M&E drawings in Lambeth

Victorian terraces, maisonettes and shared risers

The average terraced house in Lambeth sold for £796,865, the average semi for £1,028,861 and the average flat for £439,289, with prices moving -6.3 per cent over twelve months. Only 33 per cent of households own the home they live in, so many of our clients are landlords or leaseholders and need a drawing the freeholder can read.

A conversion of a house into flats often has an old consumer unit, mixed circuits and a stack that serves several floors. We start with a short survey of what exists, then draw the new circuits and the separate extract for each unit so that fire separation is not breached by a duct.

Maisonettes add a vertical question. A kitchen on the upper floor of a maisonette needs its extract to reach the outside through a wall the owner controls, not through the neighbour's ceiling, and a bathroom without a window needs a fan that runs on after the light goes off. We set those out room by room, with the duct route and the discharge point, so the lease and the building regulations answers are the same.

Conservation areas, listed buildings and street trees

With 64 conservation areas, 953 listed building entries, 56 at Grade II*, 12 Article 4 directions and 339 tree preservation orders, Lambeth is a place where outside services are checked. A visible vent or condenser on a front elevation is difficult to defend, so we steer terminals to rear walls and flat roofs behind parapets.

The borough has 9 registered parks and gardens too, and street trees are a feature of many roads. Underground cable and drain trenches avoid root zones where the survey shows them, and we say so on the plan.

Planning context

The council decided 595 householder applications in its latest year, granting 83.4 per cent and deciding 93.4 per cent in time. Larger home extension prior approvals ran at 13 granted against 18 refused, and 401 lawful development certificate applications were handled. We use these figures for scheduling advice only.

Domestic gardens make up 26 per cent of the borough's land, so rear plots still exist for plant and outbuildings, even in a dense borough. We place any external unit with its distance to the boundary shown.

A year of decisions tells us how busy the department is, and it also tells us that a good set of drawings, submitted with the right documents, is more likely to be validated first time. Validation delays are the commonest avoidable loss in the process, and the Local List is where they begin.

Figures on the Lambeth sheet

Approved Document F sets a utility room at 30 l/s and a bathroom at 15 l/s. Where ventilation is continuous, a bathroom's high rate is 8 l/s. Whole-dwelling rates run from 19 l/s for a one-bedroom home to 31 l/s for a three-bedroom house.

Fixed lighting must reach 75 lumens per circuit watt, and electrical work is notifiable for new circuit; consumer unit replacement; additions or alterations to circuits in a special location.

Scope, fee and next pages

A Lambeth set holds power and lighting plans for each floor, a ventilation layout, alarm positions, a consumer unit schematic and basement pump detail where needed. There is no published starting price, so we run a free constraints check and quote a fixed fee.

See architectural drawings in Lambeth for the borough, M&E drawings for the national guide, and building services design for heating and water. A neighbouring borough is covered by M&E drawings in Lewisham.