Welsh... Scots... and Irish regulations. Ant Wilson warns designers who work on projects all over the country that the rules are different and that they should always check with the appropriate building control body.
Since my last column, we now have six new Approved Documents for the Building Regulations in England and Wales: Part F - Means of Ventilation; Parts L1A, L1B, L2A, L2B - Conservation of fuel and power; and Part J - Combustion appliances and fuel storage systems.

All were placed on the Government Planning Portal on Thursday, April 29 (www.planningportal.gov.uk). The New Part G - Sanitation, hot water safety and water efficiency is also on the planning portal and came into effect from April 6, 2010.

All of these were supported by three compliance guides:

· The Domestic Building Services Compliance Guide
· The Non-Domestic Building Services Compliance Guide
· The Domestic Ventilation Compliance Guide

It is interesting to note that the HM Government compliance guides are applicable in the whole of the UK, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

However, Part L only covers England and Wales with Section 6 of the Technical Handbook in Scotland and Technical Booklet F in Northern Ireland covering the same topic of conservation of fuel and power in buildings.

It states clearly in government guidance that you should always check with the building control body before you start work, to clarify what they consider it is necessary for you to do to comply with the Building Regulations.

Within the Approved Documents for Part L on Conservation of Fuel and Power, it also makes it clear that there is no obligation to adopt any particular solution contained in the Approved Documents to Part L if you would prefer to meet the relevant legal requirements in some other way.

The onus again is on you to check with the building control body that your proposals comply with the Building Regulations.

As I have often stressed, the Building Regulations set the minimum acceptable standards for building works and therefore just complying means you have created the worst building acceptable under the regulations.

To be considered as a more sustainable or green building you need to go beyond these minimum standards.

More advanced standards will not necessarily provide you with the cheapest first cost option. They can however certainly give better value from an economic whole-life analysis perspective.

It is vitally important that we should consider how we can, not just meet the 2010 Regulations coming into effect on October 1 2010, but also how we achieve lower carbon emission buildings. Currently, there are proposed changes to the Building Regulations for 2013 and 2016, by which time all new homes should be zero carbon.

Don't forget that there are different regulations in different parts of the UK and you should check with the appropriate building control body, especially since many designers work all over the UK and not just in England and Wales.