Ensure Your Balustrade System is Installed Correctly As it currently stands, the individual or professional company commissioning a balustrade sub-contractor has far more responsibility regarding their project than they realise. The Building Owner is responsible for ensuring that their project is SANS-compliant and signed off by a qualified Engineer. The Owner is therefore responsible for…
The Assessment of Alternate Building Technologies This article from the latest issue of AKHANI, the quarterly magazine of the NHBRC, addresses the use of alternate building materials and the legal process as well as the pending changes to their manuals. It is well worth a read. Assessment of ABT (Alternate Building Technologies) Any house…
Electric Cables – What is Legal We get a lot of questions about which electric cables are legal and how they must be installed. So here is a brief rundown of the different types of legal cabling available and the way an installation could be done. There are various accepted methods and we illustrate a…
Fenestration and Glazing Guidelines, Procedures, and Calculations. Window area guidelines below The guidelines featured in the pdf below give an idea to anyone wanting to calculate the Fenestration Compliance Procedures in terms of Sans 10400-XA:2011 and SANS 204:2011, what is required, and what is involved. Step-by-step There is a step-by-step guide to area (nett floor)…
Every Room Must be Fit for Purpose-Part C The National Building Regulations (NBR) are not prescriptive when it comes to the dimensions or size of rooms and buildings. However it is vital that the size of any room or space is fit for the purpose for which it was intended. In the case of a…
Building Regulations Part-U Refuse Disposal Part-U of the SANS 10400 Refuse disposal states that ‘Any building, excluding a dwelling house’ that has refuse generated in that building will provide ‘adequate’ storage areas for rubbish containers. Over and above this the planning and building must provide access from the street so that the containers can be…
Building Regulations that Apply to Floors-Part J The Application of the National Building Regulations that apply to floors (Part J of SANS 10400) are certainly not exhaustive. In fact, if you think of how much of our house is floor, it’s what we might, in South Africa, describe as a biekie min. But the authorities have,…
