New Building Control System in Ireland report by SCSI

Chris Arch

The Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) has recently submitted to the Irish Government its report for a new building control system (see attached document).

It must be noted that the SCSI recommends that:

"Prior to the works commencing on site, a mandatory ‘Design Certificate’ to be lodged with the Building Control Authority (BCA) by an appropriately qualified registered construction professional (e.g. registered architect/registered building surveyor) or civil/structural engineer who is appointed by the developer/home owner to design and certify that the design of the development is in the compliance with the building regulations and this certificate should be accompanied by drawings, specifications, calculations etc. as appropriate."[/

We are approaching a turning point that could see Chartered Architectural Technologists and non-registered architects being fully deprived from their rights to practice independently...

I am wondering how a surveyor can have more design skills than a technician or a non-registered architect.

It is time for the Government to step in... A qualified surveyor would have very little skills to design. Architects do not design for compliance with building regulations but only seek the assistance of engineers and technicians for this purpose.

Why should these professionals be the ones to be officially appointed as designers and certifiers?

muffler

Well lets hope the DoE withhold their advances like they did with the proposals of the RIAI a number of years back when they sought to gain a monopoly.

In saying all that people still should lobby their local TDs on this issue.

Carlow52

Chris, Thank you for bringing this document to our attention.

In the interest of fairness and accuracy can I suggest that it is better to quote from the document rahter than summarise.
For example:
From the document
Prior to the works commencing on site, a mandatory ‘Design Certificate’ to be lodged with the Building Control Authority (BCA) by an appropriately qualified registered construction professional (e.g. registered architect/registered building surveyor) or civil/structural engineer who is appointed by the developer/home owner to design and certify that the design of the development is in the compliance with the building regulations and this certificate should be accompanied by drawings, specifications, calculations etc. as appropriate.

From your post

It must be noted that the SCSI recommends that only registered Surveyors, Architects and civil/structural Engineers shall be permitted to certify building works

There is a world of a difference between these two sentences.

Having said that the document is poorly thought out, badly drafted and wont go very far I believe.

For example: the problem with their simplistic approach to PI is as follows:

In simple terms, suppose, in 2011 u have PI for 5 m euros and it specifically covers say multi story buildings. You design and build etc a building that is 'commissioned' in 2011.

In 2017, you have downsized your building design and your cover and u exclude multistory design.

In 2018 you are sued for the 2011 design.

Its the most recent policy that the insurer will use.

Chris Arch

Carlow52 wrote: »

Chris, Thank you for bringing this document to our attention.

In the interest of fairness and accuracy can I suggest that it is better to quote from the document rahter than summarise.
For example:
From the document
Prior to the works commencing on site, a mandatory ‘Design Certificate’ to be lodged with the Building Control Authority (BCA) by an appropriately qualified registered construction professional (e.g. registered architect/registered building surveyor) or civil/structural engineer who is appointed by the developer/home owner to design and certify that the design of the development is in the compliance with the building regulations and this certificate should be accompanied by drawings, specifications, calculations etc. as appropriate.

From your post


There is a world of a difference between these two sentences.

Ok... See revised post...

sinnerboy

Contrasting my 10 years experience in the UK with my 16 years experience in the the ROI I don't believe the SCSI proposal will change anything.
There is a wealth of skill in Ireland amongst many professions who make it their diligent business to acquire an expert working knowledge of the building regulations. Architects , Architectural Technicians , Engineers , Surveyors all capable of preparing documents to demonstrate compliance with building regulations. But without follow up on site even the best prepared documentaion is simply a paper exercise.

So what about enforcement during the works ? It is an invidious position to be in when one's employer is the person who is the builder / developer. I have lost repeat work many times and have even been assaulted in Ireland when simply doing the job I was employed to do i.e. insist that the works comply.

Unless we adopt the UK approach - in my opinion - where works are regularly inspected by a disinterested party i.e. the local authority building control officer then real life building standards will not improve. I have seen that in the UK when the building control officer says "jump" the all involved , builder , client , architect - all say "how high".

Ironically in Ireland we do have comprehensive , detailed and complex building regulations and as I say an abundance of professionals skilled in their application. It is far too easy for client/developers to simply not engage these services or where those services are engaged to simply disregard the expert advice if it seems inconvenient.

I am not talking about about enlightened self builders who seek out and value expert advice ( 95% of my clients ) . I am talking about spec developers. That lot , as a rule , need some manners knocking into them.

Supertech

Had a read of this document last night and it is literally full of holes. There's no joined up thinking in it. The stages proposed for inspection of works on site leave scope for shortcuts by unscrupulous builders, the timelines don't add up and more importantly, ALL of the cost burden is to be pushed onto the consumer - additional fees at commencement notice stage, additional Building Control Drawings and Certificates to be prepared by 'registered' professionals - IMO it's a half hearted attempt, and a thinly veiled effort to secure more officially recognised work for SCSI members. Does anyone know if a submission has been made by CIAT regarding this issue ? Building Regulations is really the domain of the ArchTech.

archtech

Supertech wrote: »

, ALL of the cost burden is to be pushed onto the consumer - additional fees at commencement notice stage, additional Building Control Drawings and Certificates to be prepared by 'registered' professionals - .

I don't have any issue with the consumer carrying the cost, at the end of the day the building is for the consumers benefit and somebody has to pay for it, once the cost can be justified. The problem in this county is we get planning applications assessed far too cheaply, particularly in domestic situations. There was a report done in or about 2007/2008 which showed the real cost of assessing a planning application by a local authority for a dwelling to be around €600, but that's another debate.

It would be far better too if Building Control Applications/Submissions were joined up, rather than the piecemeal applications we currently have. A trained building control officer should be capable of assisting an entire building control submission (similar to a planning officer) with comments for the Fire Officer etc, rather than our current situation of a fire cert application and a separately assessed DAC, which can have conflicts, generates duplicate administration etc.

A proper set of Building Control Drawings would be more than adequate to serve as construction drawings in the majority of cases, as it is, a huge amount of buildings build from planning permission drawings with little or no information.

No6

We need a proper building control system as per the uk imo, anything else will be full of loopholes that builders, developers and clients will continue to jump through!! I will happily take a job as a building control officer!!:D

Chris Arch

No6 wrote: »

We need a proper building control system as per the uk imo, anything else will be full of loopholes that builders, developers and clients will continue to jump through!!

I agree with that...

No6 wrote: »

I will happily take a job as a building control officer!!:D

No thank you

Slig

IMO a full set of construction drawings should be submitted to Building Control with the commencement notice. Any deviations from these drawings should require prior written confirmation from Building control. This would leave things alot clearer for the supervising architect, the building inspector and the builder.
ATM its inevitable that during the course of a build things will change either because the planning drawings are too vague, conditions on site arent as per the planning drawings, the client wants to move a few walls or the builder wants to save a few quid. The supervising engineer should be certifying as per compliance drawings not the 1:200 non-specified, non-dimensioned planning drawings.

Chris Arch

Slig wrote: »

The supervising engineer should be certifying as per compliance drawings not the 1:200 non-specified, non-dimensioned planning drawings.

Are you talking about an engineer appointed by the clients or appointed by the contractor?

How many inspections shall be carried out by this engineer if appointed by the clients? Shall certification of the built be assumed by a proffessional appointed by the clients or by a professional appointed by the contractor?

As per my experience, the problem is that if contractors are in charge of certification of their on work, this will not be working. The system is already organised this way. If a professional appointed by the clients shall certify compliance of the building (not design), then this proffessional will need to carry out a lot of inspections during construction and the cost for the clients will be much higher than it is now.

When some architects charge 12.5% of the construction cost for full architectural services today. What would be their fees for assuming compliance of the built including the addtional cost involved with the appointment of surveyors or engineers to oversee the construction?

Slig

The system at the minute has an Engineer appointed by the client/contractor inspecting that the works on site comply with building regs and planning. The planning permission is based on drawings that are vague, small scale and have little or no information on them.

In my experience, its very common for a supervising Architect/Engineer to turn up on site to do an inspection only to find that the building system has changed from masonry to timber frame, walls and doors arent where they were meant to be originally and windows have been enlarged, reduced or moved. Technically the works may comply but it leaves it very difficult to say what the knock-on effects are going to be.

By changing the envelope of the building, some people could be too pre-occupied ensuring compliance with insulation levels and structure to take into account other factors such as fire proofing, for example. By moving a door a bathroom may no longer be wheelchair compliant or the stairs that was originally designed may no longer fit. In most lay-peoples opinions there is no problem "stretching" the house abit on site or completely changing the internal layout as long as the front remains the same, and often there isnt but its often a decision that is made by the house owner and never goes further than the builder or trade thats directly affected. A supervising Architect/Engineer isnt going to survey the house at every visit.

Having it substantially comply with planning permission and building regulations is too vague IMO. The fact that the Government are completely opposed to any sort of full system reform of any of the public sectors that are obviously underfunded, understaffed and fundimentally flawed means that a simpler minor change to the existing broken system is the only option available. Having a set of blue prints available to the building control officer means that ,if by some chance they actually visit a site, if they notice even a small discrepency they have grounds to investigate further.

Chris Arch

Slig wrote: »

The system at the minute has an Engineer appointed by the client/contractor inspecting that the works on site comply with building regs and planning. The planning permission is based on drawings that are vague, small scale and have little or no information on them.

Slig I think that you are mistaking... The system today imposes that a design in compliance with the building regulations shall be provided. This is the role of the designer as per the Building Control definition of the term.

Anyone starting construction without a design to demonstrate compliance with the Building Regualtions is not complying with the notice for commencenment of works that requests such design to be realised.

Bullseye1

Are you saying that construction drawings showing compliance with BRegs have to be submitted with commencement notice?

Chris Arch

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Are you saying that construction drawings showing compliance with BRegs have to be submitted with commencement notice?

No... I say that the notice for commencement of works must include the name address and phone number of the person that designed the building in compliance with the building regulation. This notice also asked for the details of the person in possession of the drawings and other documents that demonstrate such compliance.

Bullseye1

Ah. I've only been asked twice for construction drawings from Building Control and only once asked to demonstrate compliance with Part L prior to commencement. With lack of activity in planning I can at last see an opportunity to bulk up Building Control.

archtech

There are two issues with Building Control in Ireland.

1. Much of the (domestic) construction has been built without proper engagement of design professionals at construction stage, or any stage beyond planning .
2. insufficent policing of the regulations by local authorities.

To be honest the fee associated with building control is a joke, the €30 per building would hardly pay for the administrative costs associated with commencement notice never mind a cost of a site visit, so I suppose we can't expect a huge level of inspection when its not cost effective for a local authority.

Slig

Chris Arch wrote: »

Slig I think that you are mistaking... The system today imposes that a design in compliance with the building regulations shall be provided. This is the role of the designer as per the Building Control definition of the term.

Anyone starting construction without a design to demonstrate compliance with the Building Regualtions is not complying with the notice for commencenment of works that requests such design to be realised.

Unfortunately thats a long way from how things are acutally done, The planning department do not and will not give an opinion on compliance with building regs and when it comes to building control, Sometimes it seems to me that the only reason for a commencement notice is to ensure that development charges are taken care of.
Planning permission drawings can be done by anyone that can use a pencil and ruler, qualified or not and there is simply not enough detail on planning permission drawings to form a "contract" with the planning department. We have seen how this system doesnt work, we all know the realities of the celtic tiger in terms of build quality.

All I'm saying is that it has got to be more sensible to have an inspecting Engineer/Architect, in their monthly 1 hour visit, certify
1) What is actually built is exactly what should be built than
2) what is actually built is substantially in compliance with building regs and planning permission as far as they can see.

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Are you saying that construction drawings showing compliance with BRegs have to be submitted with commencement notice?

I dont see why this would be a bad thing, The basic reason for drawing plans in the first place is so that they can be built from, anticipating any problems and providing solutions for them before having to encounter them on site. I know it would leave things pretty boring on site if the builder/client wasnt able to build their interpretation of what was required but it would be alot more time and cost efficent and leave the building process alot more straight forward

Bullseye1

Well it would certainly provide more employment for professionals.

Regarding the €30 admin fee, your forgetting the thousands Local Authorities got in levies. Some of this money should have been ring fenced to pay for building control.

Bullseye1

Of course there was a mechanism for the Local Authority to inspect. It's called the Building Control Authority. They can visit any site at any time during construction. They just neglected to do so.

archtech

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Regarding the €30 admin fee, your forgetting the thousands Local Authorities got in levies. Some of this money should have been ring fenced to pay for building control.

development contributions (levies) are supposed to be for the running and maintenance of the services such as roads, sewers, water supply and sewage treatment etc and not used elsewhere, however in many instances councils used the money to fund day to day expenditure.

Anyway Building Control Regulations are separate to planning regulations, while either can effect the other, they are assessed seperately. In fact there is a hit and miss approach to assessing building regs as it is, with separate fire cert and Dac applications.

Slig

There was a proposal a couple of years ago to raise the cost of submitting a planning application from €65 to €650. Nothing ever happened though. In todays "charge it to the tax payers" environment maybe something similar will be proposed. Anyway, building control is so understaffed its a joke.

muffler

Right lads. I have unapproved a couple of posts that made reference to Priory Hall. We are not going there as the matter is before the courts.

No more comments on this matter please.

Chris Arch

Once one of my clients started to build from my planning drawings which have a disclaimer stating that they must not be used for construction... It had happened before but I had never complained to the building control authorities because the previous clients did not put my name as the designer on the notice for commencement of works.

However, one of them had put my name a s the designer. When I contacted the building control department to let them know about the problem. They contacted the clients and simply put the clients name instead of mine as the designer. This was for a domestic extension, which was never built in compliance with the building regulations. The building control department was aware that there was no design for compliance with the building regulations.

In fact, my experience is that the building control authority will get involved only if there is a complaint lodged or if one of their inspector is in the area for whatever reason.

It appears that for domestic projects members of the public are given the choice to build with drawings that will ensure compliance with the building regulations or without. It seems also to me that they are given the choice to build their extension in compliance with the building regulations or not, and that no action will be taken against them unless the non compliance involves disturbance to the council or to a neighbour.

Slig

Simply put its all down to enforcement, nothing will change until there is a visible "stick"
Realistically how do you think people would use our roads if they knew there was no garda presence.

Chris Arch

Slig wrote: »

Simply put its all down to enforcement, nothing will change until there is a visible "stick"
Realistically how do you think people would use our roads if they knew there was no garda presence.

well... just got 2 points on my licence last month because driving at 92km/h in a 80km/h area...

There is also the danger of the police state... I think that we must be careful to what we wish for...

The Law and its legislations are far to be a perfect tool...

sinnerboy

Chris Arch wrote: »

well... just got 2 points on my licence last month because driving at 92km/h in a 80km/h area....

This happened to me a while ago too. I watch my speed more carefully now. Sadly human nature is such to require enforcement.

Slig

Thats my point exactly, However, I dont see that the recent highlighting of the poor building control issues in one particular instance is going to help anyone. Needless to say there will be many many very worried developers out there now that know the buildings that they threw up are defective in some form but its effectively closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Slig

There is a difference between living in a society where the law is enforced and living in a police state. A victimless crime hurts nobody and enforcement should be appropriatly lax or severe but dont forget that as the public wakes up to the Real and percieved standard of build that went on during the celtic tiger these houses will become as the Bungalow of the 80's, Undesirable and frowned upon.

Nobody was complaining about lax regulations until we all ended up living on a fraction of our former wages and paying a multiple of our former taxes in order to fix the mess that the unregulated banking system, that we all took advantage of, caused. Right now most people would love to see a bank employee hanged for the slightest mistake

Mellor

To drag this back on topic.
In ireland, certifying is basically a letter from the designer saying its complies, a builders promise, and the council saying ok we believe you. We all know the outcome.

In Australia the certifying of construction is policed much better.
After a planning premission is approved (know as a DA), the client must submit a set of drawings for a construction certificate (CC). This is the equivent stage to a commencment notice. The set is not quite full construction detail, but has enough information on large scale drawings to flag BCA (building regulation) issues. At the stage the council make any required changes, or highlight regulation issues, or can even insist on a higher level of design in sensitive areas. Then issue a CC which is a record of this plans and level of design.

The most important difference imo, is that when apply for a CC, you have to nominate the certifying authority. This can be the councils building control, or a private certifying authority (PCA) who both do it for a fee. Importantly, a designer can't certify his own design.
At practical completion, the PCA inspects the work, and certifys that it complies with both the CC and the regs and signs off on the work.

It's obviously a more expensive process, but only becasue the the work is actually done.

Chris Arch

Mellor wrote: »

To drag this back on topic.
In ireland, certifying is basically a letter from the designer saying its complies, a builders promise, and the council saying ok we believe you. We all know the outcome.

In Australia the certifying of construction is policed much better.
After a planning premission is approved (know as a DA), the client must submit a set of drawings for a construction certificate (CC). This is the equivent stage to a commencment notice. The set is not quite full construction detail, but has enough information on large scale drawings to flag BCA (building regulation) issues. At the stage the council make any required changes, or highlight regulation issues, or can even insist on a higher level of design in sensitive areas. Then issue a CC which is a record of this plans and level of design.

The most important difference imo, is that when apply for a CC, you have to nominate the certifying authority. This can be the councils building control, or a private certifying authority (PCA) who both do it for a fee. Importantly, a designer can't certify his own design.
At practical completion, the PCA inspects the work, and certifys that it complies with both the CC and the regs and signs off on the work.

It's obviously a more expensive process, but only becasue the the work is actually done.

Hi Mellor,

What I find interesting in the Australian system that you discribe, is that a designer cannot certify his own design...

I think that this is the main problem in Ireland. One should not be aload to certify his own design. The involvement of a second designer to check and certify the design of a peer appears to be the best solution to prevent mistakes being made and also to ensure that nobody can provide a flawed design and certify it.

If the design is not checked by the local authority, I think that it would only be good practice to have a private designer appointed as a certifier to review the design of his peer...

I do not understand why the Irish authorities are stock in self-certification, which is obvioulsy the worse solution to ensure consumer protection. Let's hope that Hogan and his team will have looked in foreign systems to inspire their future proposal...