Categories
Tips & Tricks

Valentine Day’s Advice

Here’s your Valentine Day’s gift.

Don’t rely on an engineer’s inspection certificate / Form 12 for structural work unless the person who inspected the work was:

a) an engineer

b) attended the site in person

c) took photos to show they were there

d) can provide those photos upon request

Too many times in recent months we’ve identified poor construction practices as identified by a HOMEOWNER even after the “INSPECTOR” approved the construction. The biggest joke in the industry is waiting to meet the inspector on site and when you call them they say they already inspected the work and it passed!!!

Where in the world are we that homeowners are being asked to know more than an engineers’ inspector who inspects 10 to 20 properties per day?

OH, WAIT! Perhaps that’s the problem!!! Nobody can inspect that many properties in a day when considering travel time, reporting time, and meeting with a builder to ensure they understand the defects/requirements.

Whether the industry is booming or dwindling, people (e.g., builders and engineers) are always looking for shortcuts—trying to find cheaper ways to get the job done.

But are they cheaper when homeowners then have to shoulder the burden of identifying structural deficiencies/problems and getting them fixed?

What of the builder who rightly claims the Form 12 is signed by an engineer so the work MUST be compliant?

  • Where does that leave the builder?
  • Where does that leave the homeowner?
  • Where does that leave the certifier?

Can they rely on the Form 12 and pass the responsibility to the engineer who signed the Form 12?

Go back and read our post on the Dog Ate My Homework. That’s the engineer’s get out of jail free. The paperwork doesn’t exist so the engineer can’t possibly be at fault. Right?

So now we have this endless loop of blame game shifters who have all managed to get away with doing a lacklustre job, backed up by incompetence, missing paperwork, cost-cutting and booming profits for work not even done let alone done well.

Does any of this sound possible in a modern economy? Look next door at the house being renovated! Look over the road at the house being built by that builder with the shiny marketing and promises of 6 month construction period!

Check out your local mass construction builder relaxing in his brand-new office, driving his shiny new luxury car and waving a middle finger at consumers.

Yep. Possible maybe even probable.

And this is in a state where we have a consumer watchdog, builder registration process, several builder’s associations (for protection of the builders against the pesky registration process), registration for engineers (including a stinky, decaying complaints process managed by bureaucrats) and consumers who are already fighting tooth and nail to keep some of their weekly salary for their dream home.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Go and buy some roses.

(first published on Cornell Engineers’ Facebook Account)

Categories
Tips & Tricks

Window Head Flashings

Builders are still struggling to understand the rules for head flashings over exposed windows.

May be an image of sliding door

And it will be their downfall.

Because these little timber trims, no matter how well they are painted, leak eventually and rot out and then allow water to rot your frame.

Sadly, sometimes the damage isn’t found until the QBCC warranty expires and then it becomes a homeowner cost.

So have a look at the tops of your windows. If they are exposed (there are specific rules) to the rain and sun and they look a bit like photo 1, chances are you might need our help with solving rotten framing at some point in the future.

Here’s some rules to get you going:

https://www.bradnams.com.au/…/2020/01/Flashing-Guide.pdf

(First published on Cornell Engineers Facebook)

Categories
Tips & Tricks

Failed Joist to Bearer Connection

This is the type of prehistoric joist-to-bearer connection that can lead to sudden and unexpected floor collapse if not rectified immediately.

The joist can pull out of the bearer slowly over the years and if not repaired NOW the depth the joist is secured into the bearer can diminish with catastrophic consequences. The connection can unzip leading to total and sudden collapse of the floor system.

A timber joist housed into the side of a timber bearer. There is no way to determine whether this joint is about to fail

From the Ascot Deck Collapse coronial enquiry:

https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/…/cif-spencer-al-20100628…

“The general public and the building industry need to be aware of this particular method of construction in older properties, particularly the potential for joists to become disengaged from bearers and collapse in the same manner that occurred in this instance as a result of little or no bearing of the joists into the bearers.”

Builders, building inspectors, engineers and architects should ALWAYS be on the lookout for this type of detail and should always flag it to homeowners as needing repair under their duty of care.

More from the coronial enquiry:

“Mr Duignan said if a joist was pulling right out he would have expected to have seen it. The evidence of all witnesses asked was that in this case to tell how far a joist was engaged in the bearer would have involved pulling up part of the flooring deck which would have been relatively invasive and expensive.”

“The evidence of all witnesses asked was that extra securing for the joists in bearers could have involved a number of processes although the evidence is that most of those would be relatively inexpensive.”

“I formed the impression that Mr Duignan was a competent professional builder experienced in renovating old Queenslanders. He would expect to come across problems from time to time given the vintage of the construction.”

I accept that if he had found a problem that required attention he would have fixed it or brought it to the attention of the owners. If he had seen or witnessed a problem with the balcony support he would have sought to do something about it. I accept he had not.”

Building Inspection Training Australia – Queensland

Inspection Central Building and Pest Brisbane

#buildinginspection#buildinginspector#buildingandconstruction

(First published on Cornell Engineers’ Facebook page.)

Categories
Tips & Tricks

Take Lots of Photos

During construction: take lots of photos.

May be an image of 2 people and timber yard

Even if you don’t know what you’re taking photos of.

Time and time again, photos taken during the construction of houses, pools, sheds, footings and skyscrapers have helped forensic engineers see through dirt, concrete, plasterboard and masonry.

They have helped electricians, plumbers and carpenters make more succinct alterations to your home (with much less exploratory cutting).

They have proven and disproven memories of what actually happened countless times.

And they have saved (and when used for evil, fried) my bacon more than once.

Take lots of photos. Take photos of the walls, the slab reinforcement, the cables, the pipes, the gravel backfill, the window frames, the roof frames, the air-conditioning ducts and the holes in the ground.

If nothing else, they prove you were there on the day and time you said you were.

Without them, we’re just taking your word for it. And as much as I love you, I just can’t trust you on something as important as building houses and sheds and skyscrapers well.

(First published on Cornell Engineers Facebook page)

Categories
Tips & Tricks

The Dog Ate My Homework

My dog ate my homework….

Those kids who used that excuse in primary school are still at it as adults.

The excuse these days is that the floods destroyed all traces of the paperwork, or it rained, and they were having a bad hair day. Maybe the file got misplaced when they moved office.

Have you heard these excuses lately?

“No. We don’t have a backup in the cloud.”

“No. That person is on holiday.”

“Unfortunately that person has left the company.”

Damn dogs. Always eating homework.

May be an image of 1 person, blueprint and text that says "STRUCTURAL ENGINEER 0om CONDIDENTIAL ENGINEER CONFIDNTIAL CONFIDINTIAL DOCUNTS DIGIIN CONFIDTIAS 聖樂"

Unfortunately when experienced structural engineers use this excuse you have to wonder if there is more to the story. How does a modern structural engineering office not have bulk backups in the cloud? How do they not have email copies of where they sent the paperwork to the client? How have they managed to destroy all traces of crucial evidence that something hasn’t been done well?

It’s hard to identify these types of lackadaisical engineers. Sometimes the excuses for lost paperwork even sound plausible.

But when your house is not performing, and the builder has done everything that was asked by the engineer and the engineer loses all traces of this paperwork – where does that leave you?

The BPEQ complaints process doesn’t cover lost paperwork. It doesn’t stare hard enough at engineers who are taking shortcuts and then losing stuff. It doesn’t hold poor office practices to account. Homeowners and consumers aren’t nearly as well-protected as I would have hoped.

What’s your best defence? I don’t even know anymore BUT read our post on engineers’ inspections and at least one informed of some of the problems.