Building Code isn't a Measure of Quality

I can't tell you the number of times that either me or someone who works for me or with me hears the same line. The "line" usually falls close to "it was built to code" or "it passed code". We're talking about buildings, homes, apartments, student housing, schools, court houses, fire stations......you name it. Professionals in my business know that the building code, architects of the code, and enforcement agents of the code don't exist to ensure quality construction. The building code, in all it's forms, exists to assure a minimum standard of life safety in all structures that are newly constructed and when possible, apply retroactively. But if you know what services ARISTON, LLC provides to our insurance clients and our owner's representation clients, you would know that we've never consulted on a litigation case where construction defect allegations against the original contractor had failed to pass a final inspection by the local building authority. We have never worked a large property loss where there was millions of dollars at risk based upon construction defects where the building had failed to pass a final inspection by the local building authority. Lastly, we've never worked a large property loss unrelated to original  defects that didn't lead to some discovery of latent construction defects or inherent vices during the inspection and discovery process. No, buildings aren't ever perfect, but I'm suggesting that for the most part, they aren't really even all that close.

I once led a team in the remediation and reconstruction of a 17 story mid-rise hotel here in Central Florida where water intrusion around over 400 windows was so severe that the wall paper on the exterior window wall wouldn't stay on the wall. The hotel tower was less than two years old. The tower cost 33 million to build new including FF&E and cost over 3.8 million to repair. Each window, the openings and the overall project was permitted and inspected under Florida Code and code enforcement in the county having jurisdiction. Every window was installed incorrectly and glaringly so. Each window was part of a "shop drawing"package and a licensed architect approved the shop drawings for the window package that was supposed to be installed. The windows were so badly installed that it would take only a short time to educate even a novice on why the windows had failed. Incidentally, the architect did not catch that the window openings were the wrong size and that the windows installed were not what was indicated on those same shop drawings.

The general public is usually the last to know....or maybe they do not want to know. But, perhaps the public needs to know that the building inspectors aren't providing quality assurance inspections on the buildings under construction around town. As a bystander to the process, one should know that just because the building department signed off on the permit (meaning that the department has given a CO or "certificate of occupancy") that certain key elements of a buildings' "envelope" passed inspection - that doesn't mean that windows, doors and roofs aren't going to leak due to either installation failures. Product defects are not usually visible, but some are visible and are either ignored or the contractor fails to utilize any process controls on the job site to catch obvious manufacturing defects. Regardless of how the obvious defective products are missed, they get used but that's an entirely different blog topic.

The building code in Florida was recently amended to include certain "get out jail free cards" such as "installed according to manufacturers guidelines" in the definition of "code" as an attempt for building code officials to take one more step away from liability for failures in the inspection process. But one still must remember that code is all about life safety..............not quality assurance. And on the topic of life safety......most if not all inspection offices take the topic of life safety very seriously.

I'll leave you with this thought.........there is better quality control in the car you drive (which incidentally is disposable) than the quality control in your own personal home which most likely has a 30 year mortgage.