Commencement notice

Summer wind

Hi everyone I would like to know how long did it take your engineer to prepare your commencement notice for a new house build under the new building regulations. I am waiting for my engineer to finish mine for the last five weeks and don't know if it should take this long.

sydthebeat

I'm working with an engineer submitting one for a basic extension and yes, we're five weeks into it too. Loads of back and forth. One thing to note, the bcms emails the builder after initial engagement to carry out procedures... this can take time.

It really is a ridiculous jobsworth exercise! !

RITwing

Summer wind wrote: »

Hi everyone I would like to know how long did it take your engineer to prepare your commencement notice for a new house build under the new building regulations. I am waiting for my engineer to finish mine for the last five weeks and don't know if it should take this long.

5 weeks is not a lot of time to put the information together

Gumbo

Summer wind wrote: »

Hi everyone I would like to know how long did it take your engineer to prepare your commencement notice for a new house build under the new building regulations. I am waiting for my engineer to finish mine for the last five weeks and don't know if it should take this long.

It depends, is your engineer preparing the commencement notice or preparing the documents and drawings needed to go along with the commencement notice.

I've had people log in on the Monday and be valid by the Friday. It all depends on how quickly the assigned certifies, builders, owners accept the email sent to them by the BCMS and allow themselves to be nominated.

Summer wind

Thanks everyone for your replies you have all been a great help. Yes my engineer is preparing the docs and the drawings as well as the comm notice so it will probably take a little longer than I thought.

gooner99

Do you guys mind sharing the costs you will incur?

Summer wind

No problem we are paying our engineer €10000 to oversee the whole build and do all paperwork.

gooner99

Summer wind wrote: »

No problem we are paying our engineer €10000 to oversee the whole build and do all paperwork.

Does that include planning drawings and application?

Does it include construction and detail drawings?

I guess some elements are based on the size of the project. What area is the house?

Summer wind

Yes that price includes everything you listed. We applied for planning in May last year and ended up having to go through an bord pleanala and didn't get our planning until February this year. Then we had to wait for the bank to sort our mortgage and get the site in our name. That meant that we had to build under the new regulations so our engineer has a lot of extra work and drawings to do so I guess he is earning his money.

The house is a two storey with lots of extras such as concrete floors upstairs and underfloor heating with an air to water heat pump and concrete stairs so it should be worth the wait! It's 227 sq meters or 2446 sq feet.

Gumbo

Summer wind wrote: »

Yes that price includes everything you listed. We applied for planning in May last year and ended up having to go through an bord pleanala and didn't get our planning until February this year. Then we had to wait for the bank to sort our mortgage and get the site in our name. That meant that we had to build under the new regulations so our engineer has a lot of extra work and drawings to do so I guess he is earning his money.

The house is a two storey with lots of extras such as concrete floors upstairs and underfloor heating with an air to water heat pump and concrete stairs so it should be worth the wait! It's 227 sq meters or 2446 sq feet.

That's a great price in my opinion for a start to finish job including certification and supervision!

There be many people that would bite your hand off for that kind of value for money.

gooner99

Summer wind wrote: »

Yes that price includes everything you listed. We applied for planning in May last year and ended up having to go through an bord pleanala and didn't get our planning until February this year. Then we had to wait for the bank to sort our mortgage and get the site in our name. That meant that we had to build under the new regulations so our engineer has a lot of extra work and drawings to do so I guess he is earning his money.

The house is a two storey with lots of extras such as concrete floors upstairs and underfloor heating with an air to water heat pump and concrete stairs so it should be worth the wait! It's 227 sq meters or 2446 sq feet.

Yes good price. I'd imagine you would have settled up for the design and planning application already.If so can you give the breakdown between design/planning application and the post planning construction/commencement/compliance?

Summer wind

kceire wrote: »

That's a great price in my opinion for a start to finish job including certification and supervision!

There be many people that would bite your hand off for that kind of value for money.

Yes I'm actually just realising that now!

Summer wind

gooner99 wrote: »

Yes good price. I'd imagine you would have settled up for the design and planning application already.If so can you give the breakdown between design/planning application and the post planning construction/commencement/compliance?

We haven't paid our engineer anything yet. We included his fees in our mortgage and he is going to be paid in a lump sum when we do the second drawdown.

Drift

Wow - you've a very understanding engineer!!

What if you had gotten planning and then been refused a mortgage?! Or vice-versa!!!

By the way I'm sure you would have paid, you sound straight up. Many aren't though and I don't know a professional out there who hasn't been stung by a "non-payer" at some stage - which makes your Engineer's business model sound dangerous. Of course maybe he knows you're a trustworthy person.

Either way he sounds like he is great value. Bord pleanala submissions and all included in the cost.

Summer wind

Our engineer lives about ten miles away from us and he knows some of my cousins so even though I'd never met him I guess that stood in our favour. We had applied for a mortgage about four months before and been granted but that sale fell through so our bank manager said she was very confident we would be granted again and to our relief we were.

We were very lucky in a way that the first house fell through because now we have the opportunity to build exactly what we want and very lucky to get our engineer to do all the hard work.

RORY O CONNOR

€10,000 seems excessive-I guess that includes VAT.

There is not much involved-the commencement notice process is a bit tricky, the site supervision is straightforward enough and from talking with Dublin corporation the completion process is also straightforward enough-especially as in these early stages of the BCA the councils don't seem to know how the system works.

If you are getting drawings and design that should cost a bit more but Id ask your engineer to include the Land Registry map too as a sweetener at that price.

miss no stars

It's the huge risk associated with being AC you're paying for. It's a burdensome and unfair risk that's been placed on engineers by that eejit Phil Hogan, but small firms simply can't afford NOT to be AC or they'd never work. So you're paying for Phil Hogan's lack of effort in drafting even remotely reasonable legislation.

RORY O CONNOR

If the AC is any way competent and has adequate PI insurance and pays attention to the build the risks are not as high as you might thing. Furthermore it is the builders responsibility to provide a good service and build to current regs-if he doesn't then he is also culpable. I think many engineers and especially architects see this as an opportunity to jack up their fees.

miss no stars

RORY O CONNOR wrote: »

If the AC is any way competent and has adequate PI insurance and pays attention to the build the risks are not as high as you might thing. Furthermore it is the builders responsibility to provide a good service and build to current regs-if he doesn't then he is also culpable. I think many engineers and especially architects see this as an opportunity to jack up their fees.

The risks are huge, the AC is taking on responsibility for supervision of the project, and are signing off on everything, including electrics, plumbing, flipping solar panels. A plumber could feck up on the installation of the boiler, have it blow up and under the current regs it's the AC who's responsible. I'm sure it will be tested in court in due course, but until then the risk is substantial.

Gumbo

RORY O CONNOR wrote: »

€10,000 seems excessive-I guess that includes VAT.

There is not much involved-the commencement notice process is a bit tricky, the site supervision is straightforward enough and from talking with Dublin corporation the completion process is also straightforward enough-especially as in these early stages of the BCA the councils don't seem to know how the system works.

If you are getting drawings and design that should cost a bit more but Id ask your engineer to include the Land Registry map too as a sweetener at that price.

I'm sorry but this is just waffle. A start to finish service including design, supervision and certification for 10k is really really good. In my line of business I hear from home owners who have paid 4k for planning only on typical domestic extensions!

RORY O CONNOR

kceire wrote: »

I'm sorry but this is just waffle. A start to finish service including design, supervision and certification for 10k is really really good. In my line of business I hear from home owners who have paid 4k for planning only on typical domestic extensions!

Its waffle is it!

I am currently an AC for a client and my experience so far is that is is fairly straight forward so far with competition is 8 weeks.

The initial commencement was a bit tricky as the council concerned did not seem to know what they wanted in documentation and it took me 3 hours to upload the various documents onto the BCMS site.

In a recent discussion with the same council it seems all they want from me for the final certification is my supervision plan filled in explaining how I made sure that each stage of the build complies with the building regulations and for me to fill in the certificate of completion which I have to download from the BCMS. The person I was dealing with assured me that she would give me any assistance I needed to get this thing done. Perhaps there is a few hurdles yet as I have not got around to downloading the completion form so I may yet be in a for a surprise.

galwaytt

sydthebeat wrote: »

I'm working with an engineer submitting one for a basic extension and yes, we're five weeks into it too. Loads of back and forth. One thing to note, the bcms emails the builder after initial engagement to carry out procedures... this can take time.

It really is a ridiculous jobsworth exercise! !

Exactly. All the info is to hand before client gives out the job, so I can't see what the delay is. Waiting 5 weeks in Galway atmo.....

Summer wind

We lodged our comm notice on 17th and council came back and said it was fine and stamped it on 24th. The next step now is to sign a contract with the builder. At long last thankfully it all seems to be working out.:)

Tom Hagen

Summer wind wrote: »

Yes that price includes everything you listed. We applied for planning in May last year and ended up having to go through an bord pleanala and didn't get our planning until February this year. Then we had to wait for the bank to sort our mortgage and get the site in our name. That meant that we had to build under the new regulations so our engineer has a lot of extra work and drawings to do so I guess he is earning his money.

The house is a two storey with lots of extras such as concrete floors upstairs and underfloor heating with an air to water heat pump and concrete stairs so it should be worth the wait! It's 227 sq meters or 2446 sq feet.

hi summer wind,

How did your concrete stairs turn out? did you clad it with timber afterwards?

Summer wind

Hi Tom we didn't go with the concrete stairs in the end. We put in the concrete floors upstairs alright and they worked out great. For the stairs we went with a solid mahogany finish which looks lovely and not too creaky:)