This continues on a bit from the last post on the problems with Inspecting and Certifying Self-Builders and I’ve written stacks already on the Building Control Amendment, here’s one of the posts HERE. The main item that’s going to hit self-builders in the Amendment is the requirement for:

The Owner: Must appoint a competent builder to undertake the works

Now this is going to be very difficult for the self-builder to say that his/she is. The culture is that anyone can build their own house with zero training. So what’s going to happen. Either:

a. All work is going to be done by a main contractor – at the moment this is financially impossible for most considering the current economic situation

b. Self-builders will train themselves to effectively become ‘competent builders’. This is what they should do but I think this is unlikely or/

c. Someone who is an ‘“assigned” professional’ (for details on who will be able to certify work CLICK HERE ) will certify another persons work. A disaster waiting to happen. The same happens with electricians when a registered electrician certifies the work of someone who is not registered. Now it’s pretty dangerous doing this just with electrics – imagine the dangers with a whole house. It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out.

I’m looking forward to the changes next year as it brings Ireland a step closer to what I was used to in the UK (which generally works very well). There are other architects and engineers (especially the engineers I know in a mad rush to now get chartered) who are less receptive to the changes. There’s also a whole load I could write about how this effects architects, their working arrangements with clients and other engineers and what their input will be on different stages of the project but I’ll leave that for another day. I guess we’re going to have to wait and see. Not long now…

Comments as always welcome…