On Fri, 20 Aug 2004 09:15:49 GMT, Sapient Fridge
wrote:

I'm having a bit of a problem with the design of our new utility
room/conservatory and the building regs. people and was wondering if
anyone has any ideas.

We got the builders to extend the house up to the old garage and was
planning to convert the garage into a conservatory/utility room. The
design I was going to go for has the right and far walls with solid
brick for 1/3 at the bottom and 2/3 toughened glass above. I was going
to leave the left wall as it is because it's on the boundary of the
property and the neighbours garage is about 40cm on the other side.
Roofing was going to be just clear square walled plastic sheets.

It turns out that although conservatories don't need to be inspected the
building has to have over 50% transparent external walls to count as a
conservatory. If it doesn't meet that requirement then it appears that
it has to be built with double skin walls, double glazing etc.

http://www.cambridge.gov.uk/planning...ervatories.pdf

The snag is that the building inspector says the design will have less
then 50% glass because of that solid brick wall and the brick bases to
the windows! Aargh! The crazy thing is that the building will be
unheated and will only have a plastic roof so a double skin and double
glazing would be a complete waste of time and money as far as I can
tell.

I could put windows along the wall facing my neighbours garage but that
would look ugly and I suspect I might run foul of planning regs for
putting windows which look onto the neighbours property (even if all the
window faces is a brick wall). The only other thing I can think of is
to bring the glass all the way down to near the floor but I don't
particularly want to do that as I don't think it would look as good.

I've no idea what the regulations are trying to achieve, they seem
pretty crazy to me as the room is unheated and is outside the main house
walls etc. so there will be no heat loss through it. I was wondering if
anyone has any experience of this, or any ideas how to meet the regs
without dramatically changing the design?

One way is to build inside the regs, then alter it with a minor
uninspected alteration later.

Rick