Costs and delays behind renovation war of words

As we often say here, apartment living can be a minefield of unintended consequences. And it even sees battles in which neither of two diametrically opposed forces are wrong.

It seems that when the NSW the building commissioner came gunning for cowboys in the waterproofing trade, some good guys were caught in the not-OK corral.

The bone of contention is between independent waterproofing contractors and the NSW department of Customer Service (Fair Trading) over the Design and Building Practitioners (DBP) Act which came into full force last year.

The intent of the Act was to drive cowboys out of the building industry.  The method was to require them to have architects or engineers approve their work in advance.

One key battleground, especially in renovation and remediation, is waterproofing, which is particularly significant as water leaks and seepage can be devastating on adjacent homes or in an entire block, and is one of the most common defects in apartment blocks

The Act gives government agencies sweeping powers to investigate and prosecute building professionals who breach the new laws on design and certification, and can lead to everything from stop-work orders to hefty fines.

The unintended consequence of this welcome clean-up of the building trade has been that some small, independent and reliable builders are being forced out too.

And it’s not just builders who are complaining.  Owners corporations have discovered that the costs of relatively simple jobs have soared, largely because the services of another paid professional are required to get the work approved.

One remediation builder with more than 40 years’ experience has contacted Flat Chat to announce that he’d had enough and is taking early retirement.

He has just told five hitherto happy clients that he could no longer work on their blocks as he would be breaking the law. He could study for an appropriate certificate but the time, money and energy required just aren’t worth it.

“I am a licensed builder and a licensed waterproofing technician with 40-plus years’ experience – just the sort of person these poor owners need,” he told Flat Chat.  “But I can’t do this anymore.

“We would have to get an engineer or architect (who generally do not have anywhere like my knowledge) to certify my solutions. I doubt anyone will be interested in doing this and it just adds more to the cost for the owners.”

He said excluding appropriate waterproofing professionals from the provisions of the  Act would resolve the issue overnight, however, NSW Building Commissioner David Chandler and his team are in no mood to backtrack now.

“We are not currently proposing to create a class of design practitioner for waterproofing,” Angus Abadee, Director, Building and Construction Policy in the  Department of Customer Service told Flat Chat.

“Our key concern is that there is not an appropriate qualification that waterproofers hold that teaches design.”  

Mr Abadee agreed there was a clear gap in the current market, with a shortage of appropriately qualified professionals, and said there was work underway to develop a waterproofing certificate that included design.

“Waterproofing is the building element that most frequently is defective in our audits of work,” he said. “Forcing practitioners to go through the rigours of the DBP scheme is seen as critical to address this worrying trend that is compromising purchaser’s confidence in the quality of apartments in NSW.”

And where does that leave apartment owners? There is no doubt that works are suffering delays and costs are being inflated. 

But perhaps that’s the price we have to pay for making sure everyone gets the best quality work, and not just the lucky few whose builder has all the nous and experience you could wish for, but only lacks a rubber stamp.

You can read the water-proofer’s point of view online on Flat Chat and there’s a thorough breakdown of the law on Fair Trading’s website.

This column first appeared in the Australian Financial Review.