Monday 22 June 2015

Home Extension Ideas

Including a VELUX roof window in your new house extension will let even more natural light into the new room with the added benefit of controllable ventilation when needed. To keep temperatures comfortable on warm, sunny days you can install VELUX roof windows that can be opened and closed with a touch screen pad for added convenience, providing fresh air at your fingertips.

Consumers looking to replacing their conservatories often look at a tiled Garden Room, which offers more of a real room feel than a typical conservatory. It’s also appealing to a new type of consumer too, who wants a house extension to add valuable living space to an existing home. With an internal vaulted ceiling and lighting pelmet, spotlights can be added and importantly this design makes the incorporation of a glazed roof light a perfect choice for added versatility and the feeling of greater light and ventilation.  Remember – the more daylight your house extension receives, the bigger it will feel.            
    
For more than 70 years, the VELUX Group has created better living environments for people around the world, a passion for daylight, fresh air and better living environments is what started their company more than 70 years ago and it's still what drives them forward today.
Velux offer what is globally accepted as the very best rooflights for a wide range of projects. We are able to call upon their expertise for the specification of rooflights for A New Room and our unique Garden Room product. They offer various colour and opening options are we have designed our roof to work in perfect unison with them. They can be manually opened, remotely opened or even controlled for a mobile or even tablet device.


Roof lights perform an important function, they both let in light and also provide added ventilation. Most of our customers will specify one even, two rooflights in their Garden Room, after all it’s a room that’s a link to the world outside. Speak to your local Registered Installer for some expert guidance on rooflights in our Garden Rooms. 

Monday 8 June 2015

Building Control Requirements For Tiled Conservatories

Some conservatories come under the remit of Building Control, but more specifically all tiled Conservatories come under their jurisdiction. Here we look at the key issues affecting all installation companies and Tiled Conservatory roofs.


What is Building Control and what is its purpose?
Building Control was established in the UK to maintain the standards set out in the Building Regulations. These Building Regulations cover all aspects of building work from sewers to heating, and from structure to insulation. These Standards are inspected by surveyors to ensure that all new building work reaches the minimum standard.

In order meet the building targets in the UK and to reduce strain on Local Authorities the government made provision for “approved inspectors”. These are companies/people that are registered to inspect building work, in the same manner and working to the same standards as the local authority.

The benefit of approved inspectors is their ability to partner with the private sector, and maintain the same guidance across their entire organisation.

Garden Room roof


How does Building Control interact with the conservatory and tiled GardenRoom market?
Conservatories were treated as temporary structures and they don’t generally come under the remit of either Planning or Building Regulation, when they are categorised under permitted development.

Put simply, if a conservatory is a single storey structure, less than 30m2, thermally separated from the house, not connected to household heating system and designed with the appropriate glass to British Standards, then it doesn’t come under Building Regulations. However, some conservatories will still come under the remit of Building control and certainly all solid roofs will, as they are treated as permanent structures in the same vein as a traditional extension. Therefore for these installations an application for certification will have to be served and the process followed in full. 

What is the process for installation companies when Solid Roofs come under Building Regulations?
Installation companies can serve a Building Notice on their local authority building control service just 48 hours before the commencement of works. A Building Control Surveyor will then inspect at key stages of the installation process to ensure that all materials and workmanship meets the required standards of Building Control and the latest Building Regulations. Alternatively, the whole project can be placed under the control of an Approved Inspector, such as JHAI Limited, the preferred partner of Prefix Systems.

The stages of inspection will usually be agreed in advance and might include:
      Commencement of work: This stage is usually used to agree which future stages of work should be inspected. There may be something unusual, or a matter which you are not sure about, which can be discussed before the work gets too far.
      Intermediate stages: Different types of projects will require different inspections which might include foundations, the floor, damp proofing to walls and floors, the roof structure, any drainage, structural beams and openings, fire proofing and thermal insulation.
      Completion: The main purpose of this stage is to make sure the work meets the various Building Regulations before it is occupied and put into use. When the surveyor is happy with the work they will issue you with a completion certificate, free of charge. This is an important document used by solicitors/personal search agents when you come to sell the property and by mortgage lenders and property insurers.

Replacement tiled conservatory roof


What exactly is Type Approval?
There are a number of registration schemes where they seek to streamline the inspection process for manufacturers, installers, developers, building control surveyors and the end users of buildings. Companies can register details with an approval /inspection authority, and get the products or processes certified in line with building regulations. The system certificate proves compliance for products and systems with the Building Regulations, building standards and warranty standards across England and Wales.

LABC registered systems should be accepted by all local authorities, but there is no guarantee that every building inspector will agree with each detail, it is important for home owners to note that even if the roof system has an LABC type approval certificate the project will still need to be submitted to building control for approval. This is why Prefix Systems have first chosen the route of an approved inspector, who can guarantee that all their inspectors will work to the same approval certificate, and can guarantee product compliance across all of England and Wales.

JHAI Certificate
In partnership with Prefix Systems, JHAI offer Building Regulations approval the way that it should be: fast, helpful and intelligent. They carry out building control on all domestic and commercial projects and offer the same high level of service whether you're a self-builder planning your dream home, a major builder needing quick decisions on a national roll-out or tiled GardenRoom installer and cover all of England and Wales.

JHAI Limited is a Corporate Approved Inspector licensed by the Construction Industry Council (CIC) to give certified Building Regulations approval, operating as an alternative to Local Authority Building Control. For Prefix this means we can take the whole building control process away from customers to allow them to focus on installation processes.

Our tiled Garden Room roof is both structurally and thermally compliant with current building regulations. The local authority may request supporting calculations, which Prefix Systems are happy to provide.

Thursday 19 February 2015

Glazed Extension Transformation

Transformed to a modern Livin Room conservatory 

February, 2015

A New Room installers undertake a wide variety of projects as we are of course the home improvement experts. This latest case is for a conservatory replacement from one of our Registered Installers Conserv-A-Tech based in Stevenage, involved a very tired lean to conservatory, which had become nothing more than a storage area.

Old Polycarbonate roof
Old Conservatory

The customer’s roof was glazed with polycarbonate which had holes in it following a severe hail storm and was in a complete state of disrepair. Our brief was to come up with a design that would totally transform the way the existing building looked and to make it an all year round room.

Most of the existing conservatory base was used saving time and money and brick piers were built to the front, in keeping with the design of the house. The front of the conservatory was opened up with full height picture windows and French (double) doors were installed. To the outside a Cornice gutter shroud was fitted to add a further touch of modern design.

Glazed extension with glass roof
Modern Conservatory with Cornice Gutter Shroud


On the inside the new conservatory features an automatic roof vent, with rain sensor and the LivinRoom perimeter ceiling. The LivinRoom internal boxed out section has been used to incorporate spot lights and makes the new conservatory feel far more part of the house. It’s also glazed in the latest energy efficient, solar control easy clean glass that not only helps keep the heat in during the colder months but reflects up to 83% of the sun's heat reducing the heat build up in the summer months. 

The homeowners are absolutely thrilled with the end result which is a complete transformation on time and in budget



Replacement modern conservatory
Solar Control glass