M&E drawings in Lewisham

Terraces, conversions and the services behind them

A terrace in Lewisham sold for an average of £602,116, a semi for £773,685 and a flat for £376,322. Prices moved 0.7 per cent in twelve months, and owner-occupiers hold 41.9 per cent of households, a mix of long-term owners and landlords that suits both a family extension and a conversion for rent.

A house split into flats needs separate circuits, an alarm system that meets the fire strategy and an extract for each kitchen and bathroom. The sheet shows each unit's consumer unit, its meter position and the route of any shared cable, and it avoids ducts that cross a fire-separating floor. That is more drawing than a one-family extension needs, and it is the part that building control reviews first.

Rear and side returns are the other common job. A kitchen pushed into the side return loses its window and its external wall, so a fan with a ducted route to a rear wall or the roof becomes the only way to meet the extract rate. We draw that route against the joists, the steel and the party wall before the structure is fixed, because moving a duct later usually means moving a beam.

Prior approval is hard here, so householder permission matters

The council granted 2 larger home extension prior approvals and refused 46 in the latest national returns. Householder applications went better: 89.4 per cent of 578 decisions were granted and 95.2 per cent decided in time. We use those figures to plan, not to forecast, and the choice of route is for the planning drawings.

Whichever route is taken, the services set is ready for the next step. The council also handled 410 lawful development certificate applications, so owners regularising work already done are common. For them a services record, with alarm positions and the consumer unit's condition, helps a buyer's surveyor.

Timing on site is the quiet cost in any extension. Plasterers, electricians and ventilation fitters want the same wall in the same week, and a single drawing that says who goes first, and where each cable and duct runs, avoids the standing time that follows a missed detail.

Heritage, Article 4 areas and garden plant

Lewisham has 30 conservation areas, 367 listed building entries, 30 at Grade II*, and 21 Heritage at Risk entries. It publishes 57 Article 4 directions, which can remove permitted development rights for outside changes in particular streets. Flues, vents and condenser units are what most often draw attention, so we locate them at the rear or on roof slopes away from the road.

Domestic gardens cover 31.1 per cent of the borough's land in the national land use survey. That is a large share, and it explains why heat pumps and garden rooms are practical here. Each outdoor unit is shown with its distance to the boundary.

Figures on every sheet

Approved Document F sets a kitchen with a hood extracting outside at 30 l/s, a utility room at 30 l/s and a two-bedroom home at 25 l/s as a whole. We write the rate beside the fan.

Part P certification follows within 30 days of notifiable work, and a charge point for a new dwelling is at least 7 kW. Both go on the plan and the schedule.

Scope, fee and linked pages

A Lewisham set holds power and lighting plans per floor, ventilation, alarm positions, a consumer unit schematic and drainage notes. There is no published starting price, so we start with a free constraints check and agree a fixed fee.

For the borough overview, see architectural drawings in Lewisham, and for the national guide M&E drawings. Drainage is covered further at plumbing and drainage drawings. A neighbouring borough is covered at M&E drawings in Lambeth.