What extra photo evidence does the 2026 Approved Document L add?

The 2026 edition of Approved Document L Volume 1 — the Future Homes Standard edition, applying to work caught by it from 24 March 2027 — keeps everything the current photographic regime requires and adds to it.

New photographed details (Appendix B, B7(6))

On top of the existing six categories:

• Heat-pump primary pipework insulation, photographed up to the dwelling's thermal envelope;
• The hot water storage vessel space, including at least one metre of insulated pipework from the cylinder towards the outlets.

(Mechanical ventilation ductwork insulation outside the thermal envelope is already on the current list, item 6c, and Buildsnapper asks for it today.)

These sit naturally in the flow of a build the same way the current details do — and they close up just as irreversibly, so the photograph-before-covering discipline applies to pipework and ductwork exactly as it does to wall junctions.

The new solar PV evidence package (B9–B11)

The 2026 edition makes on-site renewable generation a requirement for new dwellings — roof-mounted PV sized at 0.22 kWp per square metre over an area equivalent to 40% of the dwelling's ground floor area, with an exemption only where the roof cannot generate 720 kWh a year. Where the PV provided falls short of that standard, building control must be given:

• roof diagrams with and without panels;
• a signed statement; and
• calculations signed by a suitably qualified person (explicitly including a qualified OCDEA), worked against the prescribed offset tables — for example 600mm from the ridge, 500mm from the eaves and 750mm from the party wall centre-line.

Any shortfall is also flagged in the BREL report. In short: under the FHS, PV under-provision is an evidenced, signed-off exception — not a quiet omission.

Verified against primary sources 13 July 2026.