My new extension - architect designed and built by competent builder in accordance with planning permission - has just been finished and and have already recieved the completion certificate. Today someone from planning checking and control or something like that came around to take photos of the single story extensions roof as the "tiles are not the same as on the main roof". Builder thinks a neighbour (in next street) must have complaiined to accomplish this. She took what pictures she could of room but is quite low pitch (as in plans) and thus has larger tiles to allow proper runoff, so you can't see it from the garden really. Should I be worried, given I have the completion certificate? Tiles are nothing werid, same colour as the rest of the house etc, all a proper job...reassure me I wont have to redo roof at cost of several thousand....
You need to distinguish between planning permission and building regulations approval. The completion certificate presumably is from building control to confirm that the work has been done to the technical rules. It has nothing to do with the planning approval. The planning permission probably includes a condition specifying that the tiles should be of a particular design and colour. This would usually specify that they must match the existing ones. If the wrong ones have been used then the council can force you to have the tiles replaced. If your builder really is competent then I would have expected him to have done the job according to the regulations and in accordance with the planning conditions. If he did not then he will probably have to pay to replace them.
Presumably your completion certificate comes from Building Control, right? They just deal with the structure and integrity of the building.... ie they would check that your roof has been erected to the correct pitch, but wouldn't be interested in the colour of your tiles. That's a planning issue - totally separate: if the planners have kicked off, then you do may well have a problem.
Isn't there anything in the architect's plans about matching the new tiles to the old? If not why not? Or if this is mentioned, thenm why hasn't the builder adhered to thew instructions?
Planning permission and Building Regs approval are two separate things, even though they may both come under one head of department at your local council.
The completion certificate states that the work has been done in compliance with building regs. The person who issued it is not interested in whether or not it has been done in accordance with the planning permission.
If planning permission was conditional upon doing something specific with the roof, and you haven't done it, you *should* be worried.
Did the architect supervise the work and get planning permission on your behalf? If so, sue *him* if you have any problems.
On 25 Jan 2007 09:12:11 -0800 someone who may be "emma" wrote this:-
Was matching the tiles on the extension to the ones on the existing building part of the planning permission? If it was then the architect or builder has fouled up. If it wasn't then point this out to the bod who came round as the council can't introduce retrospective conditions.
There was a case on television where an entire block of luxury flats had been built in the wrong position on the plot by about 10 metres. Many had been sold off-plan and the owners were looking forward to moving in.
Neighbours complained about overlooking, the planners checked ... and down the block came.
Owain
You may be able to get planners to agree to an amendment, or you may be able to get the builder to pay.
It depends how the tiles were specified in the planning application.
I would argue that "to match" is different to "to be identical". 'Match' is a subjective word.
I would also argue that even the same type of tiles will take 10,20,30 years etc to age and "to match" tiles on an existing roof, and if the planners wanted them to be exactly the same, then they have had the oportunity to condition the approval with something like "tiles are to be the same type, size, shape, texture, colour, and from the same manufacturer, and to be treated and aged to perfectly blend with any existing roof tiles" ie to be specific in what they want.
Then I would tour you local streets and note just how many other extensions don't have perfectly matching tiles. Probably less than 10%. Tell the officer how many you have seen And if they give you any more bother, write in and complain about every recent extension with non-matching tiles and bricks - put every complaint in a separate envelope and address the complaint to the council, and not the planning dept.
When I last did an extension the building control asked that I trog into the building control office with a brick and a roof tile. They weren't in a position to know from behind the counter precisely what shade the existing materials were. Presumably they were wanting to check that they were traditional and not some new fangled horrors.
As it turned out the original colour had been discontinued, so substitutes had to be used that weren't identical.
BTW ISTM that the colour of the rooftiles and bricks had in any case been scattered about the estate in a random way when the estate was built. And they had changed in an unpredictable way over 15 years, so the game's a bogie.
When we did ours, the architect specified that reclaimed tiles should be used - these came from the local salvage yard, using the same local variety of tiles. (It's an old property and we were very anxious not to spoil the look, so this was at our behest not the planners'). Result is that the new part of the roof is totally indistinguishable from the old
When someone complained about my amateur radio antennae at my last house, I had a long and interesting conversation with the planning person who came to look. He said that complainers are the bane of their lives and that there are people whose idea of a good time is to drive round on Sunday afternoons, looking for things they don't care for the look of, and then complain about them.
I can understand why people might complain about some eyesore that their neighbour has erected without permission, but to drive round looking for things ... ? I normally hate this phrase, but ... get a life, people.
(The aerials stayed, BTW. The ones that didn't have PP had been up more than 5 years.)
On 25 Jan 2007 09:12:11 -0800, a particular chimpanzee named "emma" randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
Everyone else has gone through the difference between Planning Permission & Building Control, so I won't. However, you said that the roof is a low pitch; is it significantly lower than the pitch of the main roof?
Did your architect or plan drawer specify the type of tile to be used on the extension or did the plans for PP say, "tiles to match existing"? It's a common thing to see on Building Regs plans, but if the roof is a shallow pitch, I usually ask the plan drawer to specify a manufacturer and name of tile that is suitable for the pitch. Any competent plan drawer should then make sure that this doesn't conflict with the Planning Permission.
On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 00:06:49 +0000, a particular chimpanzee named Derek Geldard randomly hit the keyboard and produced:
Are you sure it was for Building Control, and not Planning? I frequently get builders asking me if this or that shade of brick is OK. My reply is usually something akin to, "if it's 100mm thick,
7N/mm2, and doesn't catch fire, it's fine by me, but you should check with Planning".
I had a similar situation with my WDSL antenna - a flat plate made by Alvarion on a pole on the chimney.
The local busybody (retired civil servant) complained to the local authority and the Radio Authority (as it was).
He thought I was "transmitting" with it and therefore needed planning permission. Well I was, but on allocated
3-4GHz spectrum as part of a data service and it did not require PP.
The young lady from the planning dept. who came to look (apparently they have to), said much the same thing and that these kind of people are a PITA. She wouldn't say who the complainer was but smiled when I mentioned the name.
Roof colours were one of his other hobby horses and she mentioned that telling me that as long as there is a reasonable match where specified, they don't care. Obviously tiles that are new will not have the same colour as originals from ten years ago, even if the same nominal make and type. However, for specific cases with listed buildings and the like, they tend to be more specific.
It's a kind of cellular technology whereby there is a base station at a suitably high location providing coverage to an area of up to around
5-6km (IIRC).
The base station is provided with IP connectivity using an appropriate backhaul technology and subscribers have an antenna on the roof with most of the RF parts cabled via coax to a small access box with ethernet presentation in the house. The technology runs on the
3.5GHz to 4GHz range and one can have data rates of up to 2Mbit asymmetrical or symmetrical at various contention ratios down to 5:1.
Originally it was introduced on a trial basis in the UK in the late 90s by Tele2, the Swedish operator in a few areas - Thames Valley and a few medium cities outside London. I was one of the first trial users in my area.
formatting link
made a substantial infrastructure build out during the early
2000s and went for the consumer market as well as their original business market.
This was the classic fatal mistake in business - not identifying your paying market and sticking to it. They were supplying the subscriber equipment and doing the installation work free of charge as part of a 1 year sign up. However, the equipment is relatively expensive and the installation is equivalent to that for a satellite dish - i.e. accurate alignment of the antenna on the base station, checking of error rates and so on. I reckon that an installation would have cost £300+ including equipment.
In the meantime, the availability and price pressure of ADSL and cable modem started to appear and were attractive to many consumers.
The net effect (as it were), was that they lost a lot of money and the business unit was sold initially to Firstnet and then more recently to Pipex.
The service is still operational and works very well - even better now that most consumers have migrated onto less expensive services. For my purposes, which require reasonable outbound as well as inbound bandwidth, it works pretty well. AFAIK, PIpex are not signing up new customers, preferring to steer business customers to SDSL or leased line services which are more lucrative.
Ultimately, this WDSL technology will probably be phased out in favour of newer wireless technologies, I suspect. For now it's a cash cow for them.
Something along these lines has just happened to a friend. I don't have the detail so can't add much but the extension roof pitch was too shallow for matching tiles. Something suitable was used but has appeared to upset the planners.
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