The Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012

Made: 15th May 2012

Coming into operation: 31st October 2012

The Department of Finance and Personnel, in exercise of the powers conferred by Articles 3, 5(1), (2) and (3), 5A(1), 8, 9, 12, 15, 16(1) and (2), 17(1), (2), (2A) and (5), 18(5), 18B, 18C(1) and 19 of, and paragraphs 1 to 7, 9 to 13 and 17 to 22 of Schedule 1 to, the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 , and now vested in it , and after consultation with the Building Regulations Advisory Committee and such other bodies as appear to be representative of the interests concerned makes the following Regulations:

PART A — Interpretation and general

Citation and commencement

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These regulations may be cited as the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2012 and shall come into operation on 31st October 2012.

Interpretation and general

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• (1) In these regulations—

• “Agriculture” includes horticulture, fruit growing, seed growing, dairy farming, breeding and keeping of livestock, fish farming, the use of land as grazing land, meadow land, market gardens and nursery grounds, and the use of land for woodlands where that use is ancillary to the farming of land for other agricultural purposes;

• “Boundary” means, in relation to a building, the boundary of the land to which the building belongs and, except for the purposes of Part R, such land shall be deemed to include any abutting part of any street, canal or river but only up to the centre line thereof; and “boundary of the premises” shall be construed so as to include any such part to the same extent;

• “Building work” means the erection of a building, the structural alteration or extension of a building (including work in connection with the making of a material change of use) or the provision of a service or fitting;

• “Conservatory” means a part or extension of a building attached to and having a door giving access from the attached building and having not less than three-quarters of the area of its roof and not less than one-half of the area of its external walls made of translucent material;

• “Department” means the Department of Finance and Personnel;

• “District council” means, in relation to any building or building work, the district council for the area in which the building is situated or the building work is carried out;

• “Drain” means any pipe or drain used solely for or in connection with the rainwater or foul water drainage of one building or of any buildings or yards appurtenant to buildings within the same curtilage;

• “Dwelling” (except in Part E and Part R) means a house or flat and includes any accommodation therein of not more than 50 m² in total floor area forming part of the dwelling and used by a resident of the dwelling for the purposes of any business, profession or calling;

• “Educational building” means—a university;a school or college of education within the meaning of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 ; orany other institution providing facilities for further education under Article 27 of that Order;

• “Exempted building” means any building falling within one of the classes described in Schedule 2;

• “Extension” in relation to a building includes, but is not limited to, the conversion of—a roofspace; ora garage or other enclosed space attached to a dwelling,to a room;

• “Fixed building service” means any part of or any controls associated with—fixed internal or external lighting systems, but does not include emergency escape lighting or specialist process lighting; ...fixed systems for heating (but excluding process heating), hot water service, air conditioning or mechanical ventilation; or any combination of systems of the kinds referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b);

• “Flat” means a dwelling on one or more storeys forming part of a building from some other part of which it is divided horizontally and includes a maisonette;

• “Floor area” means, in relation to any building or part of that building, the aggregate area of every floor in that building or part of that building, calculated by reference to the finished internal faces of the walls enclosing the building or extension, or if at any point there is no such wall, by reference to the outermost edge of the floor;

• “Functional regulation” means any regulation that sets a requirement but does not prescribe in the regulation a specific standard that should be attained;

• “Garage” includes a carport;

• “Habitable room” means a room in any building (whether or not that building is or contains a dwelling) used or intended to be used for dwelling purposes, including any bedroom, but not any room used only for kitchen purposes;

• “Institution” means—a hospital, nursing home, home for older people or for children, school, or other similar establishment used as living accommodation for, or for the treatment or care of, people with an illness or mental or physical disability; anda place of lawful detention,where people sleep on the premises;

• “Kitchen purposes” means the purposes of preparing, storing, treating, cooking or manufacturing food or drink intended for human consumption or the cleansing of utensils or appliances which come into contact with such food or drink;

• “Material change of use” (except in regulation 3) has the meaning assigned to it by regulation 8(1);

• “Materials” means any materials whether occurring naturally, recycled or manufactured, and includes products, components and fittings;

• “Place of assembly or recreation” means a building consisting of or containing—a theatre, public library, hall, place of entertainment or similar building of public resort;a leisure centre, gymnasium, sports pavilion or similar building used for sport or recreation;an educational building;a place of public worship; ora non-residential day care centre or clinic, including a crèche, nursery, health centre, dental surgery or similar building,but a building is not to be treated as a place of assembly or recreation because it is, or it contains, a shop, storehouse or warehouse, or is a dwelling to which members of the public are occasionally admitted;

• “Porch” means a single storey enclosure providing protection to an access door to a building and having an external door;

• “Private sewer” means any part of a sewer, not being a public sewer, which serves two or more properties;

• “Processing council” means the council identified in an application under regulation 11 as the council within which boundary the applicant intends to first use any certificate issued under Article 8 of the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) Order 1979;

• “Provision of a service or fitting” in relation to any building includes the installation of any service or fitting to which these regulations apply or the alteration or the extension of any such service or fitting;

• “Regularisation certificate” shall be construed in accordance with regulation 13(2);

• “Room for residential purposes” means a room, or a suite of rooms, which is not a dwelling and which is used by one or more persons to live and sleep and includes a room in a hostel, a hotel, a boarding house, a hall of residence or a residential home, but does not include a room in a hospital or other similar establishment, used for patient accommodation;

• “School” has the same meaning as in the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986;

• “Sewer” includes all sewers, pipes or drains, other than a drain as defined in this regulation, and includes any apparatus used in connection with a sewer;

• “Shop” means—premises used for the retail of goods or services and includes premises—used for the sale to members of the public of food or drink for consumption on or off the premises;used for retail sales by auction to members of the public;used to provide hairdressing or similar personal services to members of the public;where members of the public may take goods for repair or other treatment; andwhere members of the public may go to hire an item; andpremises used for wholesale self-selection trading;

• “Single storey building” means a building consisting of one storey, only the floor of which is at or about the level of the finished surface of the ground adjoining the building;

• “Site”, in relation to a building, means the area of ground covered or to be covered by the building, including its foundations;

• “Statutory undertakers” means persons authorised by an enactment or statutory order to construct, work, or operate a railway, canal, inland navigation, dock, harbour, tramway or other public undertaking;

• “Structural alteration” means the execution of any work (other than the erection of a building and the provision of a service or fitting) to which the requirements of these regulations would apply if the work were part of a building being newly erected and includes the replacement of windows (other than replacement by ones having essentially similar features) and the insertion of material into a cavity in a wall of an existing building for the purpose of insulation;

• “Substantive requirements” means the requirements of these regulations or, if appropriate, of any of the statutory provisions referred to in regulation 3 with respect to the design and construction of buildings and the provision of a service or fitting, as distinct from procedural requirements;

• “Type approval certificate” means any certificate issued in accordance with Article 8 of the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) Order 1979;

• “Window” means any sash, casement or other framing and associated glazing set in an opening in a wall or roof of a building; and

• “Work of public utility” means a pipeline, gas holder, gas main, electricity supply line and supports, water main, public sewer or telephone line and supports.

• (2) For the purposes of these regulations any of the following operations shall be deemed to be the erection of a building—

• (a) the re-erection of any building or part of a building when an outer wall of that building or (as the case may be) that part of a building has been pulled down or burnt down to within 3 metres of the surface of the ground adjoining the lowest storey of the building or of that part of the building;

• (b) the re-erection of any frame building or part of a frame building when that building or part of that building has been so far pulled down or burnt down as to leave only the framework of the lowest storey of the building or of that part of the building; and

• (c) the roofing over of any open space between walls or buildings.

• (3) For the purposes of these regulations, the installation of a cesspool, septic tank or similar structure shall be treated as the provision of a service and not as the erection of a building.

• (4) In these regulations any reference to a building shall extend to and include any part of a building, and any reference to the purpose for which a building is used shall extend to, include or mean the purpose for which it is intended to be used.

• (5) Any note in a Table or Schedule shall be treated for all purposes as a substantive provision.

• (6) Any reference in these regulations to a publication shall be construed as follows—

• (a) in any case where no date is included in the reference, the reference is to the edition thereof current at 15th May 2012;

• (b) in any case where a date is included in the reference, the reference is to the edition of that date, together with any amendments, supplements or addenda thereto published at that date; and

• (c) any reference to any publication is a reference to so much only thereof as is relevant in the context in which such publication is quoted.

• (7) The abbreviations and symbols listed in the following Table are used in these regulations—

Abbreviation or symbol	Definitions
º	degree (angular measure)
ºC	degree Celsius
m	metre
m²	square metre
m³	cubic metre
mm	millimetre
%	percent
Mbps	Megabits per second

Transitional provisions

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• (1) In this regulation—

• (2) Subject to paragraph (4), these regulations (other than regulation 13) shall not apply to—

• (a) plans which were deposited with the district council before 31st October 2012;

• (b) work or building work and a material change of use carried out in accordance with such plans with or without any departure or deviation from those plans; and

• (c) work or building work and a material change of use completed before that date.

• (3) Building Regulations specified in Schedule 1 shall continue to apply in accordance with that Schedule.

• (4) In relation to work or building work and a material change of use referred to in paragraph (2), a district council may serve a contravention notice under Article 18 of the Building Regulations (Northern Ireland) Order 1979 (including a notice in respect of anything of which particulars were not required to be shown in the plans deposited with the district council) at any time up to 12 months from the date of completion of the work in question.

Exemptions

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• (1) These regulations shall not apply to building work for the purposes of national security.

• (2) Subject to paragraphs (3), (6) and (7), these regulations shall not apply to—

• (a) building work in connection with any buildings belonging to any statutory undertakers and held or used by them for the purposes of their undertaking provided that this exemption shall not extend to dwellings or to buildings used as offices, shops, showrooms or passenger stations for air, road, rail or sea travel;

• (b) the erection of any exempted building (including the provision of any service or fitting solely in connection therewith); and

• (c) the alteration of or extension to or the provision of any service or fitting solely in connection with an exempted building, if after the carrying out of that work the building remains an exempted building.

• (3) The building work in paragraph (2) shall not create a new or greater contravention of any relevant requirement of these regulations in any part of a building or in any other building to which these regulations apply.

• (4) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (3) whether any building work would cause a new or greater contravention of any of these regulations, sub-paragraphs (a) and (b) of regulation 7(3) shall apply.

• (5) For the purposes of paragraph (3) and Schedule 2—

• (a) a building shall not be regarded as attached to another building solely by virtue of it being attached to a fence, garden wall or similar structure; and

• (b) “building to which these regulations apply” means a building which, if it were being newly erected, would be subject to the control of any regulation in Parts C to M and Parts R and V.

• (6) Notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (2)(a), building work in connection with any buildings belonging to any statutory undertakers and held or used by them for the purposes of their undertaking shall, subject to regulation 38, comply with the requirements of regulations 40, 43(1)(a), 43A and 43B , and subject to regulation 77A, comply with the requirements of regulation 77B”.

• (7) Regulation 77B shall apply to buildings controlled under other legislation falling within Class 1 of Schedule 2.

Application to erection of buildings

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Subject to the provisions of regulation 4, Parts A to M and Parts R and V shall apply to the erection of a building.

Application to services and fittings

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Subject to any express provisions to the contrary and the provisions of regulation 4—

• Part A (Interpretation and general)

• Part B (Materials and workmanship)

• Part E (Fire safety)

• Part F (Conservation of fuel and power)

• Part K (Ventilation)

• Part L (Combustion appliances and fuel storage systems)

• Part N (Drainage)

• Part P (Sanitary appliances, unvented hot water storage systems and reducing the risk of scalding)

shall apply to the provision of any service and fitting (whether by way of new work, alteration or replacement) to which any of those Parts respectively relate.

Application to alterations and extensions

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• (1) Subject to the provisions of regulation 4, Parts A to M and Parts R and V shall apply to—

• (a) a structural alteration or extension of an existing building; and

• (b) the existing building as affected by that alteration or extension to the extent (subject to the provisions of regulation 8) of prohibiting any alteration or extension which would cause a new or greater contravention of any regulation.

• (2) In applying the regulation under paragraph (1)(a), the alteration or extension shall be treated as if it were part of a building being newly erected identical to and to be used for the same purposes as the building as altered or extended.

• (3) In determining for the purposes of paragraph (1)(b) whether the alteration or extension would cause a new or greater contravention of any regulation, the following provisions shall apply—

• (a) the regulations shall be applied in each of the following ways—

• (i) to the building as altered or extended treated as if it were being newly erected in its proposed form for the purposes for which it will be used when altered or extended; and

• (ii) to the existing building treated as if it were being newly erected in its existing form but for the purposes for which it will be used when altered or extended; and

• (b) the alteration or extension shall be regarded as being such as would cause a new or greater contravention if (when the regulations are applied as directed in sub-paragraph (a)) the building as altered or extended—

• (i) contravenes any regulation which does not apply to the existing building;

• (ii) contravenes any regulation which is satisfied by the existing building; or