Another obscured glass question

[Brian Drury]

Building regs dictate that my new side facing dorma windows have obscured glass fitted.

Is it acceptable to use clear glass that has been made obscure? If so what techniques are available and can it be reversed or removed?

Brian

[Lobster]

You mean you want to conform to the regs in order to comply, and as soon as the building control officer is out of the door, revert to clear glass as cheaply as possible?

You can certainly buy self-adhesive opaque window film from various sources; however I doubt that a BCO would accept it *if* they spotted that's what it was, as it's so obviously not permanant. With luck they might not notice, eg if this is a whole new house your building; but if it's just a new window that's being checked in isolation they probably would clock it.

But presumably this window overlooks somebody else's property, hence the stipulation: what will you do after you take the film off and the neighbour whinges?

eg

(never used the stuff myself).

David

[Dave Plowman (News)]

'Property Ladder' reckoned it conformed to regs. If I remember correctly they said that just obscuring part of the glass would be ok in that particular case.

[Tony Bryer]

Obscured glass will be a planning requirement, not a building control matter. Given that the condition requiring it was very possibly imposed because of a representation from the neighbour, then it is more than possible that the neighbour will complain if this it is not adhered to.

[Brian Drury]

Agreed, this is a planning requirement. The dorma this relates to will be built as permitted development within the new reg's shown here:

side view overlooks the roof and un-glazed side of my neighbours bugalow so the type of glazing will be of little interest to them.

The distant view of the sea however will be of great interest to me.

My previous experience when using 'real' obscured glass for the extension was that the BCO checked the window view and reported back to the planning dept that the glass was ok. My guess is that something similar will happen again. Or are things different now?

Thanks to David Lobster for the link

Brian