Solar hybrid system

[ban-all-sheds]

I have a chalet and have an electrician installing an off grid solar system. He's told me to design and supply everything I want

Any reason why you didn't want to use a competent person to do the design?

What did you do about Building Regulations approval?

 

[Suited72]

I have a chalet and have an electrician installing an off grid solar system. He's told me to design and supply everything I want

Any reason why you didn't want to use a competent person to do the design?

What did you do about Building Regulations approval?

Building regs is for houses, this is for an off grid chalet - like a caravan. No approval or guidelines are enforced, although I wanted it to be safe.

My electrician does a fantastic job of house installs for me, but had never fitted an off grid system. He said he would be happy to install for me but had no experience of any equipment so left that to me.

 

[bernardgreen]

Building regs is for houses, this is for an off grid chalet - like a caravan. No approval or guidelines are enforced.

Are you sure about that. some of the regulations for mobile homes / chalets are more restrictive than those for houses.

Only if no one ever sleeps in it can it possibly be exempt.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Building regs is for houses,

No, they do not cover only "houses".

this is for an off grid chalet - like a caravan. No approval or guidelines are enforced

You've got it in writing from your LABC that your "chalet" is not a "building"? And that it is exempt from all the requirements of the Building Regulations? Remember that even with structures classed as exempt (which caravans are not, BTW, "mobile homes" were removed from Schedule 2 in 1991), individual parts can still apply, for example Part P applies to greenhouses, garden sheds, conservatories, carports and so on.

If this "chalet" has sleeping accommodation or is over 30m² or is not transportable, it is probably a "building". And since you must have already got planning permission, they know about it...

 

[ericmark]

I thought it had to be inhabitable to be classed as a home? So must have hot and cold running water, heating and other things to make it inhabitable.

If on my friends 20 acre woodland I take power from house to something then yes Part P but if the power does not come from the house simply adding power does not come under Part P. Even installing a bed it does not come under Part P it has to be inhabitable. I would agree a waste bucket and aqua-roll with a 12 volt pump would likely mean now it is inhabitable.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I thought it had to be inhabitable to be classed as a home? So must have hot and cold running water, heating and other things to make it inhabitable.

I don't know. I do know that if you put up a building in your garden, just the provision of sleeping accommodation stops it being exempt - doesn't need water, sanitation, heating etc - not even a bucket and a Tilley lamp.

We don't know what the OP's building will have. We don't know what the intended use is. We don't know if it's in his garden, on agricultural land or in woodland. We don't know if it's transportable.

And we don't know what his council's view is of its status.

IMO he should discuss it with them - he says he wants it all to be safe, so he shouldn't have any problems complying with anything they determine he should, and it would be a shame to end up on a collision course with them for the sake of an enquiry.

Or it could be a detached single storey building, having a floor area which does not exceed 30m², which contains no sleeping accommodation and is a building—

(a) no point of which is less than one metre from the boundary of its curtilage; or

(b) which is constructed substantially of non-combustible material.

But the OP says it's a "chalet" and is equivalent to a "caravan", which makes me think it's not a shed/summerhouse thing with a bit of solar power.