The Carpentry Show with Robin Clevert and Festal. A passion for high quality power
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at Festal dot co dot uk. Festal with you every day. Welcome to
the Carpentry Show with Festal on fixed radio. I'm Robin Clevert with you for
the next hour. On the last two shows, I shared my seven sins
to avoiding carpentry. One of the seven was not notifying a building inspector about
relevant work or notifiable work. So on today's show, I've invited a building
inspector that oversees some huge projects in the East of England onto the show to
give us some advice. Well, it has been a fairly nice sort of
three or four weeks. We've had some sunshine, some really reliable weather,
to the point where I had some sort of work that I had held off
until the weather broken and got a bit better. One of the jobs was
cladding dormers, so I've kept stains the client. I'm not getting up there
until i know it's going to be dry because I want to go up there
and do the jobs start to finish, and so that's what we did.
And I've had the pleasure of having a couple of youngsters working with me now,
so it's work work experienced season time. So the guys are from a
six four foot form college called Colliers in Horsham and they're also friends from the
village, so they networked and they said, who will take us on for
a week? And I've had the pleasure of having the guys working with me
and they've been doing absolutely everything and they're joining me as part of their work
experience in the studio. I'm very lucky to have Joshua Anderson and Joe Collins.
Have you had a good time, guys, Yeah, it's been absolutely
amazing. Yeah, best experience. What have you enjoyed most? The planning
at the beginning is great. Yeah, mathematics and kind of the organization of
everything. Yeah, what about you, josh I think the setting up of
the business stuff like the Amazon store, yeah, print on them. Yeah,
it's been really good. So you might guess from that. The guys
have had such a varied week. We've done the clouding, which involved a
lot of mathematics. They had a bit of standing around, you know what
it's like. We've also done a little bit of computer works stuff I'm not
capable of. They've done some designs stuff around my logo, which is really
kind of them, and got some stuff onto Amazon for me, and then
they had the pleasure of four tons of topsoil to shift all around my garden,
which they did really well. You did copell right then? Yeah?
Yeah, okay, well, thanks so much. Enjoyed the show. I'm
Robin Glevitt and joining me now is Mark Harvey, Building Control Partnership Manager for
East Suffolk Council. Mark, in a nutshell, what does your role involve
and what kind of building sites are you inspecting on a day to day basis?
So I inspect building sides of all sizes, of all complexities, from
the smallest domestic extension to the largest how a block of eighteen meters plus,
and also hospitals, care homes, pretty much anything you could think of.
Yeah, it's fascinating. I always find the range and variety that you guys
as a professional building control officers go out and look at its mind blowing.
I mean I'm in the domestic market, and talking about the domestic market,
I find a lot of trades people actually not aware of what you're supposed to
notify in the first place. So they may get asked to call around to
look at a job and they take the job on not even realizing that it's
notifiable work okay, and it can sometimes be sort of quite minor alterations.
I mean, what's your experience being like this in the past. Well,
we offer a very open and approachable service because ultimately all we want to do
is for the tradesmen, homeowners, anybody to feel that they can ask us
the question. So there really is no excuse, you know, if you
ask us in the first place. I'm thinking about knock on the wall out
of my house. I wonder if I need building REGs. We are very
easy to get hold of, we are very easy to contact, and there
is a plethora of information online which should direct you to such a service.
Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, anyone who's looked at the planning
portal and then gone on too l ABC for example, would see that there's
so much information there. But it's about signposting people together in the first place.
So I mean, how can trades people build a sort of clearer understanding
of what they will need to notify building inspector or about. The LABC website
is a very good example, as are many of the websites of the local
authority building control teams. But the lab C website have a funt door website
which holds every answer to every question that you could possibly ask and then lead
you to then make that contact with a professional. Yeah, I totally get
you there, so base Basically, I mean, it's in my role.
I'm a domestic builder. I'm a carpenter and joiner by trade, and I
get approached by all manner of people to do all manner of jobs from small
stuff which might involve period windows that have got to be replaced which they can't
buy uPVC for that sort of stuff, and they just call you around,
they say we want to replace a window. And when I say, yeah,
that's fine, it's notifiable works because I'm a tradesman craftsman. I'm not
under the fencer scheme. And they're like, well, what you're going on
about. It's like double Dutch to them, you know. And a lot
of people I find think that we're I'm trying to put a barrier up in
their way, if you know what I mean. And a lot of trades
people, I know, when I say about even roof in works. Now,
you know, even if you're going to recover a roof, an entire
roof, that falls into correct me if I'm wrong, some sort of notifiable
work because of the REGs. Yes, you're correct, we are. The
building regulations cover all manner of parts of construction. Ultimately, we are very
focused on the thermal achievements of a building, and the accessible nature of a
building, and the fire safety of the building. Yea, you know they
are the three big ones. Yeah, and I think all the most important
ones as you mentioned. Okay, let's discuss some of what you've observed in
your role. Next the Carpentry Show on Fixed Radio. This is the Carpentry
Show with Festival. I'm Robin Clevitt and still on the line is building inspector
Mark Harvey, who is giving us some advice and insight into how we work
with building inspectors as tradespeople. So what can be the consequences of failing to
notify an inspector about irrelevant work? Unfortunately, it's works are undertaken with early
appropriate permissions. Upon the sale of a property, the question may be asked
as to how that piece of work complies and with early appropriate certificate and inspection
by building Control. Unfortunately, the works has to be inspected retrospectively, which
means I, as a building inspector, to go somewhere and look at something
that I can't guarantee I'm going to be able to pass. Yeah, I
mean it's really awkward, and all the way through my career I've had that
loads of times where people contact me and said, we're trying to buy a
house and there's no building certificate and they're saying that we can just indemnify with
a small insurance And I said, look, guys, I said, you
really want to take something on that may not be safe, it may not
be built. Well, you need to either back out or you need to
get the seller to get that inspection done. And if you know, and
it puts the pressure on you, guys the building control office to actually come
along. I know you you might be able to charge a fee for it,
but it's still a lot of aggravation for you, and it's quite stressful
at that time when people really need to sell and someone wants to buy and
you feel like you're in the middle and you say there's no guardrail on this
staircase. There's no smoke alarms. There's all of the basic things, and
that's what you can see. What you can't see is all the stuff that
they should have done that isn't done, you know. So I do feel
for you how to get over that I've mentioned before about us being approachable.
I think unfortunately for us being called building inspectors, the word inspector brings an
element of fear to people. That is not what we want. Our role
is not to go somewhere to say something is wrong. Our role is to
go somewhere to say something is right. But we need to be given a
fair shot at doing that, and the only way of doing that is the
earliest possible communication. If you don't ask the question in the first instance,
there's a great risk that you're going to have some difficult consequences later. That's
so true. And like for me as a structural carpenter, so I get
a lot of people approach me and say we want to roof put on an
extension, for example. And this is a classic. So a lot of
people will call a local architect and they want to just get planning through.
So they want an outline plan done of what they want and they want to
put it in. And then I get the plan sense to me, as
do a lot of other builders, and they say, give us a price
to this, and I say, okay, yeah, no problems, So
we all give them a rough price based on square meter is the normal sort
of thing. Then you get awarded the work and then my next question is
have you got any of the structural calculations for your roof? And they'll say,
oh, no, we didn't know we had to have them. I
said, well, you do because it needs to be submitted because the rafter
lengths, the size is, the spaces, the ventilation and the insulation,
everything else. So they don't have a package of works for building inspectors to
look at, if you know what I mean, like a full submission or
full plan submission. And then I find that you get clients and say,
well do we really need it? Can't we do it without it? Now?
I personally won't do it without it because it's my reputation. And even
if I know I can specify something, let's say, for example, something
did go wrong, Well, that's just going to push the responsibility back to
me. I mean, what have been your experiences with this and what would
your advice to trade people be if they're faced with this, you're obviously a
highly competent contractor, as are many contractors we come across. It is incredib
be unfair on a contractor to take on that design responsibility when you were there
to deliver the role and deliver the work. People often think they're going to
save money by not investing in some appropriate design. The best analogy that we
give is if you go to a supermarket without a list, you come home
with none of the items that you were meant to Guess, that's me,
Yes, that's right. The same thing applies that if you are going to
be investing in your property and you want to make sure something is built correctly
into the required standards. If you can have a plan of the design to
help your contractor to deliver the work, and then for the building inspector to
then also inspect as per the design, you're going to get a far better
end result. Yeah, I mean, that is fabulous advice. And it's
as simple as that. And in fact, that document which may specify steel
sizes, raft sizes, fireproofing, all of the that the necessary stuff.
The builder can then go away and price it properly, he can say,
I know exactly what the size timbers are, I know exactly what the insulation
requirements are, where the ventilation is all written down Building control of a greedy
and everyone's singing from the same hymn sheet. And if the contractor then decides
to go and do something different, well that's on his head. As far
as as far as I can see. Fix radio time to crack on.
You're listening to the Carpentry Show. I'm Robin Clevitt, and I'm talking to
Mark Harvey, building Control Partnership Manager for East Suffolk Council. So I drive
around all the time. I'm a building geek, okay, so I'm looking
at everything building related from a that's nice, that material is really nice,
or that design's good. But equally I drive round and I know straight away
that's on someone's doing that on a shoestring A because they probably didn't realize how
much things would cost. And then they've kind of attracted whatever help that they
can attract for whatever budget or money that they have. And I often see
things that I feel are really unsafe, terrible workmanship. And yes, it
might be the person in the house who's having to go themselves, that's up
to them. But I often see people who look like trades people working.
I think, do you actually really know what you're doing? The way they're
approaching things, even how they stack the material or set the site up.
And it annoys me to the point where I've spent all my life trying to
build myself a career and do things properly, and then you think that work's
been taken from underneath us as bona fidei trades people by someone who's either mean
who just wants to disrespect trades people of what they earned, and that really
really winds me up. I mean, how about you, as a building
inspector when you drive around, do you see the same things I'm seeing at
all? Yes, I couldn't agree more. As building inspectors, you know,
I manage a large team of highly competent professionals, and unfortunately, those
works that you talk of, when we do uncover them, the time it
takes us to deal with them means that our time with the people that have
paid for their applications and the tractors who really want our help is sacrificed because
we need to deal with the enforcement side of our roles, which is really
unfortunate because there are the people out there who have paid for our services that
sometimes then have to take a back seat for us to then deal with.
They're not so easy situations where somebody's went ahead and thought they can just go
ahead and do whatever they like, which is a real shame, I know,
And and you know, I'm sort of not surprised that you know,
you see the same as I see, even though you're up there in Suffolk
and I'm down here in Surrey. I mean, would you sort of knock
on the door, would you send a letter? What? How does?
How'd you go about it? And so we have a very very good understanding
of our geographical area being a local authority and all the surveyors. The important
thing about local authority build control. All of the surveyors I employ live and
work within the districts. You know, we operate so our own friends and
families and everybody that we know lives in the properties and around the properties that
we are making sure are safe and accessible for everybody. You know, that
is really fundamentally important. So if I'm driving around and I have a good
understanding of the work that I have got in in my area and I drive
past the property and I automatically know, because of my geographical understanding and my
workload that I haven't got an application there. I will stop, and I
will have a conversation, and if that conversation goes well, I give people
an opportunity to then apply retrospectively and then if not. Unfortunately, we do
have the ability to take enforcement action, which should always be the last option,
which is not something we like to do because then again, that doesn't
really help us promote what we're trying to do as building inspectors, because then
people see us as enforces. Yeah exactly, Yeah, but it's really suring
to hear that you do take action. I mean, what the things that
really sort of make you angry. Let's say you've got a job that is
has an application, you go out. Is there anything that really makes you
angry that you see and you think, oh, you can't do this.
What is that? I would say general standards and competence and having some respect
for the wider industry. You know, if you see a bad job and
someone's done a bad thing. Unfortunately, that thinks everybody in our industry for
that personalist experience that you know, in the same light, which is which
you know, not good I know, especially in the local community. Yeah,
of course. I mean, so what are sort of some of those
common issues that you come across and when you talk about standards, I mean,
is there a particular part of the build that's just going downhill and downhill?
I think it's people's lack of appreciation of structure. You can't just go
ahead and take a structural element of a property out because we're talking about the
safety of the people doing it in the first place, and then the people
that are frequenting the building or walking past the building. You know, the
risk and the nature of having a limited amount of ability or design or knowledge
jumping into foot to a knowledge it really isn't good enough. The strange thing
in our country, I believe, and this is where we're going with competence
in general, is if you wake up tomorrow morning and feel that you want
to be a builder, you can be Yeah, it's totally wrong. It's
something that as a qualified tradesperson, someone who loves their craft, as do
a hell of a lot of our listeners out there. You know, they're
really engaged people and they want to do the best jobs. When you see
this flouting of rules or as you say, anyone can get up and say
today I'm a builder. You know, it's just a generic term. You
know, there's no qualification. You can't go to college to become a builder.
You can go to college and have a professional building qualification, but actually
being a builder's generally a trades based person like me who is engaged to oversee
lots of trades, which makes you a builder. I mean, okay,
so what's the best way to engage with the building stretcher. I know you've
touched on this earlier about the fact get in touch, but as a tradesperson,
let's say you come on site, what is the best way to engage
with the building inspector? Definitely, you know, with the local authority,
build control teams, everyone that I know of are very open to contact.
You know, seekon early stage contact is the only way. You know,
the contact details of many of the build control teams around the country are very
very good, not like they used to be, and just give that early
stage opportunity for the building inspector to engage with you. And you know,
the really fundamental part of that early engagement. Many many building control teams mine
included. We offer and hours free advice brilliant and hours free advice might be
over the phone, it might be you know, over a coffee somewhere,
or it could be at the property in question. We're very, very open
to the early engagement and that's the only way that we can actually make sure
that we're doing the same thing and we've got the same ambitions wrote from the
earliest point. Well, Mark, I really really appreciate you coming on,
especially after last week's show where I talked about the seven sins of carpentry and
one of them was obviously not notifying building control. And I think you've made
it so easy the very fact that there is this free service, you know,
and I know it may not be every local authority, but I know
from my personal engagement with the local authority building controls, the ones that I
use, five or six that I use over the years, has always been
fantastic. You can build an amazing rapport into the point where sometimes we have
inspections and the guys don't need to come on site that you know, I
can evidence it and they don't even need to come on site. But that
takes years of trust or you know, at least an appreciation. Mark,
thanks so much for your time for coming on the show today. I think
I think i'd like to add as well, from our perspectives from a building
for jobspective LABC, who represent all of the local authority to build control,
we like to celebrate our tradesmen and the achievement for the tradesmen, and we
do recognize that, and we have regional and national awards and in them the
regional and national awards the hard work of everybody in the trades a scene by
all and celebrated by all, and that's something that I don't think people realize.
Yeah, and I can vouch for that because I actually got highly commended
when I went up to one of those competitions for a big project we did
in Hendon, Thames and I was nominated by the building inspector of the area,
which it was a real accolade to me, and he was a very
quiet, serious man. I had no idea he was going to turn to
me at the end of the job on the completion. By the way,
we're submitting this for an award and it was wonderful. Anyway, Thank you
again, hope to catch up with you in the future. Mark lovely,
Thank you ever so much. That's it for today's Carpentry Show, where I
was joined by building inspector Mark Harvey. So I something I found really interesting
at the end, and it was a bit of a sort of shock to
me really that Mark is seeing what I'm seeing and what probably a lot of
our listeners, what are you guys are listening today are seeing as well out
on site and now that is that standards are changing. Okay, I don't
want to say slipping, because you know, I can't judge everyone the same
as I'm not walking in their shoes, but I do think that standards are
slipping and the way that we go about things, everything's rush, rush,
rush, you know, it's always a power tool to do something that,
you know, taking the skill out of things by automating staff and using new
products. And he sort of intimated there that it could be that in sort
of a few years time, the standards are going to get so low that
that no one's going to be able to control it. As people of my
generation are getting tired and moving out of the trade and not teaching new people
to come into it, you know, we could be in a bit of
a mess. So all I'm going to say is providing you're doing a good
job, stand by that. Keep doing a good job and it will pay
off in the end. I know that you might say I'm going to get
undercut, but just hold your line and it will be absolutely fine. So
that's my last little bit of advice on that subject. This and all of
my previous shows are also available as podcasts from wherever you get them online,
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