Planning permission for wood burning stove chimney?

mel o

Does anyone know if planning permission is needed to instal a chimney for a wood burning stove in an urban house?
We installed a stove in our kitchen extension and our neighbours have objected to the chimney. Planners are coming out to inspect but we can't find any regulations online governing the chimney for a WB stove, other than that the chimney must be one metre above the roof height. Can anyone throw any light on this? When my husband went into the planning office, they just told him to check the DoE website for planning regulations.

Poor Uncle Tom

The exempted regulations you want are SI No.600 of 2001 the part you want is Class 2 of Part 1 of the second schedule as follows:

CLASS 2

The provision, as part of a central heating system of a house, of a chimney, boiler house or oil storage tank.
The capacity of any such oil storage tank shall not exceed 3,500 litres.

Now, the question......is your stove part of your central heating system?

mel o

Thanks for the reply.

The stove is not connected to the rads or water, so I presume this means it's not part of the central heating? Although it is central to our heating because it's how we heat the open plan downstairs of our house.

Would the planning man know by looking at it that it isn't connected to the boiler??

Mellor

The problem is it says as part of the central heating. This doesn't mean that it has to provide all the energy for the system. It's basically heatign one of the zones, as is what ever heating. Sort of a tricky one and I'd go to the council and get a S5 declaration of exemption

mel o

Thx for the message Mellor. The planning inspector is coming tomorrow so we'll see what happens after that. I hope he gives us a favourable interpretation of "part of" the central heating system. I'd be gutted to lose our stove, our gas bill has dramatically reduced since we got it, it's fantastic.

sydthebeat

mel o wrote: »

Thanks for the reply.

The stove is not connected to the rads or water, so I presume this means it's not part of the central heating? Although it is central to our heating because it's how we heat the open plan downstairs of our house.

Would the planning man know by looking at it that it isn't connected to the boiler??

it can be argued, if your building is "small" that a stove which heats more than 25% of the floor are is a heating system.

you can quote BER requirements which state
"4 Heating Systems in Highly Insulated Small Dwellings
Section A3.2 of the DEAP manual provides guidance on selecting the primary and secondary heating
systems in existing dwellings with inadequate heating systems, i.e. dwellings in which one or more habitable
rooms have no heat emitters. Generally speaking, rooms without heaters are assumed to be heated by
electric heaters.
An exception is made in the case of small, highly-insulated dwellings where the Design Heat Loss of the
entire dwelling is less than 3kW, as outlined in section A3.3 of DEAP. In such cases a single heat emitter, e.g. a
stove or a gas-fire, situated in the main room is assumed to be sufficient to heat the entire dwelling.
As an example, consider a small cottage insulated according to Building Regulations Part L, 2008.
The cottage has a living room, kitchen/diner and two bedrooms (4 habitable rooms). The only heating is
provided by a solid fuel stove in the living room. As such 25% of the habitable rooms are actually heated.
Normally the guidance given in DEAP manual Section A3.2 would be appropriate but as this is a wellinsulated
dwelling it is necessary to see if the guidance in A3.3 applies.
The Design Heat Loss (DHL) is calculated by multiplying the Total Heat Loss of the dwelling by a reference
temperature-difference, taken to be 22°C. The Total Heat Loss of the dwelling is taken from the Heat Loss
Results page of Building Elements. DEAP includes heat lost through the fabric and ventilation heat losses
(such as that associated with the open flue connected to the stove) in the Total Heat Loss figure."


quote this to them and then claim that "ergo the chimney is exempt"......
as the sayin goes if you cant dazzle them with brilliance, blind them with bullsh*t

mel o

O I like it, sydthebeat, I'm certainly dazzled anyway!!!
To be honest, it truly is part of our central heating system. When we have the stove lit, we don't turn on the gas except for the upstairs rads for an housr before bedtime and all over for an hour in the morning. It also is our tumble dryer cos we dry the clothes on a clothes horse in front of it.

Thanks for the contribution.

Poor Uncle Tom

So put your details together and make a good impression on the planner, good luck.

mel o

Well, the planning man came and it seemed to go ok. He agreed that the chimney is part of the heating system, and that we did not need planning permission for it. He said his office is finished with the issue but that it may need to be forwarded to Building Control because the complaint made by the neighbour is regarding smoke. I'm not sure what that means for us but he says we'll either get a ruling from Planning in the post or else someone from Building Control will ring to make an appointment to come out and make an inspection. I'm not sure what the role of Building Control is, we were very careful when building that we did it right because we were anticipating trouble.

Thanks to you all for the help, my husband was armed with his papers and did indeed dazzle him!! Hopefully things will go in our favour.

rayjdav

Basically imo all the BCO will really have an issue with is that the chimney complies with TGD Part J (Heat producing applicances), Par 2.4 + Diag 1.

Its on page 6 of the attached link.
http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/BuildingStandards/FileDownLoad,1650,en.pdf

The fact that the planner has no issue now, and assuming that the chimney is built in accordance with Part J, your neighbour can go whistle dixie.:p:P

PS. Syd, like that quote from above:D:D:D

Wally Runs

I saw this earlier and agreed with the others, you have done no wrong. However, I had the same issue with our stove and a neighbour. During a renovation we removed the chimney (so there was a fire in place) and replaced it with a wood stove. The stove was placed in a new area of the house and has an external flue as a result. (I hope this makes sense).

The flue was spot on in terms of building regulations (height above roof level etc) however the neighbours complained that the smoke was going into their home and all the rest.

My initial reaction was, well it is properly built, I only burn wood etc, there are others on the road who burn far worse and the smoke from their chimneys ground much worse then mine etc.

Now, thankfully my wife was of the opinion that we have to live with them and it was more sensible to say we would put an extra length on the flue (not that we were accepting that there was anything wrong etc) and that was that. I still think it grounds as much as before (we live with the wind sometimes coming down hill) but there are no complaints.

Might you consider replacing the Chinaman's hat with a spinning cowl or something? Yes I know it is money but at least you will have shown some goodwill.

I cannot speak for neighbours but it might help?

mel o

Wally, the relationship we have with the neighbours is very tense. When the chimney flue went in first, he popped his head over the wall and asked the builder what it was for but he never spoke to us. The first we knew of any problem was a registered letter from the Planners. I used to be like your wife and over the years have tried to remember the old "love thy neighbour" thing, but there's too much water under the bridge at this stage. I honestly don't believe the smoke causes him any hassle. Our own son's bedroom and the bathroom face the same way and we have't had any problem. We face east and it's rare that there's an east wind, and if there is then it's bloody cold and the windows would be closed anyway.

However, we are going to change the chinaman's hat thingy to the moving thingy because we have a problem with the stove smoking a lot every time it's lit. The builder said the moving thing will create a draft and should stop the smoking. If it also keeps our neighbour happy, then that's good too:).

Rayjdav, we have those regulations printed off and my husband and the planner looked them over and I think (I hope) that it's all good.

Thanks to all for the words of wisdom. I'll come back whenever we hear the result from the BRO.

Wally Runs

Very sorry to hear that, at least if there is any agro with 'building control' you can say you tried to resolve the issue. Let them know you are doing it for the neigbours benefit!

wobbie10

can i ask the op a quick question. Did this issue arise because you have built a single level (ground floor) extension and your neighbours house is a 2 floored house which overlooks this extension ?

I am thinking of putting a stand alone stove into my single floor back extension but am concerned about neighbours next door.

From my understanding of part J of planning regs as posted above. If stove flue is located further than 2.3 m from neighbours house i only need to ensure that stove flue height is >1m from where it comes through my single story extension roof and not 1 m above the full ridge height of my & neighbours roof on 2 story element.

Does this make sense to you ?
I get on well with my neighbours but don't want to put in something that doesnt comply with regs or effects them badly in any way.

Thanks for help on this issue.

mel o

Yes wobbie, it's a single storey extension, 5m in depth. Our flue is only 1m away from their single storey extension (the back walls of both houses are flush) though so I hope this isn't a problem for us. My reading of those regulations and looking at the drawings is that IF the flue is within 2.3m of the adjoining building, THEN the flue must be not less than 600mm higher than the roof of the adjoining house. At least I hope that's what it means as there doesn't seem to be anything in writing about it. Time will tell....

wobbie10

Thanks for reply Mel O,

So the height of your flue is based on the single story extension height of both you & your neighbours extension and not their main house ?

It gets confusing when you have 2 different roof levels on the same house..

I just don't want to spend a lot of good money only to run into problems later.

Thanks for your input

If anyone else has run into this issue with extension & main house ridge house please fill us in.

Wobbie

mel o

That's my (hopeful) interpretation of it. I'll let you know what happens when the BRO comes to inspect.

Red_ser

Just wondering did the BRO come out to inspect the wood burning stove and if so what was the outcome?

mel o

Yes, the BRO did indeed come out. And was followed by the planning inspector. And then the environmental health inspector. Our neighbour REALLY doesn't like our wood burning stove! But all have said it's fine - installed according to building regs, no planning issues and not causing an environmental hazard.