What are the key impacts of the Building Regulations 2022 amendments?
June 2022 was quite a busy month for the UK, especially with The Queen’s Birthday Parade on 1st June, a four-day bank holiday weekend from 2nd to 5th June to allow us all (well most of us) to celebrate Her Majesty’s 70 years of service through the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, plus both BST Hyde Park and Wimbledon kicking off.
You would therefore be forgiven for missing an important piece of legislation published on 1st June 2022 – The Building (Amendment) Regulations 2022. This key piece of legislation, somewhat ‘snuck under the radar’ by Government, makes significant changes to the Building Regulations and particularly the compliance guidance in Approved Document B Volume 1 and 2.
These changes impact in a number of areas, and through this column we will highlight some key elements that affect flat roofing, not those affecting external walls and some specified attachments.
Coming into force on 1 December 2022, the updated regulations:
• Expand the definition of ‘relevant building’ to include hostels, hotels, and boarding houses.
• Expand purpose groups 1 and 2 (residential buildings) to cover a new category of 11m to 18m in height, bringing them into line with the fire performance requirements for a relevant building’ i.e. class A1 or A2 insulation products on balconies and upstands over 150mm above finishes.
• Exempts insulation and waterproofing materials used below ground level or up to 300mm above that level from the requirement to be class A1 or A2.
The first two of these changes will be significant for QI customers and we will be updating our design and specification advice accordingly.
We also thought we would take this opportunity to share some changes that are not of direct impact to Quantum Insulation, but which will be of interest to our waterproofing customers who will be pleased to see that clarification has also been provided on the use of roofing membranes that are in contact with the external wall. Section 10.21 in ADB V1/12.22 in ADB V2 has been updated to clarify that roofing membranes do not need to achieve a minimum of class A2-s1, d0 when used as part of a roof connecting to an external wall.
The update that surface material achieving class A1fl or A2fl-s1 when it forms the top horizontal floor layer of a balcony and is provided with an imperforate substrate under it which extends to the full size of the class A1fl or A2fl-s1 material, may also be welcome news to our waterproofing customers.
Next month’s QI by QI – Insulation for Blue Roofs