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S

SRE

That old chestnut again!

My customer for the end of the week happens to be a councillor on the Planning Committee for her local authority. When she asked her BC whether she need BC or not they told her she had to pay £86 for it and have a letter from a structural engineer to confirm the roof was ok. It wasn't a problem for us because we always do structural surveys anyway and it helped us to stand out against others who don't do that.

Can someone help me with why BC need to be involved? I think that if the roof needs more than 15% alteration that it has to go through BC but why are they charging £86 for something that has been passed by a structural engineer???
 
@ SRE,

In ENGLAND, you don't need to go through BC, the documentation (Building Regs 2010 Schedule 3) is perfectly clear, PV is covered under the Competent Persons scheme (so long as you are MCS registered).

With our background we'd happily challenge the BC dept.

The Building Regulations 2010

Pistols at dawn!
 
Thanks Worcester, I've sent the link on to the Councillor. I'll let you know what she/BC say.
 
We got it in writing from our BC after we challenged them, - they wrote a great letter to me clearly exempting us, so I just show that!
 
I'd be interested to know how they interpret clause 20

"20. Any building work which is necessary to ensure that any appliance, service or fitting which is installed and which is described in the preceding entries in column 1 above, complies with the applicable requirements contained in Schedule 1. This paragraph does not apply to the provision of a masonry chimney."

(my emphasis)

Our BC were happy that strengthening works designed by a Structural Engineer, for which we had copies of all the dicumentation (as required under MCS) would actually fall under clause 20.

I agree there has to be some degree of 'limit' however think about the design of ground mounts etc, where the work could be quite extensive.

MCS covers not just domestic, the processes potentially cover quite large structures.
 
I have the same problem with our BC wanting to charge to inspect structural engineer specified strengthening works. Not wanting conflict between my LBC I have passed the matter to NAPIT to investigate.
BC involvement adds an unnecessary additional layer of complexity to the installation process and may result in the work not going ahead.
 
Here's the latest from Building Control - 14 months after Fit is introduced!

"We have also just received information from LABC the umbrella organisation for local authority building control so as soon as we have unravelled this I will be in touch There is a big debate brewing in Eden so we do need some clarity we are trying to find out if there is a list of companies that we can identify that can carry out this work under a self certification scheme
Normally where a scheme is in place approved companies can self certify the self certification body then notifies building control and we register the work against the property address and take no further part Where the company is not in the scheme we take an application The confusion at the moment relates to the different elements of the work it could be that the electrical side is covered under the scheme but not the structure I note that a structural report is provided and that would form the basis of the application to us and not the electrical work There appears to be some companies who will be able to certify the electrical work and the structure Once we have got this sorted out I will advise you further. You could ask the company if they are competent to self certify the roof structure it would appear on the face of it they are not as they have generated a separate report"
 
My response to BC Good Practice Guide

To require notification under part A the roof has to have an increase of 15%. If the load is 140kg/m2 then even if the 20kg/m2 that is noted in the leaflet would be
under the 15% admittedly only just. But perhaps ore importantly I've checked 4 of the modules that we use (and the rest are all very similar and they range from
11.9kg/m2 to 12kg/m2 which is at most 9% alteration and significantly under the 15% required. The weight indicated is more like the flat plate solar thermal collectors
which are heavier because they have either water or glycol inside them and so as far as I can see the weight of the pv panels doesn't exceed the 15% requiring the Part A
notification.

and BC's response:
On the face of it I don't think the 15% guidance helps this appears to come from a section on replacement roofs not where you are adding load to an existing roof if you add 5% to an already overloaded roof then you risk failure

There's been a meeting today of 25 BC Officers from different LA's so it'll be interesting to see what they come back with. I've talked to the people who run the 2399 and they are clear that structural calcs aren't included in the course.

IMO most of the BC guys are really just concerned that some installers aren't doing any calcs and unfortunately for those that do we get lumped in with the ones that don't and all have to suffer the consequences.

I'll let you know what the feedback is after the meeting of the Northern officers.
 
Sounds to me as if BC are trying to cash in!

I've seen far worse than PV causing structural issues. I find it very hard to believe that a PV array can or does cause so called failure of a roof. Obviously the roof condition and construction has to be considered at survey and WHERE we think it required employ the knowledge of a Structural engineer.
 

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