A bathroom is a small room with a great deal in it: drainage, water supply, ventilation, electrics, waterproofing and finish. Built in the wrong order, it gets opened up twice. We run it as one programme with one point of contact, and where the job moves a soil pipe, alters a floor or reaches into the roof, we deal with the approvals side too. This page covers what that involves for a Berkhamsted property.
Building control for a Berkhamsted bathroom goes to Hertfordshire Building Control
Hertfordshire Building Control was created in 2016 to provide building control services for several local authority districts in Hertfordshire, and Dacorum Borough Council is its eighth member. It states that its inspections cover foundations, damp proofing, structural issues, insulation, ventilation, heating, sanitation, the accessibility of a building, fire protection and means of escape in case of fire.
Three of those items sit squarely in a bathroom: damp proofing, ventilation and sanitation. Not every bathroom refit is notifiable, and we tell you plainly which category yours falls into. Where an application is needed, we make it and book the inspections rather than leaving that to you.
Bathrooms in listed buildings need a separate conversation
Fitting a bathroom into a listed building is not the same job as fitting one into an unlisted house, because the consent route is different and the fabric is older. The national planning data register records 61 listed buildings inside the Berkhamsted conservation area boundary, of which one is Grade I, three are Grade II* and 57 are Grade II.
Dacorum Borough Council states that its conservation and design team can be reached at conservation@dacorum.gov.uk or 01442 228000 for advice on heritage assets and designations. We make that check part of the quotation stage. If the answer means the job needs a specialist we are not, we say so rather than working it out on site.
A bathroom in the roof
Dacorum Borough Council states that within a conservation area planning permission is required to make additions and alterations to the roof of a house, including dormers. A loft bathroom needing a dormer for headroom is therefore a planning question in Berkhamsted's conservation area, not only a building regulations one.
Roof coverings matter as well. The Berkhamsted Conservation Area Character Appraisal states that slate roofs are universal in the houses of its Area 2, the canal, river and railway area taking in George Street, Ellesmere Road, Station Road and the streets between them. We check what your roof is made of, and what consent applies, before anything is cut into it.
- Soil pipe and waste re-routing within the floor build-up
- Freestanding and built-in bath installation
- Walk-in showers and wet-room installation
- Underfloor heating and heated towel rails
- Tanking membranes and waterproof boards behind tiles
Why Berkhamsted Homeowners Choose GS Renovation
A bathroom goes wrong in the parts you cannot see: the fall on the waste, the tanking behind the tile, the extract that vents outside rather than into a void. We build those first and we do not cover them up before they have been checked. One point of contact runs the plumbing, the electrics, the tiling and the making good, and where the work is notifiable we handle the building control side and the inspection dates. Quotations are free and without obligation, and GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured and registered in England, company number 14611254.
- Straight advice on what is and is not worth spending money on
- Floors checked and stiffened before large-format tiles go down
- Waste cleared as we go, not left piled in the garden
- Full tanking behind tiles and across shower floors
- Clean, tidy and reliable tradespeople
- The shortest sensible downtime where it is the only bathroom