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BCA inspections |
19900
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#1
01-March-2010
(time:
22:03)
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Posts:
5
Joined:
02-February-2010
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Do you consider it to be good practice or mandatory for the Architect to be present at BCA inspections during construction, ie. preline, preclad, etc?
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Barry Dacombe
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#2
02-March-2010
(time:
12:04)
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Moderator
Posts:
12
Joined:
15-June-2009
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In your early stages of development I would consider it worth while being present during BCA inspections. This would give you the opportunity to discuss pertinent issues with the Inspector and observe what he or she does. They normally have a check list to work from and in time you or your practice will develop your own check lists for on site observation. For example - if you were going to site to inspect the laying of the roofing you would be able to check say the plywood sarking as to its treatment, fixings, moisture content etc and then observe a section of the roofing being laid and verify its compliance with the specification and drawings.
You would record what you observed in your Site Report noting any non compliance and be specific about what section of the roof was inspected noting that if the remainder of the roofing was fixed the same way it would achieve compliance with the Contract Documents and the Consent.
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Barry J Dacombe, Principal Barry J Dacombe Architect
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Barry Dacombe
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#3
02-March-2010
(time:
13:09)
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Moderator
Posts:
12
Joined:
15-June-2009
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This is a risk management issue protecting your position if later inspections revealed that work not inspected by you is clearly defined and any non compliance discovered was not due to you missing something
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Barry J Dacombe, Principal Barry J Dacombe Architect
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Barry Dacombe
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#4
02-March-2010
(time:
13:13)
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Moderator
Posts:
12
Joined:
15-June-2009
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After you have gained sufficient experience the effective doubling up of inspections between you and the BCA for the same work can be dropped and a more efficient procedure employed.
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Barry J Dacombe, Principal Barry J Dacombe Architect
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Barry Dacombe
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#5
14-October-2010
(time:
16:54)
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Moderator
Posts:
12
Joined:
15-June-2009
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See my response of March 2010
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Barry J Dacombe, Principal Barry J Dacombe Architect
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Elinor Harvey McDouall
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#6
15-May-2012
(time:
13:22)
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Posts:
1
Joined:
15-May-2012
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Barry,
In reference to your account of how one might go to site to inspect the laying of a roof: it brings to mind for me what I've never really understood about the architect's role on site. We are not supposed to be 'supervising', and the assumption surely is that if we have a LBP doing the job they should be able to handle normal construction within their competency. Doing an inspection like the one above and producing a very specific written report seems to me to grey the area between site supervision and observation - are we then taking on responsibility that we shouldn't really be taking? Surely the drawings we do don't need to include such things as numbers of fixings per sheet of roofing, per sheet of ply sarking and so on? And in that case, if we comment on such things are we putting ourselves under greater risk than we should?
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