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Approved Documents

• List of Approved Documents
• Introduction
• Use of Guidance
• The Requirements

List of Approved Documents

	Link to page on Planning Portal website	Edition	Published	Guidance *
AD A	Structure	2004	27 April 2006	ArchiMentor
AD B	Fire safety	2006	7 April 2007	ArchiMentor
AD C	Site preparation and resistance to contaminates and moisture	2004	28 April 2006	-
AD D	Toxic substances	1992	27 April 2006	-
AD E	Resistance to the passage of sound	2003	27 April 2006	-
AD F	Ventilation	2010	1 October 2010	ArchiMentor
AD G	Sanitation, hot water safety and water efficiency	2010	12 March 2010	ArchiMentor
AD H	Drainage and waste disposal	2002	2 May 2006	-
AD J	Combustion appliances and fuel storage system	2010	1 October 2010	ArchiMentor
AD K	Protection from falling, collision and impact	1998	2 May 2006	ArchiMentor
AD L	Conservation of fuel and power	2010	1 October 2010	ArchiMentor
AD M	Access to and use of buildings	2004	3 May 2006	ArchiMentor
AD N	Glazing - safety in relation to impact, opening, and cleaning	1998	3 May 2006	ArchiMentor
AD P	Electrical safety - dwellings	2006	15 March 2006	-

* The pages on this site are not intended to provide definitive guidance on the interpretation of the Approved Documents. They merely collate small "nuggets" of knowledge gleaned from experience of working with the Approved Documents over time, together with links to other relevant ArchiMentor Knowledge pages.

Introduction

• The Approved Documents provide practical guidance on ways to comply with the functional requirements in the Building Regulations.
• Each Approved Document contains:
  - General guidance on the performance expected of materials and building work in order to comply with each of the requirements of the Building Regulations.
  - Practical examples and solutions on how to achieve compliance for some of the more common building situations.
• You should note that, as Approved Documents are revised, re-issued, and re-published on an ad-hoc basis, there is scope for confusion as to the latest Edition or, indeed, the Edition current at any given date in the past. This has been compounded by Approved Documents issued during the 1990s, and still current without amendment today, being republished/reprinted with the heading "Building Regulations 2000". The crucial date(s) are those in the green triangular flash in the bottom right hand corner of the cover.
• This continually updating to an ad-hoc timetable often leads to confusion and conflict between the guidance contained in Approved Documents where the guidance in one (later) Document may be inconsistent with the guidance in another (earlier) Document. Many of the ArchiMentor pages provide advice on dealing with these inconsistencies.
• Read more about the Approved Documents on the Planning Portal website.

Use of Guidance

• Most Approved Documents start with a section entitled "Use of Guidance" which explains, often in some considerable detail, the context of the Approved Documents and their relationship with the relevant requirements of the Building Regulations themselves.
• One of the more important paragraphs of this section is worth quoting verbatim: "Approved Documents are intended to provide guidance for some of the more common building situations. However, there may well be alternative ways of achieving compliance with the requirements. Thus there is no obligation to adopt any particular solution contained in an Approved Document if you prefer to meet the relevant requirement in some other way."
• This gives building designers some theoretical scope for departing from the guidance contained in the Approved Documents. For most practical situations, however, obtaining Building Regulations approval for forms of construction which depart from the recommendations of the Approved Document will be a time-consuming process.

The Requirements

• Generally included in the Approved Documents after the "Use of Guidance" section, this section repeats the specific requirements of the relevant Part of the Building Regulations. These requirements are written in the most 'global' of terms and are generally extremely short - the requirements of Part M of the Building Regulations occupy just half-a-page within the 80 pages of Approved Document M, for example.

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