Wiley Blackwell has just published its latest volume in its series of books on the conservation of historic buildings. ‘Interior Finishes & Fittings for Historic Building Conservation’ contains a chapter on ‘Fire safety in Georgian houses’ by Peter Norris of Oculus Building Consultancy.

The series is particularly aimed at construction professionals – architects, decorative arts historians and specifiers, surveyors, engineers – as well as postgraduate building conservation students and undergraduate architects and surveyors as specialist or optional course reading.


Click here if you would like to purchase this book

We are delighted to announce that we will be expanding our Bath based business by opening a satellite operation in the south-west from September 2011.

This will be a natural expansion to effectively service the projects we have in the region.  Our Exeter based operation will be managed by David Warren, initially for just part of the week.  He will also continue his role in our Bath office for the remainder of the week and will be servicing our existing clients and projects.

“Oculus already have a number of prestigious on-going projects in the south-west and opening an office will give us the opportunity of having closer contact with our clients in the region” says Peter Norris, Managing Director.

The Building (Amendment) Regulations 2011 come into force on the 15th July 2011.
Circular 02/2011 is available from the CLG website.

Repairs to flat roofs

Essentially the definition of 'renovation' has been changed such that the repair of a flat roof by the addition of a new layer to the existing layers to more than 25% of the roof area does not trigger a requirement to thermally upgrade in accordance with Approved documents L1B and L2B.  In effect this type of work is not notifiable building work.

Competent persons scheme

The changes extend the areas of work which some existing schemes and has introduced a new category that covers work involving the replacement of a window, roof window or door in existing buildings which are not dwellings. There are exceptions that include the replacement of load bearing glass, structural glass, display windows, glazed curtain walling and revolving glass doors.

Details will be available shortly by visiting the Communities and Local government website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/ where you will be able to view the amendments made in Schedule 3 to the 2010 Building Regulations by the Building (amendment) Regulations.

The conservation of the 15th Century Nailsea Tithe Barn is now complete. Specialist conservation Architects 'Architecton' of Bristol were the designers and the contractor was W. Coombes & Sons of Ilminster. The project manager was 'Prospect' of Banwell and Oculus Building Consultancy were the Approved Inspectors. The completed refurbishment of this Grade II listed building is now available for a range of community uses including meetings, concerts, wedding receptions, group meetings and community projects. Oculus wish the trustees, Nailsea Town Council all the very best for the future.

Oculus has been appointed to provide the building control services for a number of varied, prestigious historic buildings; Chedworth Roman Villa, the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol, Hertford House, Astley Castle and The Peoples Palace in London. By complete contrast we are also working on some fabulous new-build projects including a state of the art Material Re-cycling and Management Centre based near Crawley, Hadlow College a Rural Regeneration Centre, the first certified PassivHaus educational building in the UK and Minehead EYE, a purpose built facility for youth and community enjoyment. Oculus routinely works alongside top Architects and Building Contractors and these projects are a testament to the trust that our clients place in us to deliver high quality Approved Inspector building control services across a broad range of highly specialised building projects.

We reached the end of an era recently with the retirement of Maureen Negus our Office Manager, her bubbly personality will be much missed. Jodie Stacey will take over Maureen's role, ably supported by our new recruit Tina Hosking to give vital support to our professional staff. Moving forward clients can be assured the same high levels of service and support.

Finally we wish you Seasons greetings and look forward to a happy and
prosperous 2011.

Peter Norris