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Another swing at contractors

Those who see both competency and incomptency on both sides are 100% right on. I am one of the competent builders and like it when I am working with inspectors who strive to see that everything is done correctly.

About 5 yeas ago I was building in a community where we got a new inspector (prior one fired for driving County owned vehicle DUI) and most contractors were up in arms because the new guy was actually enforcing the codes. On my first 2 inspections he called me out on items where he was wrong--my work was absolutely compliant. After that he always brought HIS code book when coming to my jobs and we began to get along fine.

As to the delima of how to stay current on code knowledge when you are busy trying to make a living, here is what I did and still do to this day: I keep my code books beside my bed along with a highlighter and stickey tabs. I read and often review (even the sections I think I know) and each time I come across something that is not a part of my general knowledge and that I think could easily be overlooked, I tab it. Each time I start a new project, I simply take my code books and check the tabbed pages to jog my memory of items I might miss or get wrong.

It is not a perfect system but I rarely miss doing it correctly and ask the BO in advance if there is ever a question in my mind as to whether or not something should be done a certain way.
 
jar546 said:
Here we are, over a year and a half into this forum with a section specifically for contractors and the amount of traffic, responses and participation by contractors is about where I expected it. Their participation is consistent with their code knowledge.

This is not all inclusive but a generalized statement based on my local observations. We have some great electricians on this board who are very active in code discussions but I am talking about the builders, remodelers and other contractors who consistently argue rather than actually read a code book.

Please..............defend yourself.:devil
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Jeff,

First off I have to say under what moon would you believe any contractor that reads this site yet signs up could be associated with the low knowledge of the basic contractor in NE-PA befuddles me.

We have no need to defend ourselves because I would venture a guess that the majority of the contractors on this site could give you a run for your money doing your job as you could for doing theirs.

As KZQ noted your the product of a state that took no pride in putting in a basic level of construction with oversight, or should I say below basic level.

I remember in 1979 up in Dimock we built an outdoor stage with pole barn cover (stage 50' wide 40' deep, cover 50'x100')for my parents camp. Designed and engineered, drawings and documents went personal delivery by architect to L&I, argued for a permit to be issued this was a performance stage with L&I who dug in and said no permit was needed, L&I noted pole barn structures needed no permit or inspection, just the electrical service, issued letter stating so, go figure.

I will not even mention the amount of homes built in that region that have garages in the basement and no sheet rock or firewalls.

IMO AHJ failure more than contractor.

As to requiring certifications for contractors, I happen to be highly on the fence on this matter.

There has to be a level of minor entry IMO for your deck builders, kitchen contractors, handyman services, small re-con for stores and others on this level will and currently push many to forgo even walking in to a building department. Couple this with the large amount of existing and growing :mad: non friendly building departments out there and one wonders why it exists.

Jeff,

You have a choice to make, you have a fresh canvas in that region you live in, you can either embrace the market an start educating the contractors with selling them books, documents and basic knowledge or keep complaining.

It is not like you didn't know the situation existed when you were still swinging the hammer, before you picked up the check list.

Tom
 
Pcinspector1 said:
I too have been on both sides as a builder and inspector, add truss designer and building material sales as well. Does anybody apply sheet goods to the manufactures instructions? Do trusses ever get installed safely and to the guidelines? I had in-house contractors working for me and when we made the switch to I-joist, there was a learning curve for all of us even the city inspector. I would locate toilet, shower and tub locations on the layout plans for my framers, then go out to do an in-house inspection before I called the city inspector and would see knotched I-joist, cut I-joist, scabed headers, webs cut out for plumbing the list was endless. But we made corrections, learned how to install the products properly and built quailty homes. We even taught the insulators how to insulate a home correctly.I had the code books as a contractor and the construction company I worked for paid for them, there were code books at the local library because some city's ordinace requires it. I'm sure the inspector would let us see his copy as well. Are the codes on line for everyone to see?

Teacher, yes.

Baby sitter no!

pc1
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This spring we made all of our adopted city codes available at the public library. Not sure if anyone has used them yet, but they are there, and we always make our code books available at the counter. I get 4-5 calls a week from contractors with specific code questions, wanting to know specific language, or our department's interpretation. I would rather have these calls before the work is done, rather than after the inspector has left the job site. It is definitely an educational process for all involved. The day's I don't feel like I have learned something are the bad days.
 
Tom (tbz),

I appreciate your post above and agree with just about everything that you wrote. The problem goes much deeper than the AHJ & PA L&I, not to mention the lack of adequate licensing laws for contractors in PA.

When we have provided educational seminars for contractors, they have a tendency not so show up, sign up or have any interest. They don't see the value in taking a day or even a half of a day off, let alone pay to learn. Even when Simpson Strong Tie put on a free seminar with free food for an 8 hour course, there are very few contractors present, if any at all in some cases. The seminars are adequately advertised. The attitude is to learn by failing inspections.

Some communities such as the City of Scranton, not only have minimum competency testing but also require CEUs in order to renew your license and pull permits to do work. Our IAEI meetings and seminars which are for inspectors is always packed with electricians who are licensed in Scranton because they have to be there. Inspectors are outnumbered at the seminars 8:1. On the other hand, you have Wilkes Barre City which has maintained a testing requirement for licensing but does not have any CEU requirement. This is why we have guys who cot their license in 1972 and have not looked at a code book since. In general, unless something is required by law, the contractors in my area just don't care. The local builders association puts a significant amount of time into breakfasts catering to state legislators and lobbying than they do in education. The attitude is to eliminate codes rather than learn them because "that is how we always did it". The attitude here stinks.

I would guess that the outdoor stage was built exactly to architectural specs and the architect paid attention to ADA requirements back then even though there was no enforcement by L&I. In many instances I would suspect that lack of enforcement lead to a "do whatever we want" attitude since no one was looking over the builder's shoulder.

If they can get away with it, they will. This is why very specific, black and white code requirements are ignored by contractors where they know they can get away with it in areas with poor enforcement. Don't blame it on the poor enforcement when you should know what is required anyway.
 
Lets see, we think nothing of growing the building code by 200+ pages of new "stuff" and then in the next code cycle decide some of it was "stuff" that didn't make sense and proceed to amend it out. Then we want to blame the contractors for not keeping up to date with new codes that we as code officials know is pretty much a big steaming pile of "stuff". I have become fairly tired of code folks who can recite chapter and verse out of a book that has evolved into a huge pile of steaming "stuff".
 
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Jeff,

I get it, I can't figure out why people like to do things twice that cost them money.

And then proceed to do it wrong again after they know it is wrong.

But, Lic's & CEU's won't correct the problem you are having in the manner you think it will, you will just have most of those contractors who are on the lower scale stop coming in and start bypassing the whole process and creating a whole slew of other problems that will trump the ones you are having currently.

Also, the whole this city and that town having different requirements and lic's is very bad, just a nightmare.

Just like you noted statewide would be great, but at a minimum get county wide registration, know who they are before you move forward.

The one thing that would more than stop just a few fly by pants contractors is to get contractor registration, not lic's first, in order to be able to pull a permit you need to be just registered.

Year 1.) Require registration with maybe proof of insurance (proof of insurance best in year 2)

year 2 0r 3.) Require proof of owner, principal or safety officer, someone has the OSHA 40 safety course training and passed

Year 4 or 5.) then look at changing registration to license

You can't over night put a full CEU requirement in to place.

You will have more problems than any plus's

Get them registered and require contractors be registered to get permits back and approved. Don't hand them back the application if they are not registered, hold on to it as this is your proof they are going to do the work.

Pull the paperwork out, have them fill it out there. Tell them to get this done with whom ever they need quickly as they can get that done before the permit is ready, it won't slow them down at all.

The registration should be as easy as once they are registered you can look it up online, 1, 2, 3.

The other side down the road is to require someone be safety trained, you would be surprised by the mind opening most get after the 40 hour OSHA class requirement.

They may hate it, but the time they spend to get it, gets them thinking, and this is just to be able to pull a permit and you didn't even ask them how to build anything.

Small steps

Tom
 
OSHA is not in the building code and does not belong in the building code. The only way I even consider to look at OSHA issues is if my employment is at risk. I can not imagine ANY contractor actually advocating turning building, electrical, plumbing and mechanical inspectors into OSHA whistleblowers.
 
Min&Max

I never mentioned being a whistle blower nor enforcing OSHA, I simply noted that just like requiring proof of insurance when submitting for a LIC or Registration one need show proof that the company has someone who is trained to make sure the workers are working in a safe environment.

This is an easy no need to make up a training program type requirement for checking off on an application.

A CEU credit type item.

However, I am pretty sure every contractor on this site has a min. of a 10 hour course rating or equivalent. I can't re-new my insurance without presenting this to my agent each year.

Tom
 
OSHA is not the concern of of a jurisdictions building department. To attempt to tie it to a contractors ability to be liscensed or registered by a jurisdiction as a contractor is going beyond the scope of a building departments charge. OSHA is not our "thing" in any way, shape or form. It is of no concern of mine if a contractor has 1, 10 or 100 hours of OSHA training.
 
Also a both-sides-of-the-fence guy. I've said this before, and I'll say it again...

If ALL Design Professionals did their job correctly AND ALL Contractors did their jobs correctly, you wouldn't need Codes OR Code Officials.

Code Officials exist because of the bad DPs and contractors.

Codes exist because of them as well.

Unfortunately (in some ways) for the good ones, Code Officials need to treat everyone the same. There will always be the slouches and the fly-by-nighters. They're job security for COs.

Public education is a mandate for COs, whether they want to do it or not. The CO is supposed to be the one who knows the Code the best in his jurisdiction. What good is that knowledge if you don't share it? Among the things COs are taught in NYS to become Certified, the need to educate the public is heavily emphasized. Remember those bad DPs and contractors? Guess what? They're part of the 'Public'!
 
I have to agree with JBI. Education is a big part of my job. My grandfather once told me, "You don't learn anything by doing it right." Sharing my knowledge makes my job easier and creates a better relationship with the public in general.

I would rather have a contractor or even a homeowner call me with a question than to view me as the bad guy. For a long time CEO'S were viewed in that way, no one wanted to see them on the job. A CEO, long gone said to me ," If anyone is smiling when I leave the site, I'm not doing my job." Unfortunately some people still think of us like that.

The majority of the contractors I work with don't make the same mistake twice even if the don't spend a lot of time searching the web for code info. They build it as it is drawn and cross their fingers.
 
Jar you obviously have a very high standard of work ethics and doing things correctly whether someone is looking over your shoulder or not. You want to better your self in your proffessional life and I will bet personal too. Unfortunately you are in a minoriy in todays world. Look around at people in general. They are not self motivated. Do just enough to get by, and have no pride in themselves let alone their work.

Remember when you where a home inspector and you would post examples of what you found on the old board and you could not understand how an inspector could pass such shoddy work. Now you are the inspector and realize it is an everyday upstream battle much like salmon run where you live and work and it can get frustrating but as JBI and jwilly3879 have pointed out the job it is more about educating contractors and home owners then inspecting something and finding everything done correctly and move on to the next one. Start verbalizing praise for the code compliant work and excellent workmanship that you find. It will build relationships with the workers, might improve how they see you and it will change your outlook to where the shoddy stuff you find will be the minimal part of the job and not seem like that is all that is out there.

I found myself with the same outlook you have now when I moved from Fl a highly regulated state for contractors to Mt with no contractor liscensing (except plumb & electricians) then I was given the advice to change MY outlook or it would just pull me down. I did so by doing looking for positive things and taking a "next time" correction policy. In other words if the violations are not life safety or it was a code change the contractor was unaware of I use that as the oppertunity to educate as to why it is wrong and tell them the "Next Time" it will be correct. It has been 7 years now and our regular contractors have very few corrections on a project now and it is not an adversarial relationship anymore. Yes we still get the homeowner or "contractor" who are a nightmare but they seem to be far and few now.
 
I totally agree with JBI, Willy,and Cabin it's about education also, we learn everyday too its not what we do it's about how we do it. the majority of contractors try to do it right, there nothing wrong with telling them it is wrong and and then explaning why, once they understand the light goes on and they won't forget.Ever had your hand shook after issuing a reg tag lets you know you did it right.
 
Oh look, this was resurrected by a SPAM post that I am about to delete so you folks won't see it. Sometimes spam is a good thing when it refreshed 9.5 year old threads that are still relevant today.
 
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