We are in the process of installing a wood burner and have decided that the best place would be where we currently have a floor to ceiling window

I rang the council today to ask if we needed planning permission to brick up the window and the answer was 'no'. However, apparently we need to have a building licence which involves an application, two sets of detailed floor plans including site elevations etc, a $77 application fee and, probably, such a long wait that summer will be upon us before we see any heat.

OH is a brickie and if he decided to go ahead without said licence, does anyone know what the ramifications would be ?

Worst case scenario Council could ask you to deconstruct and replace as original.
If they can be bothered/if they notice. Depends on your council.
Best case scenario no-one notices or bothers.

Can you find a builder or someone you know with a license to do the official bit and subcontract to your husband as the brickie?

You may have problems if you go to sell your house as well.

Seems a lot of hassle from the council point of view!

I know that often when you look at a home open they will tell you if something isn't shire approved, but thats usually for sheds and patios, so don't know if its the same for internal stuff. TBH I'm surprised that you need a building license for that as you are not extending the property.

When we had one of our hassles with the builders they were trying to tell us that our activity room didn't conform to planning specs for through flow of air (no windows just a skylight) now the builders came up with the plan in the first place and I'd have thought they'd have known the rules (wrong again Lynn). Their suggetsion was to leave a window sized gap in the wall between the activity and games rooms, i told them to shove that idea uptheir butts and come up with a better one, which turned out to be putting a fan in the activity room. Anyway the point of this waffle is...... most people i spoke to suggested if there was no other option just to go with the window sized hole then brick it up after the house was finished, so i think bricking things up is fairly common place. we've bricked up windows on internal walls here with no permission, maybe different on an external wall but i wouldn't have thought so.

Sorry no help at all really :blushing:

I called into the council today ans, apparently, it's to do with the fact that they want to ensure that changes made do not contravene blocking off a room and has minimum levels of light, ventilation etc. So I understand that. Anyway, after today we'll be getting the license first :yes: