Knock through after building reg sign off?

[haveyougotalightboy]

I have hired a local Architect/builder firm to do planning/building regs for an extension to my house. Planning has now been granted and building regs plans submitted. But I had a worrying email from my architect saying that (in order to get the plans passed building regs) it may be necessary to knock through AFTER the extension has been signed for building regs.

The extension does have more than 25% glazing but I was expecting the architect to get around this by improving the insulation etc. on the existing building. Not resubmitting the building regs plans as a conservatory rather than an extension!

I was/am pretty alarmed by this suggestion, but when I mentioned it to a couple of people I got the impression that this may actually be fairly common practice (presumable people who do this hope that it is not picked up when they come to sell their house?).

Is this as dodgy as I think it is? Would anyone care to comment?

 

[^woody^]

Its well dodgy, and not the advice you should be getting from an Architect

He should have sorted this out before hand, and the proper thing to do is for the Architect to redesign, do some more work, to pay someone about £100 (which is nothing in context of the extension costs) for some SAP calculations to prove that everything conforms in terms of thermal efficiency

And you should really get the description of the work changed (if he has called it a conservatory) to reflect what the extension is to be used for. That alone can cause you problems at any future sale time

 

[haveyougotalightboy]

Thanks for your reply.

He only mentioned this out of the blue after submitting building regs plans which clearly show it as an Orangery extension opened up to the rest of the house (he's also specified heaps of insulation everywhere that's not glazed. etc.).

He mentioned that he had had some questions/feedback from BR on the plans, but glazing had not been mentioned. So it seems he hopes to try and see if he can get the plans through first (fair enough).

I think I'd rather loose the bi-folds than attempt to do major structural work without BR approval.

But, as you say, from what I've read getting a couple of SAP reports done to show CO2 is not increased should only cost a couple of hundred quid. I can't think of any good reason the Architect & builder would try and blag it when its meant to be reasonably easy to work around it.... This has got me worried!