http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/st...785437,00.html has an
interesting insight into the views of those that carry out such
inspections. Here are some of the main points. The country is
England, but things are similar elsewhere.

================================================== ================

For 21 years builders in this country have been legally bound to
construct homes that conserve energy. The building regulations tell
them how much insulation they must use, what kind of windows they
must fit and how good their draught-proofing will be. Guess how many
builders have been prosecuted in that period for non-compliance. I
won't keep you in suspense: the answer is none.

There should be only one good reason for this: that they are
building houses so well that enforcement is unnecessary. But a study
conducted by the Building Research Establishment, looking at just
one factor (the rate at which cold air leaks in) found that 43% of
the new houses it checked should have been failed by the inspectors.
All of them had been passed. In some homes the requisite amount of
insulation had been left in the lofts, but it was still tied up in
bales. No one has been prosecuted because no one gives a damn.

A new survey of the people who are supposed to enforce our building
rules - building control officers - published this month by the
Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes found that they treat the
energy rules as a joke. Part of the problem is that since their
profession was deregulated, many of them are involved in a standing
conflict of interest. In the past, building control officers were
employed by the council. Today builders hire "approved inspectors"
to certify their houses. If the inspectors are too tough, they won't
be hired again. As the major parties compete to cut red tape,
businesses are seldom prosecuted for anything, let alone such a
petty misdemeanour as killing the planet.

Even if the officers wanted to enforce the rules, it is hard to see
how they could. They inspect homes only towards the end of
construction, when it is too late to see what's inside the walls.
But the biggest problem appears to be their attitude. Several of
them told the survey that they saw energy efficiency as a "trivial"
matter, and would never dream of withholding a certificate because a
house wasn't properly insulated. They saw their real job as ensuring
that houses won't fall down or catch fire. No one was going to sue
them if a building they had approved leaked heat. Poor energy
efficiency, some of them said, is "not life threatening". Oh
really? [snip]

Yvette Cooper, the housing minister, boasted this month that "energy
efficiency standards are 40% higher than in 2002". That is not true.
But even if it were, they are worthless if builders know that they
will never be enforced. She also flourishes her new voluntary "code
for sustainable homes", which urges builders to go green. It is hard
to think of a better means of reinforcing the impression that energy
efficiency is trivial. We don't have a voluntary code to prevent our
houses from falling down. More constructively, she wants inspectors
to be given more time in which to prosecute. Unfortunately, as the
survey shows, they won't use it. The officers still have every
incentive not to uphold the law.

But I can support the government when it says it wants to "simplify
and streamline" the building regulations. My suggestion is that it
reduces them to one sentence: "By 2010, no house in this country
shall be built with a heating or cooling system."

This sounds ridiculous, outrageous. Does Monbiot want us all to
freeze to death? Far from it. In Germany there are now some 4,000
homes built to the Passivhaus standard. A Passivhaus is a house
without radiators, fan heaters, stoves, air conditioners or any
other kind of heating or cooling device. The only heat it requires
is produced by sunlight coming through the windows and by the bodies
of the people who live there. A study of more than 100 passive homes
showed they had a mean indoor temperature of 21.4 degrees during the
bitter German winter. That's 2.4 degrees warmr an the average
British home.

All that distinguishes them from other houses is that they are built
properly. They are airtight (the air that enters the house comes
through a heat-exchange system) and have no "thermal bridges" -
material that can conduct heat from the inside of the house to the
outside. The windows are matched carefully to the volume of the
house. Because they have no active heating systems, they are not
much more expensive to build than ordinary houses. A development of
20 homes in Freiburg, with a measured energy saving of 79%, cost
just 7% more than a typical building of the same kind.

I fail to see why the Passivhaus cannot become a universal standard.
But this standard, like all those the government might propose, will
be a waste of time until our building control officers are forced to
do their jobs properly. What is the point in investing in nuclear
power - or in any other generating technology - if we can't sort out
something as simple as this?

The New Statesman reveals that in 1988, when Tony Blair was shadow
energy secretary, he launched a passionate attack on the
Conservatives' climate policies. "What is unbelievably depressing
about the government's response," he said, "is that they see, in the
evidence about greenhoue gases, not an opportunity to promote
environmental concern, but a chance to make the case for nuclear
power ... Having made a big issue of the greenhouse effect, it
became clear that energy efficiency was the best way to deal with
it, but ... the government's position has been characterised by a
malign reluctance to have anything to do with the notion of energy
conservation." What better description of his own legacy could there
be?

================================================== ================




--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

An interesting analagy. As a builder I have certainely noticed an
improvement in both the standards set and the levels to which building
control work. In more recent years lots more insulation is required.
May be as a direct result of builders failing to insulate properly,
increase levels for all builders and then overall we will have more
effective insulation. I am of the opinion that simply increasing the
levels of insulation used is not the right answer. Far more effective
would be to insulate properly and reduce as much as possible air
leakage. The only trouble is that the inspectors will typically call
only 7 or 8 time in the course of a new build.
Recently new legislation has come in and a lot of building inspectors
do not understand it yet. I recently asked one about the implications
of trickle vents with a HRV system and he did not have a clue. In the
end I read through Part F and advised him. He was happy to take my word
for it as he had not had the time to study the new document. Yet they
only will do site visits from 10:30 till 15:00 minus lunch. As with all
industries, they will make there excuses for only being able to do
site visits between certain times ensuring that they have enough free
time to do whatever it is they should be doing.
The whole industry needs overhauling to some degree. Skilled labour is
in short supply with a hefty price to pay. Companies motivated by
profit will use cheap labour where poss. The goverment keeps telling us
that we need x million more homes in the next 10 years. I don't have
the answer.

Regards
Legin

On 30 May 2006 10:25:53 -0700 Legin wrote :
Far more effective
would be to insulate properly and reduce as much as possible air
leakage. T

The new L1 effectively makes this compulsory on new housing
developments. There is an exemption for one and two dwelling sites but
if you choose to take advantage of it you really have to jump through
hoops on the insulation side. The key thing about testing is that it
will find out weaknesses that are not visible.

Yet they [BCOs]
only will do site visits from 10:30 till 15:00 minus lunch. As with
all
industries, they will make there excuses for only being able to do
site visits between certain times ensuring that they have enough free
time to do whatever it is they should be doing.

I was a BCO for eight years and for the most part we only did
inspections in the morning. The rest of the time went on plan checking,
meetings with applicants and other work - we weren't sitting around
doing nothing!

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

Tony Bryer wrote:

I was a BCO for eight years and for the most part we only did
inspections in the morning. The rest of the time went on plan checking,
meetings with applicants and other work - we weren't sitting around
doing nothing!

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

I am sure that you were a very good BCO, certainely your contributions
to this group indicate to me that you are one of the good guys. However
when you see the lcoal building inspectors in the builders merchants,
shopping not checking on product availability, it does question there
integrity. You can ring for advice and you will get conflicting
opinion.
I know that these are my issues, but the local A has recently lost 60 %
of its inspectors becuse they left for better op's. The remaining bunch
are predominantly a waste of space, unhelpful, uncooperative and down
right drowl if not rude on occassions. My opinion.
I am currently building an extension in a neighboring authority and by
contrast they have been very helpful. They will actually try to agree a
time, as opposed to an open ended all day, and have been very reliable,
are cheerful and talkative (mostly shop but informative). By contrast
they make my LA look a right shabble. I hope that my LA BCO is not
indicative of the nation. In fairness to them a couple of the
replacements are looking hopeful.
Regards
Legin

Tony Bryer wrote:

I was a BCO for eight years and for the most part we only did
inspections in the morning. The rest of the time went on plan checking,
meetings with applicants and other work - we weren't sitting around
doing nothing!

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk

I am sure that you were a very good BCO, certainely your contributions
to this group indicate to me that you are one of the good guys. However
when you see the lcoal building inspectors in the builders merchants,
shopping not checking on product availability, it does question there
integrity. You can ring for advice and you will get conflicting
opinion.
I know that these are my issues, but the local A has recently lost 60 %
of its inspectors becuse they left for better op's. The remaining bunch
are predominantly a waste of space, unhelpful, uncooperative and down
right drowl if not rude on occassions. My opinion.
I am currently building an extension in a neighboring authority and by
contrast they have been very helpful. They will actually try to agree a
time, as opposed to an open ended all day, and have been very reliable,
are cheerful and talkative (mostly shop but informative). By contrast
they make my LA look a right shabble. I hope that my LA BCO is not
indicative of the nation. In fairness to them a couple of the
replacements are looking hopeful.
Regards
Legin

On 30 May 2006 12:13:08 -0700, a particular chimpanzee named "legin"
randomly hit the keyboard and
produced:

I know that these are my issues, but the local A has recently lost 60 %
of its inspectors becuse they left for better op's. The remaining bunch
are predominantly a waste of space, unhelpful, uncooperative and down
right drowl if not rude on occassions.

Perhaps because they are being asked to do 2½ times the work to make
up for the surveyors who have left, on wages that have made 60% of
their colleagues leave for other Authorities and elsewhere.
--
Hugo Nebula
"If no-one on the internet wants a piece of this,
just how far from the pack have you strayed?"