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There have been some recent house fires where the fire has spread across the line of the party wall and caused extensive damage to the neighbouring property.
If you are involved in the construction of new housing you should remember that fire-stopping has to be completed above and…
Perimeter upstand insulation performs a vital function in the thermal envelope of the building. It’s used to prevent cold bridging at the edge of the floor where it meets the wall. Basically, it stops the heat from seeping out of the edges of the floor where the screed/concrete meets the wall.
A…
Acoustics can be a real nuisance on a conversion project where there is a material change of use (MCOU). Being unsure of differences between material properties could lead to pitfalls; for example, knowing which plasterboard product has the required mass of 10kg/m² as opposed to a 8kg/m² board…
Can you see what the problem is with this roof?
If you look closely, the purlins connecting to the hip rafter don’t make contact with one another and make very little contact with the hip itself.
Traditional roofs work by distributing loads from the rafters down through to the…
A basement extension can be a great way to add living space, a new, bedroom, games room, office or gym, for example. The attached photos sent to us by an LABC member show what can go wrong.
This started life as an expensive basement extension in Knightsbridge, London:
The…
Article updated on 31 January 2024One of our surveyors recently sent in this photo, taken in a brand new commercial building. It’s the ground floor of a protected staircase and shows the door swing directly over the bottom of the stair within the landing space. Clear space should be…
One of our officers was surprised to be greeted with this novel approach to childproofing windows at a recent completion inspection - a child safety gate.
An earlier inspection had highlighted the need to provide some form of guarding to the window because it was within 800mm of the floor.…
A major new recruitment drive by the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) is targeting schools in a bid to reverse the poor image construction still suffers among teachers and their pupils in the 14–19 age group.
CIOB have recently launched their ‘Think Construction’ toolkit. Developed…
The Metal Cladding and Roofing Manufacturers Association (MCRMA) has produced guidance on effective sealing of end laps in metal roofing constructions. This comes following a study of built up and composite roofing profiles that are most commonly used in the UK.
Getting it wrong at the…
Insulating floors will go a long way towards making a property more energy efficient. But gaps, however small, can often compromise good insulation by allowing air leakage that can lead to cold bridging and other issues. This advice is for floor insulation above a concrete floor and below a screed…