Historic Building Conservation

Wiley Blackwell has just published its latest volume in its series of books on the conservation of historic buildings. ‘Interior Finishes & Fittings for Historic Building Conservation’ contains a chapter on ‘Fire safety in Georgian houses’ by Peter Norris of Oculus Building Consultancy.


The series is particularly aimed at construction professionals – architects, decorative arts historians and specifiers, surveyors, engineers – as well as postgraduate building conservation students and undergraduate architects and surveyors as specialist or optional course reading.

Click here if you would like to purchase this book

Oculus Venture South-West

We are delighted to announce that we will be expanding our Bath based business by opening a satellite operation in the south-west from September 2011. 

This will be a natural expansion to effectively service the projects we have in the region.  Our Exeter based operation will be managed by David Warren, initially for just part of the week.  He will also continue his role in our Bath office for the remainder of the week and will be servicing our existing clients and projects. 

“Oculus already have a number of prestigious on-going projects in the south-west and opening an office will give us the opportunity of having closer contact with our clients in the region” says Peter Norris, Managing Director.

Building (Amendment) Regulations 2011

The Building (Amendment) Regulations 2011 come into force on the 15th July 2011.
Circular 02/2011 is available from the CLG website.

Repairs to flat roofs

Essentially the definition of 'renovation' has been changed such that the repair of a flat roof by the addition of a new layer to the existing layers to more than 25% of the roof area does not trigger a requirement to thermally upgrade in accordance with Approved documents L1B and L2B.  In effect this type of work is not notifiable building work.

Competent persons scheme

The changes extend the areas of work which some existing schemes and has introduced a new category that covers work involving the replacement of a window, roof window or door in existing buildings which are not dwellings. There are exceptions that include the replacement of load bearing glass, structural glass, display windows, glazed curtain walling and revolving glass doors.

Details will be available shortly by visiting the Communities and Local government website at http://www.communities.gov.uk/ where you will be able to view the amendments made in Schedule 3 to the 2010 Building Regulations by the Building (amendment) Regulations.

Nailsea Tithe Barn

The conservation of the 15th Century Nailsea Tithe Barn is now complete.
Specialist conservation Architects 'Architecton' of Bristol were the designers and the contractor was W. Coombes & Sons of Ilminster. The project manager was 'Prospect' of Banwell and Oculus Building Consultancy were the Approved Inspectors. The completed refurbishment of this Grade II listed building is now available for a range of community uses including meetings, concerts, wedding receptions, group meetings and community projects. Oculus wish the trustees, Nailsea Town Council all the very best for the future.