BER Domestic Exam

stevo30

Did my SEAI exam last week but unfortunately failed. Got 66% overall. i got 70% or more in four of the sections but only 40% in the Heating and hot water part 1.

I found the exam a lot more difficult than previous ones. Ive no problem with this as it gets rid of people just trying to make a quick buck. My problem is if i come across the same question again in my repeat exam i still won't know the correct answer. So the only people to gain out of this is SEAI with there retest fees.

Ive called SEAI requesting a copy of my exam so i can study what i got wrong and make sure it wont happen again, but talking to SEAI is like talking to a wall, there supposed to be a helpdesk but all they ever do is aggravate me.:mad::mad:

After i failed the test i re booked again for the next available date in a weeks time. In the meantime unbeknownst to me SEAI have struck me off the list, leaving me with a stack of BERS that cant be uploaded and angry clients.

Ive never failed one of these exams until now and ive had over 5 successful on site audits but yet the can just kick you off the assessor list over an exam.

Sorry about the rant, Anyone got any advice in how to deal with this.

sydthebeat

stevo30 wrote: »

Did my SEAI exam last week but unfortunately failed. Got 66% overall. i got 70% or more in four of the sections but only 40% in the Heating and hot water part 1.

I found the exam a lot more difficult than previous ones. Ive no problem with this as it gets rid of people just trying to make a quick buck. My problem is if i come across the same question again in my repeat exam i still won't know the correct answer. So the only people to gain out of this is SEAI with there retest fees.

Ive called SEAI requesting a copy of my exam so i can study what i got wrong and make sure it wont happen again, but talking to SEAI is like talking to a wall, there supposed to be a helpdesk but all they ever do is aggravate me.:mad::mad:

After i failed the test i re booked again for the next available date in a weeks time. In the meantime unbeknownst to me SEAI have struck me off the list, leaving me with a stack of BERS that cant be uploaded and angry clients.

Ive never failed one of these exams until now and ive had over 5 successful on site audits but yet the can just kick you off the assessor list over an exam.

Sorry about the rant, Anyone got any advice in how to deal with this.

can you give us an idea of the tricky questions?

as regards the helpdesk, if its a technical issue then i find them fine... but if its an adminstrative issue with them they are anything but helpful.

ive been an assessor since september 2007, paid full dues whenever requested, and have published more than 500 certs....
they software has changed 3 times, the technical bulletins constitute a change of goal posts nearly every time... yet there has not once been any effort from SEAI to run refresher courses or even update Q+As.

At every possible opportunity they punish the assessor, be it penalty points, strike offs etc
At this stage i try to have as little dealings with them as possible

sydthebeat

ok so did the exam yesterday, passed 82% so im happy.

This exam felt a lot harder than the one i did two years ago.

10/10 on the BER, overall energy performance and advisory
8/10 Building construction and lighting
6/10 building fabric and ventilation
8/10 heating a HW systems 1
9/10 heating and HW systems 2

delighted with the heating an HW sections as thats the area i generally struggle in.
i was very surprised in Building Fabric and ventilation section as id see that as my bread and butter.

Some comments:
First off, im disappointed that i dont get to see the answers to the questions i got wrong.... so obviously im going to still get them wrong in the future.... which isnt very progressive is it.

The vast majority of the answers are in the manuals provided (digitally as in you have to open them on pdf... which is a pain cos you have to open separately on every question and scroll through to find the relevant section... theres no "find text" option that you get on most pdf readers.

the calculation questions were easy enough, areas easy asits basic stuff, just have to know your conventions.
PV energy calculation was awkward but theres a formule in the manual. Just have to know that its only 4wkr/m2/yr which is required for renewable input with pv and not 10wkr/m2/yr which is required in heat.

the one pictorial question i got was ridiculous, it was of what looked like a 1970ish gas fire place with a huge limbering metal flue + boiler to rear... with some rads in the background and you had to say what the primary heating system was.

the exam works out at 2 hrs for 50 questions which is just over 2 minutes per question, but some you just know straight out... so what id say to people is look up EVERY question in the manual and verify what you think is correct, is actually correct. assume nothing!

Drift

Very good summary syd.

I also detest exams where you get no feedback afterwards. It makes the exam come across as confrontational rather than helping educate assessors.

Of course the exact same could be said for the method of implementation of the BER QA system!!

hobnail

sydthebeat wrote: »

can you give us an idea of the tricky questions?

as regards the helpdesk, if its a technical issue then i find them fine... but if its an adminstrative issue with them they are anything but helpful.

ive been an assessor since september 2007, paid full dues whenever requested, and have published more than 500 certs....
they software has changed 3 times, the technical bulletins constitute a change of goal posts nearly every time... yet there has not once been any effort from SEAI to run refresher courses or even update Q+As.

At every possible opportunity they punish the assessor, be it penalty points, strike offs etc
At this stage i try to have as little dealings with them as possible

Agree with all that. I got 68 and also on went down in the space and water heating section.

The bloody wording of some of the questions is head churning.

PAL100

i think the best thing is just to do the exam again asap. The same happened to me, i failed first time round again same thing passed them all except hot water 1 or 2 40% - i think this was particularly tricky qiestions on group heating, PV systems and general obscure stuff for a few questions , things you dont ever or likely will ever come across. Anyway i did it again and tried as best i could to look up heating/water/ pumps/solar/pv and just remember where most things were to look up quickly during the exam. I passed but still just got 50% in one of the heating sections the others were fine 70% - 90% in the others. So i think just do it again asap and dont annoy yourself with seai. Good luck

DannyOM86

Im doing the non domestic exam this week for the first time. Thankfully it is a bit easier then the domestic exam as the passmark is 70%, though you must still get 50% in each section.

I was hoping that someone could help me with the following query, as I presume the exam format is the same for both exams.

When you are doing the exam can you skip a question and go back to it at a later stage or do you have to answer each question before you progress to the next?

sydthebeat

DannyOM86 wrote: »

Im doing the non domestic exam this week for the first time. Thankfully it is a bit easier then the domestic exam as the passmark is 70%, though you must still get 50% in each section.

I was hoping that someone could help me with the following query, as I presume the exam format is the same for both exams.

When you are doing the exam can you skip a question and go back to it at a later stage or do you have to answer each question before you progress to the next?

It's the same pass mark for the domestic exam.

You can either leave it unanswered.
Or you can "mark" it.
So at the end you can review marked questions, unanswered questions or all questions.
So yes you are able to go back over questions at the end.

DannyOM86

Thanks for the info Syd

chef3876

Hi

Did SEAI you put you back on the register before your next exam. I was told that you had until the 31st of March to get the exam so if you failed it before then you were still on the register. It would only be after the 31st would you be taken off if you hadn't passed.

BERmad

Hi

I done my test on Thursday and passed but i needed the two hours to make sure I had the right answers.

A question came up that baffled me not sure if i have the wording right but i think it went as follows.

"A 3 story building with the windows half open how many air changes per hour will take place?"

Does anyone know how you would work that out?

MOTM

BERmad wrote: »

Hi

I done my test on Thursday and passed but i needed the two hours to make sure I had the right answers.

A question came up that baffled me not sure if i have the wording right but i think it went as follows.

"A 3 story building with the windows half open how many air changes per hour will take place?"

Does anyone know how you would work that out?

It's straight from appendix p in DEAP.

sydthebeat

MOTM wrote: »

It's straight from appendix p in DEAP.

Yes, but its one of those questions that's obtuse as it makes no difference to the rating.

MOTM

I'm just answering BERMads question with a reference to the section in the manual for an open book exam. Apologies for any offense caused.

sydthebeat

MOTM wrote: »

I'm just answering BERMads question with a reference to the section in the manual for an open book exam. Apologies for any offense caused.

No offense at all.
I appreciate that your giving the answer, I suppose in just reiterating my point above that the questions refer, in the main, to the more obtuse inputs in deap.
This was echoed on Wednesday at the QA workshop.

MOTM

sydthebeat wrote: »

No offense at all.
I appreciate that your giving the answer, I suppose in just reiterating my point above that the questions refer, in the main, to the more obtuse inputs in deap.
This was echoed on Wednesday at the QA workshop.

Ok. http://www.seai.ie/Your_Building/BER/BER_FAQ/FAQ_BER/Assessors/BER-Examinations.html does say that exams are based on the training spec learning outcomes..... and overheating is referenced in the training spec. Apart from that I take your point.

blacktea

Fyi guys,

sat the domestic and non domestic on the same day last week and passed both thank god.

the first point id make is, i sat the exam in a mobile centre. Not a good idea. Confined booths, very close to the screen, mouse mat over rough work paper, no room for keyboard etc. Also could hear talking as people came on board. There was a lean in the mobile due to unlevel ground and had to jamb my leg under the desk to stop the chair moving. The floor vibrated everytime someone got on and off.

second, don't sit both on the same day. Not a good idea. I found my head wasn't that clear for the second exam as i hit the afternoon lull.

i had the search function for my exam but found it clunky and slow. I would nearly prefer to have the paper docs although the lack of room for the keyboard in the mobile section didn't help.

like syd says, i also found the exams harder than two years ago. Although experience referring to the docs during the last two years helped.

one significant thing i noticed was the nature of some of the questions that were worded in such a way that it was difficult to apply a keyword to search or a distinct section to search although this was mainly the non domestic.

a number of questions quite vague or poorly worded, trick questions, ambiguous and confusing and one ot two questions that had two possible answers in my opinion. Also some very easy questions to be fair. I found the non domestic much more difficult than two years ago.

advice i would give would be to put focus on elements you would not really come across that much, such as advisory reports recommendations. I would not generally add recommendations thus found these questions difficult. Other areas like these such as nas etc.

the time ran out quickly particularly in domestic. I had a good few marked questions that i could not recheck but the system accounted for them as i had marked them. The lack of time was due to the increased difficulty and increased searching through the docs.

as you are working your way through i would say answer the sure questions and mark ALL the unsure questions to the best of your ability having done a reasonable search and ruling out wrong options and narrowing to possible right answers. Then use common sense to answer.

try to stick to two minutes per question thus leaving review time at the end to go over marked questions.

also would advise to sit the exam in a fixed modern centre in a business or retail park

good luck all

chef3876

Hi

Does anyone have a simple formula to calculate the average room height on an attic conversion???

MOTM

chef3876 wrote: »

Hi

Does anyone have a simple formula to calculate the average room height on an attic conversion???

The formula depends on the shape of the cross section. However, if you work out the area of the attic cross section, and divide this by the width of the attic you're in business (that gives the average height).

So, the key is to work out the sum of the areas of the triangles and rectangles in the cross sectional area.

sydthebeat

How i do it: (i draw it in ACAD)

1. measure half way on the sloped section
2. measure the highest floor to ceiling height
3. subtract 1 from 2

4. measure what percentage of the overall ceiling is sloped
5. divide 3. into 4's percentage and subtract from overall height.

halfmoon

Does anyone know is it worth my while becoming a BER inspector. The course is 50 hours. I'm considering doing it. Can you do inspections after you have done the course?

sydthebeat

halfmoon wrote: »

Does anyone know is it worth my while becoming a BER inspector. The course is 50 hours. I'm considering doing it. Can you do inspections after you have done the course?

an "inspector"???

do you mean assessor?
or auditor?

halfmoon

An assessor

wirehairmax

halfmoon wrote: »

An assessor

No

sydthebeat

halfmoon wrote: »

An assessor

Unless you're adding it to Some other engineering or architectural service then really no, I wouldn't say it's worth it.

You Will have to pay registration of €1000 and then €100 per year subscription after.
Insurance costs around €250 per year.

It's very difficult to get more than €150 vat incl on Assessments so that works out at around €100 for the assessor If your lucky. Which has to cover generally 2 hours work, travel not included, equipment costs, travel costs etc.

So unless your getting a steady supply and doing 2-3 a time and gaining economies of scale , you'd be losing money on them.

nmg_ire

A lot of assessors out there at the minute. It'll all depend on where you are based and what contacts you have. As syd says it's good to have another service along with it.