Don't be ridiculous.

As an analogy, you're like the obnoxious drunk who just shouts louder and louder at anyone who points out that they're drunk. That drunk may have some good stories, or know some useful stuff, but no one will bother looking for the good stuff amongst the verbal diarrhoea.

And don't be stupid, either.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

blah blah blah

 

[SimonH2]

No it does not - you really do have a serious comprehension problem, don't you.

No, I comprehend exactly what's going on. Part of "your problem" is that you are the only one that can't. I'm not going to try and educate you any more - there's none so dumb as those who won't learn.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Thank heavens for that - now we will all be spared the tedious, stupid comments which you make because you are either willfully refusing to read what I actually write, or are simply incapable of understanding it, despite its clarity.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

blah blah blah

 

[SimonH2]

blah blah blah

Unfortunately, I expect BAS doesn't see it like that. He's one of the "he who shouts loudest and longest will eventually win no matter how wrong he is" types. I don't think I've ever seen him "lose" an argument simply because he's clearly got more free time to keep spouting than anyone else. He'll be chalking up this "victory" on his tally sheet
Still, if it makes him happy - just a pity he has to strangle yet another thread.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Neither of you get it.

I said that IMO the OP could not do anything but the trivial parts of this loft conversion - and I'm not alone in that belief, or in stating it - AND THAT INCLUDES YOU, MR HYPOCRITE SIMONH2.

And then what happens?

I get called an idiot (I note that nobody else who expressed the same view got called that).

I'm told that saying it means that I'm saying that nobody who asks a question is able to learn. Well, no, durrr - that's an utterly bonkers invention of a febrile mind, but it seems it's my fault that the person who dreamed it up didn't like it.

I'm told that saying it means that I'm saying that the OP is an idiot. Well, no, durrr - that's an utterly bonkers invention of a febrile mind, but it seems it's my fault that the person who dreamed it up didn't like it.

I state my conviction that people should actually know what they are doing when it comes to important topics like structural safety, and I get sarcasm like "mr rocket scientist brain surgeon .... it is a DIY sit after all, not pro-anal-builder-rocket surgeonsnot.com".

People may not have liked the terseness of my initial reply, but it seems that for some people that makes me sanctimonious, pious and smug. More utterly bonkers inventions of febrile minds.

What has caused the "strangling" of this thread are the pages of irrational and unjustifiable criticisms levelled at me by fools and madmen.

Anyone who thinks I am going to quietly sit by and accept being called an idiot, sanctimonious, smug etc, and accept being criticised for things I've not said but have been invented by others is seriously deluded.

People who don't want this sort of thing to happen should lay off the irrational and unjustifiable criticisms in the first place.

 

[limerockconstruction]

Neither of you get it.

I said that IMO the OP could not do anything but the trivial parts of this loft conversion - and I'm not alone in that belief, or in stating it - AND THAT INCLUDES YOU, MR HYPOCRITE SIMONH2.

And then what happens?

I get called an idiot (I note that nobody else who expressed the same view got called that).

I'm told that saying it means that I'm saying that nobody who asks a question is able to learn. Well, no, durrr - that's an utterly bonkers invention of a febrile mind, but it seems it's my fault that the person who dreamed it up didn't like it.

I'm told that saying it means that I'm saying that the OP is an idiot. Well, no, durrr - that's an utterly bonkers invention of a febrile mind, but it seems it's my fault that the person who dreamed it up didn't like it.

I state my conviction that people should actually know what they are doing when it comes to important topics like structural safety, and I get sarcasm like "mr rocket scientist brain surgeon .... it is a DIY sit after all, not pro-anal-builder-rocket surgeonsnot.com".

People may not have liked the terseness of my initial reply, but it seems that for some people that makes me sanctimonious, pious and smug. More utterly bonkers inventions of febrile minds.

What has caused the "strangling" of this thread are the pages of irrational and unjustifiable criticisms levelled at me by fools and madmen.

Anyone who thinks I am going to quietly sit by and accept being called an idiot, sanctimonious, smug etc, and accept being criticised for things I've not said but have been invented by others is seriously deluded.

People who don't want this sort of thing to happen should lay off the irrational and unjustifiable criticisms in the first place.

Are you Deluded Aussie in disguise?[/u]