Bathroom
renovation
in Amersham, HP6
Designers, Architects, Engineers & Builders Under One Roof.
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A new bathroom in Amersham is often an en suite squeezed into an inter-war semi on the hill, or a bathroom refitted inside a listed house on the High Street. Either way the waste route, the fan and the electrics round the bath are settled before anything is chosen to go on the walls.
Semi-detached and terraced houses are common in both of the town's wards: 957 and 560 households in Amersham and Chesham Bois at the 2021 Census, 890 and 636 in Penn Wood and Old Amersham. On Parkfield Avenue the Townscape Character Study notes generous semis and four-in-a-row houses in large gardens.
Many older bathrooms sit in listed fabric: the Historic Towns Assessment counts 183 listed buildings in Amersham, most of them 17th and 18th century, with box frames and handmade brick common in the market and borough zone.
Sources: ONS/Nomis: Census 2021 TS044 Accommodation type, 2022 ward Amersham and Chesham Bois (E05013121); ONS/Nomis: Census 2021 TS044 Accommodation type, 2022 ward Penn Wood and Old Amersham (E05013154); Buckinghamshire Council (Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils): Chiltern & South Bucks Townscape Character Study Part 3, Chiltern Settlements (Chris Blandford Associates, November 2017); Buckinghamshire County Council with English Heritage: Amersham, Buckinghamshire Historic Towns Assessment Report (2009)
Which bathroom work in Amersham needs building regulations approval
The government lists installing a bathroom that will involve plumbing, and changing electrics near a bath or shower, among the works that may need approval. Replacing baths, toilets, basins and sinks on existing connections is exempt.
Electrical work around baths and showers is treated differently from the rest of the house. Under Approved Document P, adding to or altering existing circuits in a special location is notifiable, as is installing a new circuit or replacing the consumer unit.
If an electrician registered with a competent person scheme carries out notifiable work, you do not need to apply for approval yourself; otherwise Buckinghamshire Council's building control service or a private registered building control approver deals with it.
Even where no formal approval is required, the work still has to meet the safety and energy efficiency standards, which is how we specify every bathroom.
Sources: GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval (printable guide); GOV.UK: Approved Document P: Electrical safety - dwellings, 2013 edition; Buckinghamshire Council: Building regulations and control
Zones round the bath and the extract fan
The special location is the space round a bath tap or shower head, extending outward from the edge of the bath or tray to 0.6 metres and upward to a height of 2.25 metres. Socket-outlets should be kept more than 3m from a bath tub or shower tray.
Approved Document F asks for 15 litres per second of intermittent extract in a bathroom. In a room without an openable window, the intermittent fan should come with controls.
The guidance counts any room that produces a lot of airborne moisture, a bathroom included, as a wet room, which means creating an extra bathroom or shower room adds one: whole-dwelling ventilation should then be extended, with extract by one of the methods it sets out. Internal doors should leave a gap equal to a 10mm undercut on a 760mm door so that air can move.
A gas boiler or water heater in or near the room brings Part J into the design, since a combustion appliance installed in a bathroom where building work is done must be considered under it.
Sources: GOV.UK: Approved Document P: Electrical safety - dwellings, 2013 edition; GOV.UK: Approved Document F, Volume 1: Dwellings, 2021 edition
En suites upstairs and bathrooms in listed Amersham houses
A new en suite in a semi on the hill usually means a new partition off a bedroom. Approved Document E names the internal wall between an en suite toilet and its bedroom, and walls between a bedroom or a room with a WC and other rooms, among the elements that should resist sound.
In a listed house the soil pipe, the fan duct and even the floor build-up touch historic fabric, and national guidance warns that listed building consent may be required for works to a listed building. Policy LB1 refuses alterations that would not preserve its character.
Outside, a new soil stack or vent on a front or side wall changes the appearance of the building. In the four conservation areas the plan asks for natural materials and will not accept synthetic ones, so we route stacks inside or to the rear wherever the layout allows.
On a ground-floor bathroom in the Old Town we also look at flood resilience: the High Street and Broadway flood from surface water in heavy rain, and many properties there lie in the Misbourne's Flood Zone 2.
Sources: GOV.UK: Approved Document E: Resistance to the passage of sound; GOV.UK (Planning Practice Guidance): When is permission required?; Chiltern District Council: Chiltern District Local Plan, adopted 1 September 1997 (alterations 29 May 2001; consolidated September 2007 and November 2011); Chiltern and South Bucks District Councils: Strategic Flood Risk Assessment Level 1 (November 2018)
How a bathroom renovation runs in Amersham
Our London team takes on bathroom projects in Amersham, with in-house architects and designers on the layout, structural engineers where joists are notched or a floor is strengthened, and Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy for any survey. Listed building consent goes to Buckinghamshire Council, and regulated work is checked by Buckinghamshire Council's building control service or a private registered building control approver.
The first drawing fixes the soil and waste route and the fall it needs, then the fan position and the duct run to outside air. Only after that are the bath, shower and basin placed and the tiling set out.
We tank wet areas before tiling, pressure-test the pipework before it is boxed in, and leave access panels at traps and valves so nothing has to be broken out later.
At handover you receive the electrical certificate, the fan commissioning record and a note of where every isolating valve sits.
Outside Amersham, and in London rather than Buckinghamshire: Project example: Maida Vale, W9. That project of ours was a whole-house refurbishment of a Victorian townhouse; its case study records bathrooms installed within that same refurbishment, the services to them routed in the renewal.
Sources: Buckinghamshire Council: Building regulations and control; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; GOV.UK (Planning Practice Guidance): When is permission required?; Hampstead Renovations: Victorian Townhouse, Maida Vale W9 case study
Bathroom Renovation in Amersham: Questions
Which bathroom works in Amersham need building regulations approval?
Installing a bathroom that involves new plumbing, and changing electrics near a bath or shower, may need approval; swapping baths, toilets, basins and sinks on the existing connections is exempt. A new circuit, a new consumer unit or work in the special location round the bath is notifiable electrical work, which a registered competent person can handle for you.
Can an extra bathroom or en suite be added upstairs in an Amersham house?
Usually, provided the waste pipe can reach a soil stack with enough fall and the joists will carry the weight. In the town's inter-war semis we check the joist direction and the route to the stack first. Approved Document E expects the wall between an en suite toilet and the bedroom it serves to provide reasonable resistance to sound, which we build in.
What ventilation and electrical rules apply to a bathroom renovation?
Approved Document F asks for 15 litres per second of intermittent extract, with controls on the fan where there is no openable window. Approved Document P treats the space within 0.6 metres of the bath or tray, up to 2.25 metres, as a special location where altering circuits is notifiable, and sockets should be kept more than 3m from the bath or shower tray.
Does a bathroom in a listed Amersham building need consent?
It may. National guidance says listed building consent may be required for works to a listed building, and Policy LB1 refuses alterations that would not preserve its character. With 183 listed buildings in Amersham, many in the Old Town, we check the list entry and agree the pipe and duct routes with the council before the bathroom is designed in detail.
How do you scope and quote a bathroom renovation in Amersham?
We survey the room, lift boards or open the ceiling below where we can, and follow the waste run back to the stack and the water supply back to the cylinder or boiler. The written scope covers strip-out, any floor repair, plumbing, electrics, ventilation, waterproofing and finishes, and the quote is priced from that scope.
Do you renovate bathrooms in Amersham flats as well as houses?
Yes. In a flat the lease comes first, because it may say whether you need the freeholder's permission to make alterations, and the ceiling underneath is a neighbour's, which makes sound and leaks more important. Our Amersham flat refurbishment page covers those points in detail.
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