A building control pack that says what it doesn’t know

Twenty-two document types, arranged into four packs. Every pack opens with the application particulars, the schedule of drawings and the schedule of Approved Documents engaged, and closes with the notifiable works schedule and the engineer’s structural design. What sits between depends on the work.

NoteThe Approved Documents schedule names the Part each document speaks to, as a signpost. It is never a statement that the Part is satisfied, and it cites no edition or paragraph number, so a Part that has moved since doesn’t leave the pack quoting the old one.

It says so, in the document that needed it, in a sentence written for that gap. A pack with no drainage recorded still produces the drainage statement, and under it prints "The provision to be made for drainage has not been recorded. Regulation 13(2)(c) requires it." Fifteen facts carry a sentence like that, and the tab lists every outstanding one above the documents.

• Unknown is unknown, not zero. A storey count nobody has entered prints as unrecorded rather than as a bungalow.
• The AI is handed the list of what is not recorded and told to say so in a sentence and supply no value. Its instructions bar inventing a figure, a material, a dimension or a standard to fill a gap.
• The outstanding list sits under the download buttons, so a pack sent with a gap in it was sent by somebody who could see the gap.

No, and the pack is built to stop itself saying so. The notice on the cover and at the head of every section states that Estimark does not approve, certify or sign off building work, that nothing in the pack is a statement of compliance, and that the decision rests with the building control body alone. A draft that reads as a verdict, "complies with", "is approved", "has been certified", "signed off", "deemed to satisfy", is flagged with the phrase it used, and the pack won’t compile until a person has edited it out.

• The flag applies to the AI’s text and to yours. Marking the document read doesn’t clear it; only changing the sentence does.
• Structural calculations are never produced. The structural design sheet lists the engineer’s calculations attached to the job, or says that none is attached and that Estimark doesn’t produce them. The loft and foundations briefs are barred from naming a span, a load or a section.
• The SAP or SBEM calculation, the regulation 36 water calculation and the sound insulation evidence are handled the same way: referenced when attached, stated as missing when not.

With a table that refuses to assume. Fixed electrical work under Part P, gas appliances and flues under Part J, replacement windows and doors, and heating and hot water systems are each either self-certified by a registered installer or inspected by the building control body. The schedule lists all four as unrecorded and asks you to confirm each route with the installer before submitting, so neither is assumed to be covered by the other.

• Estimark doesn’t hold installer registrations, so every row stays unrecorded until you confirm it.
• Certificates attached to the job as they’re issued carry through to the handover pack.

The module is £49 a month +VAT. Drafting the narrative documents uses the AI allowance that comes with your plan, the same one an AI estimate draws on, and a generation run counts as one however many documents it drafts. Redrafting a single document counts as one more. Rendering, downloading and rebuilding a pack whose drafts you’ve already edited cost nothing.

• If the allowance is spent and top-up is off, generation is refused before the model runs and the tab says so, with a link to top up. Nothing is half-drafted.
• A pack where every drafted document has already been edited by hand rebuilds for nothing, and the response says so.
• Four documents are never drafted and never charged: the particulars, the drawing schedule, the Approved Documents schedule and the notifiable works schedule are built from the record each time.

On the job. Open a job, and the tab bar under the phase banner ends with Building Control, drawn only once the module is on. Pick the work type, the submission route and the body it’s going to, fill in what the job hasn’t already got, generate, read and edit each document, and download. The whole pack renders as one PDF; the ZIP puts the drawings at current revision and the attached calculations beside it. Mark submitted records the date and keeps the exact PDF that was sent.

• Full plans, building notice, or regularisation for work already carried out.
• Local authority building control or a registered building control approver, named on the particulars.
• A superseded drawing in the ZIP is stamped or left out, so a withdrawn sheet can’t reach the council looking current.
• A submitted pack stops the job being deleted. A draft one doesn’t.

NoteThe pack is in the web app only. Neither phone app opens it.