Is there any point to getting an engineer to inspect your house before you buy it? They’ll stand over nothing, and they can’t see the vast majority of things, so bar he walks up and sees the house is crooked there isn’t much value for your money really
if you are getting a mortgage banks will require a structural survey.
if it was a standard domestic house, there may not have been any need to go through the BCAR process, which would have been the only red flag to not having inspection certificates. You buy materials in good faith that they are being made to regulation. When you buy materials or goods, you generally dont look for manufacturers testing certs with them and in construction, thats a lot of paperwork. Its why the BCAR process was introduced, but on domestic work is overkill for the majority of the time. This highlights why it can be needed. A visual inspection of the blocks would not have indicated any issues.
On larger projects, it would be a requirement to have random testing completed on materials brought to site. So for concrete and blocks for example, you would take various samples of deliveries and get them independently tested so that the certs being provided by the supplier are matching up with the on site delivery performance of the materials. Same goes for backfill stone, random samples to ensure it is pyrite free. These tests are relatively cheap in the scheme of things, particularly for larger projects. But it is not something you’d do on a one off house unless you were particularly wary of the supplier. And if you are already wary of them, you just dont use them. The amount of times you would see someone use readymix that is €1/m3 cheaper and you might be getting 4 or 5 loads, so maybe saving up to €40 and it pure fucking shite and goes off quick or is full of gravel and muck. Same with blocks, difference of a couple of cent each. might save you a couple of hundred quid on a €400k house. Just not worth it.
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doesnt cost much for a good building survey, less than a grand. If you’re shelling out €500k on a new house, its very much worth it, even if it isnt required. Identify condition of timbers and any cracks through foundations. Granted, they wont see everything, but any major issues would be highlighted.
Here comes the construction engineering cabal circling the wagons straight away
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the problem with it being a commercial dispute is that the co. may not exist any more. no tot mention the fact that if thousands of homes the Co. in question would not have deep enough pockets.
Do the local council not regulate the quarry?
Am I correct in saying the rules were changed a few years back making the architect liable if they sign of off on shoddy work? Before that the engineers report was basically signing off for the insurance.
Was just reading the home bond website and you are only covered for the first 10 years. Is that the issue here. The problem was only discovered after the insurance company is no longer on the hook for it?
The company do exist though and are still actively trading.
you’d additionally have to have the victims coalesce into one entity in order to bring proceedings given that, as far as i am aware, class actions law suits do not yet exist here.
Additionally, as mentioned above, the govt has set a precedent in intervening previously.
They will soon under an EU Directive - a version of them anyway.
it’ll be interesting to see what way they transpose it
neuter it as much as possible would be my guess
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I honestly dont know enough from that perspective, but the impression I always got was that any council regulation was about planning issues and compliance rather than what leaves the quarry in terms of certification and quality. the fact that a huge number of quarries operate without actual planning permission would say to me that the councils can monitor fuck all really being so inept.
When your house falls down because you were too tight to pay €800, dont come crying on here.
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Thats under the BCAR (Building Control Amended Regulations 2014), so the Architect (or Engineer) are the Assigned Certifier. So yes, ultimately it is up to them to say whether the building was built in compliance with the regulations. Which caused lots of hassle when it first came out as some were charging 20k on top of the standard architect fees for a standard domestic house. So after a couple of years they brought in the opt out section for one off housing, but you need an assigned certifier for all commercial or large scale work. So if a builder puts up shoddy work, the first port of call for blame goes onto the assigned certifier, not the builder.
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What if your house falls down after you paid the €800?
then you you go sue every cunt you can.
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They struck down as champerty a case last year that would have seen State sued for the mobile phone licence award.