Fussy inspector.

[jack]

3 hours ago, JSHarris said:

Quite why they've picked on your build to flex their muscles may have more to do with their own internal commercial pressures, meaning that they cannot do this with their commercial clients for fear of losing future contracts.  Perhaps you're the unwitting scapegoat for their frustrations?

 

But what's the commercial driver for him behaving like this? His company can't be happy with what he's doing - it takes far more time than doing it the way most other BCs do things. It's upsetting an existing client who may well pass on bad feedback to others that might consider using them. How can this make commercial sense?

[Gone West]

If it really is meant to be a VCL I would use stainless steel staples and tape over with aluminium tape. All ridiculous of course.

[Jeremy Harris]

9 hours ago, jack said:

 

But what's the commercial driver for him behaving like this? His company can't be happy with what he's doing - it takes far more time than doing it the way most other BCs do things. It's upsetting an existing client who may well pass on bad feedback to others that might consider using them. How can this make commercial sense?

 

Perhaps some sort of audit of inspection standards?

 

I don't know, but I would suspect that the approval bodies for building inspectors are tightening up things.  If they are like those for other approved organisation/people schemes, then often those being assessed get some say in presenting evidence that they are working to the required standard.  My impression of a Part P audit by one of the bodies was that it was nothing at all like a UKAS audit (been through a few of those over the years..............) and that the approved person could, for example, choose a work example to be audited (in our case our whole house wiring job).

Edited November 18, 2017 by JSHarris

[jack]

I guess it's possible, it just seems odd that this is the only example of this sort of behaviour anyone's brought to the forum.

 

Maybe this is the vanguard - I hope not, unless they also intend to behave like this with commercial clients.

 

18 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

I don't know, but I would suspect that the approval bodies for building inspectors are tightening up things.  If they are like those for other approved organisation/people schemes, then often those being assessed get some say in presenting evidence that they are working to the required standard.  

 

Interesting theory. It would certainly fit the "model home" approach that they use when they pick a subset of a large development for inspection.

 

16 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

My impression of a Part P audit by one of the bodies was that it was nothing at all like a UKAS audit (been through a few of those over the years..............) and that the approved person could, for example, choose a work example to be audited (in our case our whole house wiring job).

Our electrician (Justin, who you met I believe) also chose our house for his audit, but I think that was because he works by himself, so doesn't have a lot of large jobs to show for an audit, and the timing was right.

[Jeremy Harris]

55 minutes ago, jack said:

Our electrician (Justin, who you met I believe) also chose our house for his audit, but I think that was because he works by himself, so doesn't have a lot of large jobs to show for an audit, and the timing was right.

 

This was the same for our guy, he works on his own and doesn't get many new build wiring jobs (I think ours was his first).  I was still surprised that he could choose a job to be audited.  Back when I ran a couple of UKAS accredited labs, all we knew in advance was the date of the inspection, we hadn't a clue what they might choose to look at, not even a list of possible areas of inspection.  They literally opened filing cabinets at random, pulled out a file and then asked to see all the evidence supporting everything in it, from calibration stickers and records of all the equipment used to verification that we'd checked that our calibration providers had a traceable audit trail.  These audits used to take about a week per lab, with two auditors, then we'd get back their report and whether or not they were revalidating our accreditation about a couple of weeks later.

 

 

1 hour ago, jack said:

I guess it's possible, it just seems odd that this is the only example of this sort of behaviour anyone's brought to the forum.

 

Maybe this is the vanguard - I hope not, unless they also intend to behave like this with commercial clients.

 

As mentioned before, I've heard rumours that since Grenfell building inspection bodies are looking far more closely at how they work, and it could just be bad timing that @curlewhouse has started inspections during what may be a knee-jerk reaction period.

 

If the same sort of rigour was applied to  all new builds then that would make a significant change, but just randomly selecting one self-builder, because they know full well that a single self-builder is no threat to their reputation or, more importantly, their commercial income stream, isn't going to change anything.

[curlewhouse]

I've smeared the staples we've done so far like you say JSH and indeed it's invisible. Bit of a "clart" (as we say up here) to do so, but effective. However, I got home from work yesterday to find that my wife had been busy putting VCL up and was finding the repeated action of the stapler was hurting her hands, so I rang BCO and said would an adhesive do, and if so (rather than go through more nonsense) just tell me up front which type/brand they like.... to which he now said I was correct all along and that with the studding screwed on the VCL could never come off so theres no reason to be prescriptive over staple spacing and he is now only concerned about the staple spacing at overlaps, (taped anyway of course) which should be ....... 300mm! (yes, after all that!)  .  I could have blown a gasket, but I'm too exhausted these days !  I think I was too gobsmacked to react! So basically, what I was already doing with that small proviso of accuracy at overlaps.

Edited November 21, 2017 by curlewhouse

[jack]

2 hours ago, curlewhouse said:

... to which he now said I was correct all along and that with the studding screwed on the VCL could never come off so theres no reason to be prescriptive over staple spacing and he is now only concerned about the staple spacing at overlaps, (taped anyway of course) which should be ....... 300mm! (yes, after all that!)   

 

What. The. Actual? 

 

You couldn't make this nonsense up.

[Jeremy Harris]

Simply unbelievable. 

 

You have to seriously question the competence of this inspector, as this is really basic stuff that he's getting seriously wrong.  If we have inspectors as poor as this then it's no wonder that some of our new build housing is in the state it's in.

[dpmiller]

so did Kingspan change their specification over the weekend?

[Ian]

4 hours ago, curlewhouse said:

so I rang BCO and said would an adhesive do, and if so (rather than go through more nonsense) just tell me up front which type/brand they like.... to which he now said I was correct all along and that with the studding screwed on the VCL could never come off so theres no reason to be prescriptive over staple spacing and he is now only concerned about the staple spacing at overlaps, (taped anyway of course) which should be ....... 300mm! (yes, after all that!)

The guy is clearly an idiot and is clearly out of his depth. To ask you to do that to a VCL shows his incompetence.

 

As an architect I've been regularly dealing with BCOs in England and Wales for the last 30 years and I've only once or twice come across a story as bad as yours. Normally BCOs are very sensible people with a lot of common sense. (Scotland is a different matter as the system is still run by Local Authorities and the relevant departments are grossly understaffed.)

 

If you feel the need to make a formal complaint the procedures are here:

Code of Conduct link here (its a PDF)

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=code+of+conduct+for+approved+building+inspector&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&dcr=0&ei=VAUUWrn_EezR8geB_4qoCA

Extract from document regarding competence:

"2.4.1 An Approved Inspector shall ensure, prior to entering into an agreement for
the provision of professional services, that the Approved Inspector has the
necessary level of competence and experience required...."

 

CIC complaints procedure:

http://cic.org.uk/services/complaints.php

 

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2017 by Ian

[curlewhouse]

Thanks. To be honest I think I put the fear of God into them when they came to resolve things and have a suspicion that here onwards things will be a lot simpler. I also suspect if I make a complaint I'll be subject to even more scrutiny in revenge - I'll see how I feel at the end (but if there's more nonsense I'll immediately go the formal route). I've advised the SIPS company of the issues re this particular firm (though they knew as of course I've had to keep bothering them too wth the BCO questions), so hopefully they can pass that to future clients so they don't have the problems we have.