Dear onthebeach,

My husband tells me that it is the responsibility
of the tradesmen employing staff to ensure the
safety of the employees, the safety of the building
site, and carry appropriate registration and insurance
before undertaking any work. Home owners who engage
fly-by-night cowboys take the risk of the unknown
consequences. It is unfortunate that local government
building departments did not take the initiative at
the time that the program was announced to regulate
and inspect the tradesmen and the work undertaken.

In all building projects no matter how strictly regulated
accidents happen due to the inexperience of the workers
and the condition of the site.

To blame the federal government at a time of an impending
election shows the desperation of those carrying out the
accusations.

How can we blame the government who merely released the
funding and initiated a program in the interest of
energy conservation.

Governments approve funding for the building of hospitals,
schools, public buildings, public roads, railways,
where inevitably no matter how strictly regulated -
accidents do happen and people get killed. As an example -
check the Snowy Mountains Scheme - how many died on
the building of that and that was funded by the
Liberal government of the time. Blaming governments
for these accidents merely demonstrates the irrationality
of these accusations.

Lexi,

If you and your husband look a bit you will see that I am not disagreeing. But lets deal with the causes, not symptoms.

What I am saying and with plenty of evidence -some examples already given- that while builders and trades are required to be certified and Australian Standards exist, there is NO FORMAL REQUIREMENT, it is NOT OBLIGATORY for the builders and trades to mee those Standards at a minimum and the manufacturers' installation guidelines.

-That in a nutshell is the large iceberg below the insulation devacle. But it is also evidenced in regular balustrade and deck collapses to take examples common in the media. There is no investigative journalism, just entertainment.

-Read the Australian Standards and go to home buildings under construction and you will see before you plenty of instances of problems caused by that deficiemcy

- In addition, there is no requirement whatsoever for the Gold Card holder to actually supervise. In so many cases all he does is sign off.

To top it off, the previous rigorous governmental electrical and other building inspections of years ago no longer exist.

I am not interested in the politics. Except to say that the political parties and the big stakeholders are willing to play politics while sweeping serious systemic problems that affect the homeowners under the carpet.

The CSIRO has found that, prior to the commencement of the HIP, for every 100,000 households with insulation in place for twelve months or more, around 2.4 fire incidents occur per year.

They found that for every 100,000 households installed under the HIP where the insulation has been in place for twelve months or more around 2.5 fire incidents would currently be expected to occur per year.

In other words, as at 31 March 2011, the level of risk for households with insulation installed under the HIP is now effectively no different to the level of fire incident risk that existed before the program was implemented.

The CSIRO expects that once they have all the data that the incidence will drop to 2.2 per 100,000 NOT including an overall reduction due to less heating requirements during the colder months in newly insulated homes.

Over time, the number of fire call-outs has been falling – not rising.

They also found that about 25% of homes did not meet current building standards and many were electrically unsafe before the insulation was installed.

The fault of the Government was they trusted that small businessmen would do the right thing. All the guidelines and laws for the installation of room insulation were already in place and were expected to be followed.
If you send a parcel somewhere by courier you would expect that the driver would be licenced and follow the road rules and if they ran a red light while delivering your parcel, are you responsible or is the driver?

By the way, four people died in roof space accidents under the previous government as well.

How many have read the official Hawke Report of the HIP scheme and how many get their spin from Murdoch and shock-jocks?

Lexi,

The responsibility for safety does not rest with any one person. It includes the owner of the premises, the worker, his supervisor, the line managers, the CEO of the company, and ultimately the project initiators. So in a nutshell there is no one involved that can wash their hands of responsibility.

As an electrical engineer involved with projects for a couple of decades I know that there is more legislation, codes of practice etc, for electrical work than all other fields put together. Large projects have several people dedicated only to checking safe work compliance in this field, and still mistakes are made. Small start up companies dealing with roof insulation are unlikely to have even one licensed installation electrician employed, and are likely to be spectacularly unprepared.

Both Garret and Rudd were warned repeatedly of these exact risks and were given recommendations to minimize these risks, and ignored them. The coroner spelled this out clearly when declaring them culpable.

Wobbles,

When the project started, there was a spike in house fires that far exceeded existing norms, this was reduced after new guidelines were put in place and repair work was done. Read the report, not just the end result.

We are talking about home building, residential construction.

The management controls are vested in:

- the formal accreditation of tradesmen and builders, in Queensland the Gold Card; and

- the building code as expressed now in the Australian Standards, which can be modified by States.

Make no mistake, the Card holdimg contractor is directly and solely responsible for all aspects of the work including safety on the site.

However, where cowboys and corner-cutting operators are concerned it is like trapping a rat in a wire netting cage. Because as stated a number of times already, there is no obligation whatsoever on the builder or tradesman to meet the Australian Standards and manufacturers' installation guides as an absolute minimum.

Also, the way contract law works in respect of home construction is that it is impossible until practical completion has been attained and payment made for all stages of work up to and including practical completion, for there to be any complaint or action against the builder for sub-standard work and unsatisfactory substitutions and certainly no withholding of payment (deemed a breach of contract) by the home owner.

Even after practical completion with photos and signed depositions (by experts such as engineers) of work that does not meet the relevant Standards, a home owner will not be able to further a claim in the building Tribunal unless the homeowner can show evidence of and prove damage resulting from the substandard work. Proving the work did not meet the Standards and/or manufacturer's installation instructions is never enough.

For example, external concrete landscaping could be at a height that drains water falling on it directly into the weep hole of the wall of the dwelling. That obvious fault will not be corrected unless damage is proved to the wall. Even then the weep holes might just be plugged with putty, leaving the walls without an effective damp course. A 'good' builder wouldn't do that, but many builders do. They all have Gold Cards too.

to be continued..

contd..

Homeowners believe quite reasonably, but wrongly, that the Standards and the Gold Cards give a warranty of satisfactory work. But nothing could be further from the truth because the key control is missing: there is no formal requirement for the trades to meet the available Standards.

The sole protection for a homeowner is in finding a 'good' builder first up. But how is a homeowner to make that choice where the shoddy builders also have Gold Cards and the diplomats in the guvvy building standards give them heaps of rope? It is a waste of time asking other homeowners because most are as clueless as you might be about building.

It takes a determined effort over years by a cowboy builder to finally be rounded up by the guvvy diploimats and then it is usually only because he has become insolvent.

Builders have the protection of the lobbying power of their unions, such as the HIA and Master Builders. Politicians listen where donations are made to their election campaigns (and sweeteners between elections). The homeowner is small beer, always forgotten. But the expenditure on shelter is likely the citizen's biggest purchase in his/her lifetime. Whoever the main political parties represent, they sure don't represent home owners.