BS 6229:2018 has been withdrawn. BS 6229:2025 now governs what you cite for falls and drainage on a pedestal deck.
It was withdrawn on 16 December 2025, and material you'll come across from building control and warranty bodies may still name it as current.
Why the edition year behind a specification clause needs checking
A British Standard carries an edition year because its provisions change over time. When a specification clause cites a standard by name alone, with no year beside it, you cannot tell which set of provisions that clause was written against, and the clause can no longer be read as the drafter intended once a different edition becomes current.
What an edition change typically touches
BS 6229 sets out requirements for flat roofs, including the falls, drainage and access provisions a pedestal deck build-up sits within. A revision to the standard can renumber clauses, tighten a requirement, or introduce a provision that did not exist in the edition a specification was originally written against. None of that is visible from the standard's title on its own.
What it means for a specification you are signing off
A specification that names BS 6229 without an edition year should be read as pointing at whichever edition was current when it was drafted. Where a clause governs part of your build-up, the edition it was written against needs establishing before you rely on it. A building control body or a warranty surveyor checking the same clause may be working from a different edition than the one the specification writer had open.
Ask whoever drafted the specification which edition of BS 6229 the clause was written against, and whether the current edition changes the requirement. Get the answer in writing before you rely on the clause.
BS 6229:2018 against BS 6229:2025 and what each body still cites
The two editions are not interchangeable once a reader is checking a falls or membrane clause against something a warranty surveyor or building-control body has cited.
| Source | What it covers | What the documents say | Status to check |
|---|---|---|---|
| BS 6229:2018 | Superseded falls and membrane guidance, written before the 2025 revision | Withdrawn 16 December 2025; no longer the current edition of the standard | Still referenced as current by some LABC, NHBC and LRWA material a reader will encounter |
| BS 6229:2025 | Current falls and membrane guidance for flat roofs and terraces | The edition in force from its withdrawal-and-replacement date | The edition to cite in a specification or in correspondence with a supplier |
| A warranty body or building-control page citing BS 6229 | May carry either edition depending on when the page was last updated | Neither edition number nor date is a reliable signal on its own | Worth checking the edition named against the BSI withdrawal notice before relying on it |
This compares what each edition and each citing body states about the current standard.
Checking whether a source still cites the withdrawn edition
A withdrawal notice does not remove a standard from circulation. It stops BSI maintaining the document and marks it as superseded, but the PDF itself stays on file, and anyone who downloaded a copy before 16 December 2025 can go on quoting it. That is the gap a specifier needs to close before relying on anything citing BS 6229:2018.
Checking BSI's own record
The BSI withdrawal notice for BS 6229:2018 is the primary record of its status and gives the date it was superseded and the current edition that replaced it. It does not tell you which trade bodies or warranty providers have updated their own guidance to match, which is a separate check.
Checking what LABC, NHBC and LRWA actually cite
Warranty and building-control material does not update automatically when a standard changes behind it. A technical bulletin, a design guide or a checklist published before December 2025 can sit on a provider's site unchanged, still naming the 2018 edition as the current reference for falls and drainage.
- Open the specific LABC, NHBC or LRWA page you intend to cite.
- Look for the standard's year alongside its number, since a document reference without a year is not a citation a reader can check
- Note the date the page itself was last updated, where it is shown
Where a provider's page still carries the 2018 reference, that is worth recording in your own specification file, with the date you checked it. If a warranty surveyor later queries your falls provision against a document the provider's own guidance still names, you want the date on record.
Where the question concerns a related citation discrepancy in Approved Document B rather than BS 6229, the paragraph 10.12 miscitation page sets out how that kind of error gets checked against the published text.