I've been rude and posted without saying hello. Hello all!

I bought a run down pub with planning for residential use. Being a tenanted building it has been neglected for a long time. Neglect is brilliant - it still mostly has original windows, lime mortar and plaster.

I hadn't really planned on 'doing it up' as it's a lot better and cheaper to run than the rented place I lived in before, but Part L1b for change of use is a good motivator to insulate. 300mm of insulation in the loft and 150mm Celotex around the attic make an enormous difference. I'm planning to fit pretty carpenter made secondary glazing rather than the aluminium stuff next year (once I've figured out the seals). Internal wall insulation should go in next year too. I've already run out of money.

Most of the work I'm doing myself, but I want fancy profiles for the secondary glazing to match the Arts and Crafts window frames so need someone with a spindle moulder to make the profiles.

I have a rough design for the secondary glazing using glass with magnetic strips that push up into a tall moulding at the top then drop a little into a shallow moulding at the bottom so the glass can't fall out by itself. I've not figured out which seals to use yet. On the front of the glass further profiles will be attached over the joins in the glass by magnetic strips to replicate the original frames and make it look pretty. I don't think it will cost much and I didn't like the aluminium frames secondary glazing at all.

I've got to meet L1b for the whole house. It turns out that a change of use makes building regs look at the place as a new build. Despite being 400 years old in places they say "It wasn't a house before therefore it is a new house". Water efficiency and fire regs also apply which are a giggle.

It could seem somewhat annoying as I didn't really want to gut the place, and I feel throwing perfectly good stuff away (especially the water stuff) is far from green, but the place cost less than the value of the land it sits on and part L1b is an awfully good prompt to make me get on with insulation.

There is a water calculation required to limit water use to 125L per day per person (more than we use). New builds need toilets with 8L cisterns and taps with max flow rate under 6L/min. I argued that my existing taps were all controllable as you could turn the handle just a little but that didn't help. All the toilets and taps looked like they would need to be thrown away and replaced.

Fortunately the calcs are silly in more ways than that. I tried adding a urinal into the calcs with a sensible flush system and it reduced calculated water usage. I have 3 in a row in the gents so added them all in and building regs are now happy with the water usage calcs.

Posted By: vordI tried adding a urinal into the calcs with a sensible flush system and it reduced calculated water usage. I have 3 in a row in the gents so added them all in and building regs are now happy with the water usage calcs.

This sounds like an interesting conversion, what was the place originally?

+1 on flow limiters.

Fit service valves under each sink and close them unit you meet the flow requirements.

I've got isolation valves on most of the taps and turning them down is probably the answer. It surprised me that the 6L/min requirement doesn't seem to be mainstream for new taps and fittings given they presumably all should meet the requirement.

Mind you, secondhand taps from eBay that don't meet the regs are a lot cheaper than new ones and they often come with a nice bath or basin attached.

Posted By: vordIt surprised me that the 6L/min requirement doesn't seem to be mainstream for new taps and fittings

A lot of taps nowadays are designed so you can simply screw a flow limiter on the end of the tap, so the manufacturer doesn't have to care what flow rate you need. But as others have said, you can just put one in the tail of any tap instead.

The water calc is the most seriously stupid piece of paper pushing I had to deal with, and I would cheerfully kill whoever wrote the regs.

sounds very wise, Daryl!